Learning about slavery on the web
Africans In America Brought to you by PBS and WGBH this provides a wealth of materials found in the 4 part series that aired on PBS stations.
John Brown’s Holy War Brought to you by the good folks at The American Experience, this site has information on the film as well as a teachers guide to help you with lesson plans.
Valley of the Shadow From Historian Edward Ayers, The University of Virginia Library and the Virginia Center for Digital History, I reviewed this site for my Digital History class and the amount of information is mind blowing. You will be able to create worthwhile lessons from this site.
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition Located at Yale University, I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful this site is. Tons of information and teacher resources.
Images of African Americans from the 19th Century This comes from the New York Public Library, Digital Library Collections and if you’re looking for images to accompany your discussion on slavery, they’ve got some amazing ones.
The Amistad Case This one from the National Archives is a great source for the Amistad case and will take your students beyond the movie.
The Frederick Douglass Papers Taking you beyond his narrative, if you want to dig deeper into the works of this very famous figure in African American history, this is a good place to start.
Documenting the American South From the good folks at UNC Chapel Hill, this site has a host of North American Slave Narratives and I have used this site countless times when researching the experiences of enslaved men and women.
Slavery and the Making of America Another great source from PBS, the companion book by James Oliver and Lois E. Horton is a staple on my bookshelf and is another great way to explore how slavery shaped this country.
Tran-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Any and just about everything you need to know about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. I think I’ve printed out everything on this site and use it for research and resources when I need to discuss the trade. Ah-mazing!
Slave Narratives (my picks with direct links to narratives courtesy of Documenting the American South)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
12 Years a Slave: The Narrative of Solomon Northup
Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery
Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by herself
Books on Slavery
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America by Ira Berlin
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South by John W. Blassingame
Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie Camp
A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among the Gullahs by Margaret Washington Creel
Slavery and Human Progress by David Brion Davis
Roll, Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene D. Genovese
