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

Map of Pernambuco, Brazil, with ships off the coast and an inset depiction of Black men wearing white pants in a field.

The Palmares Quilombo

with Ana Lucia Araujo

Learn more about one of the most significant maroon communities in the Americas.

Video

A stereoscope card of a field of sisal fibers with a house in the background leading to a Mexican pyramid.

Diverse Roles of Africans in Early American Colonization

by Matthew Restall

Explore the ways free and enslaved Africans influenced Latin America in the sixteenth century.

Essay

A portrait of a Black man with long black hair wearing a white turban, white robe, and necklace.

Ayuba bin Suleiman Diallo to His Father

ca. 1733

Read a translation of the letter that helped to secure Diallo’s freedom from enslavement.

Primary Source

Five portraits of men (abolitionists in Brazil), below a portrait of Princess Isabel (wearing a blue dress with a white frill) and four shirtless Black men dancing next to a pole as a Black woman wearing a pink dress looks on.

Slavery and Freedom in Brazil

by Keila Grinberg

Explore the pervasive impact of slavery in Brazil, and the long fight to abolish the system of enslavement.

Essay

Handwritten document in French headlined "Edit du Roi" [Edict from the King].

Louisiana Code Noir

1685

Read this excerpt from France’s original colonial slave code.

Primary Source

A page from a book with the title "The Statues at Large" in large, gothic font.

Legislating Reproduction and Racial Difference

from Women and the American Story, The New York Historical

Take a deep dive into the legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem.

Essay

Photograph of a man with graying, curly hair, smiling at the camera in front of a wooden wall. He wears a dark suit jacket, a blue collared shirt, and a red and blue paisley tie.

Slavery and the Early American Economy

with Edward L. Ayers

Consider how contemporary events affected American slavery at different points in history.

Video

A silhouette head-and-shoulders portrait of Paul Cuffe, above a sailboat and within an octagon with the text "Captain Paul Cuffee, 1812."

The Nineteenth-Century Emigrationist and Anti-Emigrationist Movements

with Nemata Blyden

Explore the key figures, sites, and concepts of both the emigrationist and anti-emigrationist movements.

Video

An engraving showing a hall with benches, a speaker at a rostrum in front and several Black men and women in formal wear looking for seats.

Emigration, Anti-Emigration, and Transatlantic Abolitionism

with Nemata Blyden

Learn more about the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott decision, and the Civil War on emigration.

Video

Broadside with text of varying sizes. On the top it reads in all capital letters, "MEN OF COLOR; TO ARMS! TO ARMS!; NOW OR NEVER."

Generations in Captivity: Slavery in America

with Ira Berlin

Understand how the interplay of regional and generational factors shaped the development of slavery in the antebellum United States.

Video

The front cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, featuring a small photorealistic illustration of Eliza and Lizzie Scott in dresses holding hands above two larger illustrations of Dred and Harriet Scott, pictured separately

Dred and Harriet Scott: A Family Story of Slavery and Freedom

with Matthew Pinsker

Learn about the family that brought the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case to the Supreme Court.

Video

Scan of the US Constitution, printed in September 1787.

Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle Toward National Ideals

by James Oliver Horton

Read how both pro-slavery and anti-slavery movements used the Constitution to promote their beliefs.

Essay