Primary Sources
Boston Public Library Resources
- Book list - Slavery and Abolition Primary Resources: 11 Books To Check Out Primary sources are items that were made at the time you are researching - in this case, resources from the 1600s until 1865, when the 13th Amendment ended slavery. "Abolitionists" is a name given to people who worked to end slavery. You can check out these primary sources that have been re-printed as books.
Books at the Boston Public Library
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation by Call Number: E446 .A48 2012xISBN: 9781598531961Publication Date: 2012-11-08This is the first anthology to take the full measure of a body of writing that spans nearly two centuries and, exceptionally for its time, embraced writers black and white, male and female. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Phillis Wheatley, and Olaudah Equiano offer original, even revolutionary, eighteenth century responses to slavery.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Call Number: E449 .D749 1997bISBN: 9780451526731Publication Date: 1997-12-01A dramatic autobiography of the great 19th century black leader and abolitionist.
I Was Born a Slave by Call Number: E444 .I18 1999ISBN: 9781556523328Publication Date: 1999-03-01I Was Born a Slave collects the 20 most significant "slave narratives." They describe whippings, torture, starvation, resistance, and hairbreadth escapes; slave auctions, kidnappings, and murders; sexual abuse, religious confusion, the struggle of learning to read and write; and the triumphs and difficulties of life as free men and women.
Slavery and Abolition
"American Anti-Slavery Almanac, 1838" cover
Source: Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery Collection
The period of Reconstruction lasted from approximately 1865 to 1877 and followed the American Civil War. Reconstruction is the name given to the period of time when the country was recovering from the Civil War and had many changes to acclimate to, such as the end of slavery and uniting the states again. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order that Abraham Lincoln passed during the Civil War in 1863, which freed many slaves but not all. It was not until 1865 that slavery was completely outlawed with the 13th Amendment.
Abolition is the act of trying to abolish (or destroy) an institution or process. "Abolitionists" is one name given to people who worked to end slavery, such as Harriet Tubman.
People
Source: New York Public Library
Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist and escaped slave who believed in equality for all people. He wrote several books, including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Remember that his autobiographies count as primary sources because he wrote them during his life.
Source: New York Public Library
Harriet Jacobs was an abolitionist and escaped slave, and she wrote her autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which was one of the first works to detail life as a female slave.
Source: New York Public Library
Harriet Tubman lived from 1822 to 1913 and was, among other things, a former slave, an abolitionist, and a spy. She led expeditions during the Civil War and helped slaves escape along the Underground Railroad.
Source: New York Public Library
Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist and women's right activist. She escaped slavery and went to court to get her son back from the man he was sold to. She is known for her speeches, such as "Ain't I A Woman?"
Slavery
Royall House and Slave Quarters, Source: Boston Public Library
Photography was invented in 1826, and slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865. While it might be hard to believe, photographs of slavery exist.
Slave advertisement, Source: Maryland Gazette, October 2, 1800, from 19th Century US Newspapers
The slave trade existed in the United States since its founding, in the 1600s, until the 13th Amendment of the Constitution passed in 1865, which banned slavery. In the United States, the slave trade is also known as the Trans-Atlantic slave trade because slaves were taken from Africa and transported over the Atlantic Ocean. Millions of people were forced into slavery and taken to the United States and the Caribbean islands. Slavery was banned in stages in the United States, with many northern states banning it before the Civil War while southern states kept slavery legal. The south pushing to keep slavery was the main cause of the Civil War.
Source: New York Public Library
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was a white abolitionist. The plot centered around Uncle Tom, a slave who is sold, and Eliza, a slave who runs away with her child rather than be sold. It was published in 1852, before the Civil War, and is credited with helping give momentum for the abolitionist movement.
Source: New York Public Library
The Underground Railroad was a network of places and homes that were designed to smuggle slaves to freedom in free states or Canada.
Abolition
Source: New York Times, January 1, 1863, page 4
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Lincoln and made law on January 1, 1863, declaring slaves free in the Confederacy. It could not be enforced in areas that were in rebellion, but it meant escaped slaves would automatically be free. The proclamation did not free all slaves, just ones in states that rebelled, and slavery was officially abolished with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.
Portrait of William Lloyd Garrison, an abolitionist from Massachusetts
Source: Boston Public Library
Massachusetts was part of the Union in the Civil War and was home to a great number of abolitionists and abolition organizations, such as the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. William Lloyd Garrison, pictured above, and Frederick Douglass had ties to Massachusetts.
The "Abraham Lincoln school" for freedmen, Source: New York Public Library
The Freedmen's Bureau was officially named the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned lands, and one of its aims was to help former slaves after the Civil War. It lasted from 1865 to 1872 and provided assistance such as food, education, medical care, and legal aid. The bureau is considered to only have been partially successful, since funding meant it did not do as much work as it aimed to. The records they kept are a wealth of primary sources.