LibGuides: United States History: Abolition

Oh Patriotism! where is thy indignation? OH SHAME WHERE IS THY BLUSH?

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
A great place to start your research with access to the world's best citable information, wherever you are. Easy access to trusted content from over 70 of the world's leading academic publishers. Access to a large number of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and other reference books. Subjects covered include art, biography, history, literature, music, religion, and science and technology.

[R] Reference Sources

=> American National Biography. 26 vols. Garraty, John A. and American Council of Learned Societies.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. CT213 .A68 1998 Reference Fl. 1

Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and People of Color in the Americas
The goal of this reference work is to explore and explain the vital role
of the free black community in the Americas
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century. Gale, 2007.
Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of 19th century history: population,
politics and government, economy and work, society and culture, religion,
social problems and reform, everyday life, and foreign policy.

Sample: "American Colonization Society and the Founding of Liberia." In Encyclopedia of Race and Racism,
edited by Patrick L. Mason. 2nd ed. Gale, 2013.

Sample: Matibag, Eugenio. "Haitian Revolution." In Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World,
edited by Junius Rodriguez. Routledge, 2007.

Library of Congress

Helper, Hinton Rowan. The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. New York, A.B. Burdick, 1859.

Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy

Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, Parts 1- 4 This link opens in a new window
The Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive contains 4 parts. The parts are, Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition, Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, Part III: The Institution of Slavery, and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation. Books, manuscripts, journals, are more tell the story of the transatlantic slave trade, abolition, emancipation, and the societal factors that contributed to it.
History Commons from Coherent Digital (formerly Accessible Archives) This link opens in a new window
See especially the National Anti-slavery Standard, The Liberator, The Freedmen's Record, Frank Leslie's Weekly, etc.

North American Slave Narratives (University of North Carolina)
"North American Slave Narratives" collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people
Race and Slavery Petition Project (UNC Greensboro))
The Project offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project (Library of Congress)
contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.
Antislavery Petitions Dataverse
Hathi Trust Digital Archive
A digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources,
including Google, the Internet Archive.
The Internet Archive
A non-profit library of historical materials available in the public domain

[P] Founders Online (National Archives and Records Administration)
Searchable by author, recipient, and time period

African Colonization (is sending free black people to Africa a good idea?)

American Colonization Society

Annual Report of the ACS (1818-1910)

Garrison, W. Lloyd. Thoughts on African Colonization: or an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines,
Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Boston: Garrison and Knapp, 1832.

Abolitionist William L. Garrison's attack on colonization

African Colonization Pamphlets (from the James Birney Collection, Johns Hopkins University)

Arranged by date, oldest to newest

"Letters to the American Colonization Society." (6 parts). In The Journal of Negro History.

Includes many letters from free persons of color

Abolitionist Agitation (should state/national governments and/or mobs limit abolitionist agitation)

The Liberator Liberator, vol. 1, no. 1

Anti-abolitionist pamphlets:

A Candid Appeal to the Citizens (1834)

The South Vindicated (1836)

"Incendiary" Abolitionist Publications and Postal Service (John Calhoun, 24th Congress, 1st Session, 1836)

Slavery and the Church (sources from The Hathi Trust)

Haines-Butt, Martha. Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1853.

A Southern Novelist's reply to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (should northerners be obligated to help recapture runaways?)

Text of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (facsimile)

Fugitive Slaves; Fugitive Slave Law (pamphlets from the James Birney Collection, Johns Hopkins University)

Debates in the Congress

Search in the Congressional Globe

Pamphlets of Congressional speeches

Browse the Congressional Globe-Abolition and Slavery; Abolition petitions
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/llcg_browse.html#anchorA

Browse the Congressional Globe-Fugitive Slave Law
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/llcg_browse.html#anchorF

Browse the Congressional Globe-The Slavery Question; Slavery in the Territories, etc.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/llcg_browse.html#anchorS

Editorial reactions (use the Slavery and Anti-Slavery Archive below or under databases)

Sermons on the Fugitive Slave Law

Fugitive Slaves (includes enforcement of the "Fugitive Slave Act")

John Brown (his raid on Harper’s Ferry; was he a hero or terrorist?)

Secession-Era Editorials Project

Address of John Brown to the Virginia Court

Raid on Harper's Ferry Pamphlets (from the James Birney Collection, Johns Hopkins University)
Slavery or Freedom in Kansas? (from the James Birney Collection, Johns Hopkins University)

Slavery or Freedom in Kansas? (Sources from Burke Library)

John Brown and Raid at Harper's Ferry (Sources from Burke Library)

Violence in Kansas-Missouri over slavery (Sources from Burke Library)
See also Kansas-Nebraska Act and "Bleeding Kansas"

Abolition, Antislavery Publications

Boston Public Library

Abolitionist Petition and Mailing Campaign

Incendiary Abolitionist Publications and the United States Postal Service
Speech and proposed bill to prohibit deputy postmasters from transmitting any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or other paper printed or hand written, or pictorial representation "touching the subject of slavery." Register of Debates, 24th Congress, 1st Session, appendix, p. lxii, Feb. 4, 1836.

