Library Guides: Primary Sources: United States &amp; Canadian History: Slavery & Civil War

Primary Source Collections: Slavery

American Slave: A Composite Autobiography This link opens in a new window
From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers' Project employed writers and journalists to interview ex-slaves in the United States. Nearly 4,000 interviews were ultimately collected and are presented in this database.
Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
Part of Proquest's Black Studies Center, this collection details the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War. Covering the period 1830-1865, the collection presents the international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings of the activists themselves. The approximately 15,000 articles, documents, correspondence, proceedings, manuscripts, and literary works of almost 300 Black abolitionists show the full range of their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany.

Documenting Runaway Slaves
A collaborative effort to document newspaper advertisements placed by masters seeking the capture and return of runaway slaves.
Geography of Slavery
This project of the Virginia Center for Digital History (VCDH) is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
North Carolina Runaway Slave Advertisements, 1751-1840
This digitization project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro provides online access to all known runaway slave advertisements (more than 2300 items) published in North Carolina newspapers from 1751 to 1840.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Coverage includes the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, Spiritualism and Religion, Resistance and Revolts, Underground Railroad, the Abolition Movement, Legislation, Education, the Legacy of Slavery and Slavery Today.
Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War This link opens in a new window
Because the plantation was a commercial enterprise, record keeping was essential, and many documents have been preserved in archives. This online collection includes planters' journals, crop books, overseers' journals, and account books; family members' personal diaries and correspondences; and more.
The resource comprises the following modules: Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Law and Order in 19th Century America (1636-1880); Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries (1700-1896); Slavery and the Law (1775-1867); and Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1-4.

Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora
Over 1,200 images selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery.

Free People of Color in Louisiana

A new digitized collection!

Free People of Color in Louisiana
Personal and family papers of free people of color and public records that relate to the group gathered together from several Louisiana archives, including Tulane's Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC).
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Other contributors to this digital collection include LSU Libraries Special Collections, the Historical Center at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library, The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Slave Geneaology Databases

Atlantic Slave Database Network
Biographies: The Atlantic Slave Data Network (ASDN) is a database of information on the identities of enslaved people in the Atlantic World. ASDN collates data on individual slaves meticulously collected by researchers over the past 20 years, including Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Louisiana Slave Database 1719-1820.
African Origins: Portal to Africans Liberated from Transatlantic Slave Vessels (Emory)
Contains information about the migration histories of Africans forcibly carried on slave ships into the Atlantic. Using the personal details of 91,491 Africans liberated by International Courts of Mixed Commission and British Vice Admiralty Courts, this resource makes possible new geographic, ethnic, and linguistic data on peoples captured in Africa and pulled into the slave trade.
Unknown No Longer - Virginia Historical Society
Accounts that collectively help tell the stories of African Americans who have lived in Virginia over the centuries.

Primary Sources on Microfilm @ Howie-T

The following are great collections of primary source material on microfilm at Howard-Tilton. Topics include the slave trade, Louisiana plantations, and abolitionists.

Slavery and Abolition of the Slave Trade
1700-1890
Includes slave sale deeds, passes, certificates of registry, manumission papers, wills and speeches. Also letters relating to the Amistad Mutiny and other slave cases which got in the courts. The abolition letters relate primarily to William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and William Lloyd Garrison.
Lascelles and Maxwell Letter Books
1739-1769
Lascelles and Maxwell, and its subsequent incarnations, functioned as a London commission house, receiving and selling cargoes of sugar and other West India produce despatched to it from the Caribbean by the owners or managers of plantations.
Online guide available at www.microform.co.uk/guides/R97601.pdf.
Heartman Manuscript Collection
1751-1876
Nearly 4000 items on 7 reels of microfilm detailing slavery in Louisiana.
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Original collection at Xavier University of New Orleans.
Journal of an intended voyage in the ship Black Prince from Bristol to the Gold Coast
1762-1764
Log and journal of the Bristol ship "Black Prince," which was engaged in slaving voyages. This manuscript covers her seventh and eighth voyages to the Gold Coast of Africa. The material is partly in tabular form, listing occurrences, transactions, courses, and positions.
Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Anti-Slavery Collection
1795-1880
Correspondence, minutes, and other papers of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society, the Anti-slavery Society, the Aborigines Protection Society, and other similar societies and committees.
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter
1840-1845
Biweekly publication of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
Slavery Tracts & Pamphlets from the West India Committee
28 microfilm reels + 1 guide.
Collection now at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.

Civil War

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Includes full-text diaries, letters and memoirs from the time of the American Civil War.
Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
This database contains the full text of major articles gleaned from over 2,500 issues of The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.
Civil War Era: Newspapers and Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
Includes the earliest editions of the Daily Picayune (later Times-Picayune) from 1840 to 1865 and many other important American newspapers and pamhlets from the antebellum and Civil War period.
Illustrated Civil War: Newspapers and Magazines This link opens in a new window
formerly known as American Civil War: Newspapers and Magazines. Contains newspapers and magazines from the Civil War era.
Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera This link opens in a new window
Includes photographs detailing social, military, and political perspectives. Also includes graphical content such as envelopes, song sheets, recruiting posters, imprints, and cartoons. Formerly known as American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera.
Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War This link opens in a new window
ProQuest History Vault's Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War resource consists of modules with a focus on Slavery and the Law; Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries; records focused on the Slave trade and other legal issues pertaining to slavery.
The resource comprises the following modules: Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Law and Order in 19th Century America (1636-1880); Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries (1700-1896); Slavery and the Law (1775-1867); and Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1-4.

Primary Sources: United States & Canadian History

Slavery Statistics and Data

Primary Source Collections: Slavery

Free People of Color in Louisiana

Slave Geneaology Databases

Primary Sources on Microfilm @ Howie-T

Civil War