AP African American Studies Resource Archive | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

A wood sculpture, painted black, in the form of a standing female figure with arms at sides apart from torso, hands on hips, and feet and legs apart; on her head there is a double-ax motif.

Yorùbá Oshe Shango Ceremonial Wand

19th or 20th Century

View this contemporary piece honoring a traditional Yoruba god.

An engraving showing two dozen armed Black men in the foreground hidden along a forested path and hillside watching a group of White men in military dress coming down the path in the distance

“The Maroons in Ambush . . . in Jamaica”

1801

View this depiction of a maroon revolt in Jamaica.

Work of Art

Masthead of The Liberator, featuring a depiction of an enslaved family next to an auctioneer, whose lectern reads "Slaves Horses & Other Cattle to be sold at 12 OO."

The Question of Naming in The Liberator

1831

Explore responses to questions of Black identity and nomenclature in the famed abolitionist newspaper.

Primary Source

Front page of The Colored American newspaper

“Why We Should Have a Paper”

1837

Read the founding manifesto of The Colored American newspaper.

Primary Source

A black-and-white engraving of Solomon Northup, a Black man wearing a white hat, shirt, and pants, sitting on a box, a broomstick leaning against his left arm. Below the image, the name Solomon Northup in handwriting and the words "In his plantation suit"

Solomon Northup Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market

1853

Read an excerpt from Northup’s autobiographical account, Twelve Years a Slave.

Primary Source

A handwritten diary entry in cursive

The Capture of Black Seminoles

1836

Read Gen. Thomas Jesup’s diary entries from the Second Seminole War.

Primary Source

An engraving of a stately building with a rotunda topped with a Haitian flag

“Lecture on Haiti”

1893

Read an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s lecture on the importance of Haiti in the abolition of slavery.

Primary Source

An engraving of President Thomas Jefferson, a White man with white hair, wearing a white shirt and dark jacket.

Virginia Asks to Send Rebels to Sierra Leone

1802

Read an outline by Thomas Jefferson for a plan to send rebellious enslaved people to Sierra Leone in Africa.

Primary Source

A handwritten transcript of a letter

Letter from the Governor of East Florida

1739

Read a letter that points to the conflicts and alliances between the Spanish, English, Africans, and Native Americans in border regions of the Southeast.

Primary Source

A shirtless and shoeless Black man wearing white pants and a sword along his right leg while brandishing a rifle with both hands and identified as "Leonard Parkinson, a Captain of the Maroons."

“Leonard Parkinson, a Captain of the Maroons”

1769

View a depiction of a maroon community leader.

Primary Source

A stipple portrait of a mustachioed man identified as "Negro Abraham" wearing a fringed coat and turban, holding a staff in his right hand

“Negro Abraham”

1863

View a depiction of a Black Seminole leader.

Primary Source

An engraving of a Black man identified as "Gopher John." wearing a feathered headdress and tunic. standing on a riverbank as two people paddle a canoe in the background

“Gopher John, Seminole Interpreter”

1863

View a depiction of this Seminole leader and interpreter.

Primary Source