Documents in the History of Slavery

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Part I. The Middle Passage

• Introduction: Enslavement
• John Barbot, a European slave trader, describes the African slave trade (1682)
• Ayuba Sulieman Diallo, a Muslim merchant, recalls his capture and enslavement (1733)
• Olaudah Equiano, an 11-year old Ibo from Nigeria, remembers his kidnapping into slavery (1789)
• Venture Smith relates the story of his kidnapping at the age of six(1798)

Part II. The Middle Passage

• Introduction: The Middle Passage
• James Barbot, Jr. describes a shipboard revolt by enslaved Africans (1700)
• Olaudah Equiano describes the horrors of the Middle Passage (1789)
• Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor, describes conditions on an English slaver (1788)

Part III. Arrival in the New World

• Introduction: Arrival in the New World
• Olaudah Equiano describes his arrival in the New World (1789)
• Alexander Falconbridge describes the treatment of newly arrived slaves in the West Indies (1788)

Part IV.  Conditions of Life

• Introduction:Conditions of Life
• Solomon Northrup describes the working conditions of slaves on a Louisiana cotton plantation (1853)
• Charles Ball compares working conditions on tobacco and cotton plantations (1858)
• Josiah Henson describes slave housing, diet, and clothing (1877)
• Francis Henderson describes living conditions under slavery (1856)
• Jacob Stroyer recalls the material conditions of slave life (1898)
• James Martin remembers a slave auction (1937)

Part V. Childhood

• Introduction: Childhood
• Jacob Stroyer recalls the formative experiences of his childhood (1898)
• James W.C. Pennington analyzes the impact of slavery upon childhood (1849)
• Lunsford Lane describes the moment when he first recognized the meaning of slavery (1842)

Part VI. Family

• Introduction: Family
• Laura Spicer learns that her husband, who had been sold away, has taken another wife (1869)
• Josiah Henson sees an overseer try to rape his mother (1877)
• Lewis Clarke discusses the impact of slavery on family life (1846)

Part VII. Religion

• Introduction: Religion
• Olaudah Equiano describes West African religious beliefs and practices (1789)
• Charles Ball remembers a slave funeral, which incorporated traditional African customs (1837)
• Peter Randolph describes the religious gathers slaves held outside oftheir master's supervision (1893)
• Henry Bibb discusses "conjuration" (1849)

Part VIII. Punishment

• Introduction: Punishment
• Frederick Douglass describes the circumstances that prompted masters to whip slaves (1845)
• John Brown has bells and horns fastened on his head (1855)
• William Wells Brown is tied up in a smokehouse (1847)
• Moses Roper is punished for attempting to run away (1837)
• Lewis Clarke describes the implements his mistress used to beat him(1846)

Part IX. Resistance

• Introduction: Resistance
• Frederick Douglass resists a slave breaker (1845)
• Nat Turner describes his revolt against slavery (1831)

Part X. Flight

• Introduction: Flight
• Margaret Ward follows the North Star to freedom (1879)
• Frederick Douglass borrows a sailor's papers to escape slavery (1855, 1895)
• Harriet Tubman sneaks into the South to free slaves (1863, 1865)
• Henry ("Box") Brown escapes slavery in a sealed box (1872)
• Margaret Garner kills her daughter rather than see her returned to slavery (1876)

Part XI. Emancipation

• Introduction: Emancipation
• Thomas Long assesses the meaning of black military service during the Civil War (1870)
• Jackson Cherry appeals for equal opportunity for former slaves (1865)
• Jourdan Anderson declines his former master's invitation to return to his plantation (1865)
• Rufus Saxon assesses the freedmen's aspirations (1866)
• Samuel Thomas describes the attitudes of ex-Confederates toward the freedmen (1865)
• Francis L. Cardozo asks for land for the freedmen (1868)
• Elias Hill is attacked by the Ku Klux Klan (1872)
• Henry Blake describes sharecropping (1937)
• Frederick Douglass assesses the condition of the freedmen in 1880

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