People enslaved Africans for their enforced labor from before America's founding until the end of the Civil War. Learn about the history of slavery, its effects on a budding nation, and the fight to abolish it. This collection includes...

Using primary documents, oral histories, and other historical resources, discover how the arts of Africa, Europe, and pre-Civil War America influenced the culture of enslaved African Americans.

A collection of primary sources to explore the motivations and realities behind life in the American colonies.

A self-evaluation using primary sources assesses labor, slavery, and caste in the Spanish colonial system.

Online exhibition from the Mariners' Museum chronicles the plight of African slaves from the beginning of their journey when they are torn from their homeland all the way to the shores of the Americas. Caught up in the lucrative...

PBS offers a four-part series on the plight of African Americans from slave days to the end of the Civil War. Resources such as interactive maps, a Resource Bank, and Teacher's Guide are available.

This wonderful unit from Annenberg Media examines Reconstruction through three themes: reintegrating the former Confederate states in to the Union; the freedom of blacks and what that entailed socially and economically; and the economic...

This website contains a general description of the time and reason for the first large slave auction held in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Click on Teacher's Guide for teaching resources.

BBC News offers a short summary of the slave trade from Africa to the Americas. Gives statistics on the number of slaves (estimated at 10 to 28 million), where they went, and the cruel conditions of their enslavement.

[Free Registration/Login Required] The Revolution and Early America unit covers the standard eighteenth century topics that would appear in any textbook. These lessons, however, will push students to dig deeper as they read the documents...

Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and...

This PBS series site reveals the diverse circumstances and living conditions experienced by slaves and indentured servants in America by reading documents dating to the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods.

In this section of the PBS series, Africans in America, you can find four case summaries decided by colonial Virginia's courts concerning slaves petitioning for freedom.

The Stono Rebellion and its impact is described in this informative essay. Hyperlinks to more discussion of this event. Teacher's Guide offers teacher resources.

This unit features authors of Antebellum America and how they portray the American identity through their literature. Click on the tabs to explore the various resources available to enhance this unit.

This site has thousand of photos, drawings and prints dealing with slavery, most of them dating from the period of Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas.

Article illustrating colonial life in North America. The author discusses religion and religious movements, women and the colonial family, and work, including slavery, during the 17th and 18th Century. Photographs and links to primary...

A map of the United States and territories east of the Mississippi River in 1790, showing the areas of freedom and slavery at the time, including the territory of the Northwest, free by the Ordinance of 1787.

Eastman Johnson focused his art on the status of race in the United States right about the time of the American Civil War. View his picture "A Ride for Liberty-The Fugitive Slaves" that depicts slaves crossing battlefields from the...

Collection of 14 Grade-Leveled texts (4-11) on the topic "The American Colonies." What was life like for European settlers in the New World? How did American colonies function before the Revolutionary War? Explore life in the...

To commemorate the sesquicentennial observances of the American Civil War, the Park Service has provided information on the legacy of the War: Then and Now. Each date of the War has supporting documents and is compared to the legacy or...

Assess how the Emancipation Proclamation expanded ideas of freedom and liberty, looking at the antislavery debate that led to the proclamation, the influences on Lincoln's decision, and the provisions of the document. In this interactive...

In this interactive game, students are presented with a political drawings and cartoons from the period 1860-1877, and they must choose which historical event related to the end of slavery best matches each image.

Explore how South Carolina moved from a "plantation culture" in 1670 to a "growing research center and banking state" today. South Carolina played a major role in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.