Slavery Resources: Home
This guide details resources related to the study of slavery and race, primarily before the Civil War.
Books (Primary AND Secondary Sources)
WorldCat
Use WorldCat to search for books and other materials outside of the UM library.
Use Interlibrary Loan to request books, articles, and other materials from other libraries.
Secondary Sources: Journal Articles
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Includes journal content, primary sources, images, and more across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Beginning August 1, 2024 Artstor's content is now accessed on JSTOR.
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America: History & Life This link opens in a new windowCovers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Primary Source Collections
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American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922 This link opens in a new windowThis digital edition of the American Antiquarian Society's holdings of slavery and abolition materials contains works published over the course of more than 100 years. Includes books, pamphlets, graphic materials, and ephemera.
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Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new windowFeatures petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867 as well as the State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865.
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Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-19382,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
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African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Features newspapers published by or for African Americans in 35 states from 1827 to 1998. Funded by the Dr. Gerald W. Walton Endowment.
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Reconstruction of Southern States: Pamphlets This link opens in a new windowContains pamphlets on all major aspects of Reconstruction from 1865 - 1877. This assortment of pamphlets was collected by the Department of State Library and includes speeches, debates, political statements, legislative bills, and more.
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American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: All Series This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive collection of more than 6,500 American magazines and journals documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Contains lots of published content about slavery and race.
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Slavery ImagesA digital record of the African slave trade and slave life in the early African diaspora.
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Frederick Douglass PapersDigital collections of the Library of Congress relating to Frederick Douglass.
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Documenting the American SouthDigital publishing initiative from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to Southern history, literature, and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. Includes thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
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Early American Newspapers, Series 6 This link opens in a new window
Searches more than 160 significant 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century American newspapers.
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowContains English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. A comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set.
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African American PerspectivesDigitized materials from the Library of Congress' Rare Books and Special Collections by African American authors written 1822-1909.
Slave Trade
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In Motion: The African American Migration ExperienceIn Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds.
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Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of TimbuktuDocuments regarding slaving through Timbuktu.
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Voyages : the Trans-Atlantic Slave TradeIncludes four databases which contain records of nearly 35,000 separate slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866. Voyages database: search for information on specific voyages or sets of voyages; Estimates database: use the interactive estimates page to analyze the full volume and multiple routes of the slave trade; Images database: a collection of scanned documents, maps, and illustrations; African Names database: identifies over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation.
Government Documents
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Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Online research tool designed to provide quick and easy access to modern and historical census data and demographic information. Users can access this resource as a guest or create a Social Explorer account.
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Congressional Publications This link opens in a new window
Indexes Congressional publications including Congressional research and hearings from 1789 to the present, linking to full text when available.