1619-2019: 400 Years of Resilience

"The Slave Voyages site now provides resources detailing more than 36,000 slave trading voyages between Africa and the New World, another 11,400 intra-American voyages from one part of the Americas to another, and data on some 92,000 Africans forced to make those journeys." Interactive features including videos, maps, 3-D animation, as well as research essays and lesson plans.

"...a fascinating rebel named Harry, whose dogged determination to be free suggests that not all of Washington’s slaves found him to be the benevolent master whom historians have depicted."

A Podcast About Early American History, Episode 137, lead by Erica Dunbar, University of Delaware.
"George Washington was also a slaveholder. In 1789, he and his wife Martha took 7 slaves to New York City to serve them in their new role as First Family. A 16 year-old girl named Ona Judge was one of the enslaved women who accompanied and served the Washingtons."

From the Jefferson Monticello World Heritage Site. "Sally Hemings (1773-1835) is one of the most famous—and least known—African American women in U.S. history. For more than 200 years, her name has been linked to Thomas Jefferson as his “concubine,” obscuring the facts of her life and her identity."

"The Royall House and Slave Quarters was home to the largest slaveholding family in Massachusetts and the enslaved Africans who made their lavish way of life possible. Today, the Royall House and Slave Quarters is a museum whose architecture, household items, archaeological artifacts, and programs bear witness to intertwined stories of wealth and bondage, set against the backdrop of America’s quest for independence."

"African Burial Ground is the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans." 2 locations, both in New York City.

"Examines the activities of newly-freed African Americans in the North as they struggled to forge organizations and institutions to promote their burgeoning communities and to attain equal rights in the face of slavery and racism... The exhibition ranges in time from the years after the Revolution up to 1830, when the first national convention of African Americans brought together blacks from all over the North to consider a national program to advance their rights and sharpen their campaign against slavery." Primary focus is on Philadelphia, PA.

Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period online exhibition from the Library of Congress

"The Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery collection—one of the largest and most important collections of abolitionist material in the United States—contains roughly 40,000 pieces of correspondence, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets, books, and memorabilia from the 1830s through the 1870s." Contribute by helping to transcribe documents so that the text will become machine searchable.

All Library of Congress publicly available digital collections under the subject of African-American History.

Brief biography of Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-84). Today, Phillis Wheatley’s book of poems is considered the starting place of African American literature.

Gender Expression in 18th-Century Boston. By Caitlin Hopkins, 2018.

"Frederick Douglass was a formerly enslaved abolitionist, civil rights activist, feminist and advocate of social justice. He travelled to Britain in 1845 for 19 months, lecturing against slavery in the United States... His lectures in Britain and Ireland were fascinating works of oratory and they provide extraordinary insight into Douglass' life, as well as Victorian society in the 1840s and beyond."

From The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History. This "#ColonialCouture post is by Jennifer Van Horn, assistant professor of art history and history at the University of Delaware. She specializes in the fields of early American art and material culture, and she is the author of The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America."

"An African-American clothing store owner named David Walker wrote a 24-page pamphlet on Sept. 28, 1829 that may have done as much to spark the Civil War as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. ‘Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together.’ "

By Zipporah Osei, 2018.
"For most, the picture of slavery in the United States is that of sprawling Southern plantations, but American slavery has many roots in the North.
Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and by 1754, there were nearly 4,500 slaves here, according to a census from the time. This history is often overshadowed by the state’s later role in the abolition movement, but some believe it’s time for a fuller examination of the past and a conversation about what it means for the future."

"Although millions of African American women were held in bondage over the 250 years that slavery was legal in the United States, Harriet Jacobs (1813-97) is the only one known to have left papers testifying to her life. Harriet Jacobs is now known as the author of Incident in the Life of A Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861), the most important slave narrative written by an African-American woman."

"Freedom on the Move is a database of fugitives from North American slavery." Includes newspaper 'runaway ads' and jailer ads of apprehended fugitives. Requires a free account to search the database.

A New York Public Library online exhibit. "African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers... A full text database of these 19th and early 20th- century titles, this digital library is key-word-searchable."

Smithsonian article from 2019 describing the narrative of Omar Ibn Said, a wealthy intellectual from West Africa. A link to the Omar Ibn Said collection is present in the article.

"This program seeks to preserve and promote the vast universe of experiences that have shaped the lives of Maryland's African American population." Includes case studies of slave owners, fugitives, and those who assisted slaves on the run, interactive maps, and a searchable database of newspaper ads, committal notices, census records, domestic traffic, and more.

Guide on all the resources held by the Maryland State Archives in regards to the African American Community in Maryland. Resources include government records, African American newspapers, bank records, church records, slave schedules, and more.

By Jonathan M. Pitts, 2017. Details the permanent walk-through exhibit of Slotterly Plantation.

A Podcast About Early American History, Episode 089: Jessica Millward, University of California-Irvice on slavery & freedom in early Maryland.

"This collection showcases museums across the world that house permanent exhibitions relating to slavery and abolition." Regionally of note are the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, MD; Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Church Creek, MD; Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, MD; and the National Museum of African American history and Culture in Washington, DC.

"Frances Ellen Watkins, more prominently known by her married name, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, was born free on September 24, 1825, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was one of the most well known African American writers of the nineteenth century." Provides a brief biography and publication history, as well as the work 'Forest Leaves'.