184 items
Soon after American colonists had won independence from Great Britain, Ona Judge was fighting for her own freedom from one of America’s most famous founding fathers, George Washington. George and Martha Washington valued Ona as one...
"Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story"
Frederick Douglass knew where he was born but not when. He knew his grandmother but not his father. And as a young child, there were other questions, such as Why am I a slave? Answers to those questions might have eluded him but...
The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, chair of Afro-American Studies, director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, and author of seminal works on African American literary criticism and...
Study Aid: Major Slave Rebellions
New York City, 1712 Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among White colonists following Leisler’s Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religions. Stono Rebellion, 1739 The...
Inside the Vault: Abraham Lincoln
Originally broadcast on November 12, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the life of Abraham Lincoln, both before and after he...
Ilyon Woo - "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom"
Ilyon Woo is a writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal . Her research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Antiquarian Society. Order Master Slave...
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross - "A Black Women's History of the United States"
Daina Ramey Berry is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kali Nicole Gross is the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of African American Studies at Emory...
Woman Abolitionists
Background Women always played a significant role in the struggle against slavery and discrimination. White and black Quaker women and female slaves took a strong moral stand against slavery. As abolitionists, they circulated...
"The Bell Rang"
A young enslaved girl witnesses the heartbreak and hopefulness of her family and their plantation community when her brother escapes for freedom in this brilliantly conceived picture book by Coretta Scott King Award–winner James E....
Jean Pfaelzer- "California, a Slave State"
Jean Pfaelzer is a public historian, commentator, and professor of American studies at the University of Delaware. Order California, a Slave State at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
Slavery and the Making of America
James Oliver Horton, the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University, and Lois E. Horton, Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, have collaborated on several books,...
"Before She Was Harriet"
This lush, lyrical biography in verse begins with a glimpse of Harriet Tubman as an old woman, and travels back in time through the many roles she played through her life: spy, liberator, suffragist, and more. Illustrated by James...
Lincoln on abolition in England and the United States, 1858
Though Lincoln spoke frequently during the 1858 Illinois Senate race against Stephen Douglas—a campaign that propelled Lincoln to the political forefront and helped shape him into a presidential candidate—very few Lincoln manuscripts...
Guided Readings: Using Primary and Secondary Sources: Slavery in the Founding Era
Primary and secondary sources can provide different kinds of information about the past. In the context of slavery, Phillis Wheatley is considered the most important figure of the eighteenth century. Two accounts of her experience...
Guided Readings: Indian Removal
Reading 1 Toward the aborigines of this country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. Humanity...
The Trail of Tears
Historical Background In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act directing the executive branch to negotiate for Indian lands. The act set the tone for President Jackson in dealing with Indian...
John Quincy Adams and the Amistad case, 1841
On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad . They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards...
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