African American Studies: JSTOR Journals
History: JSTOR Journals
The Journal of Negro History (1916-2001)
Continued by The Journal of African American History
Journal of African American History
Slavery & Abolition
Journal of the Early Republic
William & Mary Quarterly
Journal of Southern History
The New England Quarterly
American Quarterly

[S] Scholarly Journal Articles (using the JSTOR database)

Sample searches:

defense of slavery

African colonization

(Church or Bible or sermon or scripture) in the journal Slavery & Abolition

Sample Results:

Allen, Jeffrey Brooke. "Were Southern White Critics of Slavery Racists? Kentucky and the Upper
South, 1791-1824." The Journal of Southern History 44, no. 2 (1978): 169-190.

Allen, Jody L. “Thomas Dew and the Rise of Proslavery Ideology at William & Mary.”
Slavery & Abolition 39, no. 2 (June 2018): 267–79.

Brown, David. "Attacking Slavery from Within: The Making of "The Impending Crisis of the South."
The Journal of Southern History 70, no. 3 (2004): 541-76.

Earle, Jonathan. "The Making of the North's 'Stark-Mad Abolitionists': Anti-Slavery Conversion in the
United States, 1824-54." Slavery and Abolition 25, no. 3 (2004): 59-75.

Epps, Archie C. “The Christian Doctrine of Slavery: A Theological Analysis.”
The Journal of Negro History 46, no. 4 (1961): 243–49.

Perkins, Howard C. "The Defense of Slavery in the Northern Press on the Eve of the Civil War."
The Journal of Southern History 9, no. 4 (1943): 501-31.

Smith, John David. "A Different View of Slavery: Black Historians Attack the Proslavery Argument, 1890-1920."
The Journal of Negro History 65, no. 4 (1980): 298-311.

Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. "The Abolitionists' Postal Campaign of 1835." The Journal of Negro History 50, no. 4 (1965): 227-38.

Wyly-Jones, Susan. "The 1835 Anti-abolition Meetings in the South: a New Look at the Controversy over the Abolition Postal
Campaign." Civil War History 47, no. 4 (2001): 289-310.

Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, Parts 1- 4 This link opens in a new window
The Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive contains 4 parts. The parts are, Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition, Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, Part III: The Institution of Slavery, and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation. Books, manuscripts, journals, are more tell the story of the transatlantic slave trade, abolition, emancipation, and the societal factors that contributed to it.
Nineteenth Century US Newspapers This link opens in a new window
This full text collection features US newspapers from the nineteenth century. Over 500 newspapers come together to allow researchers access to primary source material on life in the US during that time period. The full newspapers title list is available online from Gale.
London Times Digital Archive: 1785-Onwards This link opens in a new window

Chronicling America: Library of Congress
Historic American Newspapers: 1785-1925 (digital)

Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, Parts 1- 4 This link opens in a new window
The Slavery And Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive contains 4 parts. The parts are, Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition, Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, Part III: The Institution of Slavery, and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation. Books, manuscripts, journals, are more tell the story of the transatlantic slave trade, abolition, emancipation, and the societal factors that contributed to it.
Civil War: Antebellum Period to Reconstruction Collection This link opens in a new window
A unique historical database, the Civil War contains historical newspapers, broadsides, ephemera, and US Congressional Documents from 1843 - 1930 that are part of the US Congressional Serial Set. The collection covers the Antebellum Period through Reconstruction.
Black Life in America, Series 1 & 2 This link opens in a new window
Series 1: 1704-1877: Arrival in America through Reconstruction
Series 2: 1878-1975: Jim Crow through the Civil Rights Movement
From Readex, "From the early days of slavery to modern times, people of African descent have had a profound impact on American history. While many Black achievements are not covered in most textbooks, Black Life in America—a unique digital archive of news media—presents the broad sweep of African American history in ways no other online resource can match. ...From Black-owned newspapers to mainstream publications, this primary source collection offers an expansive window into centuries of African American history, culture and daily life—as well as the ways the dominant culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent. Packed with information unavailable elsewhere, Black Life in America is sourced from more than 19,000 American and global news sources, including over 400 African American publications.
American Historical Periodicals: Series 1-5 from the American Antiquarian Society This link opens in a new window
From the publisher Gale, "American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society provides a history of the American people and a testament to the growth of the nation from the colonial period through to the twentieth century. The periodicals focused on American concerns and were predominantly published in the United States or Canada, though some were published overseas by Americans living abroad. The collection offers multiple perspectives on the thought, culture, and society of North America through the eyes of those who lived it, showing how history affected citizens from all walks of life."

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is our most comprehensive interdisciplinary archive of scholarly journal articles. For each journal included in JSTOR, it includes the full-run of the journal, from its beginning up until the most recent 3-5 years. Covers a wide variety of subjects such as history, literature, biology, business, and African-American studies.

Sample JSTOR search

"American Colonization Society"

ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials This link opens in a new window
ATLA covers theology, philosophy, and ethics; world religions and religious studies; pastoral ministry, missions, ecumenical studies, church history; scriptures; culture and society; as well as archaeology and antiquities. ATLA Religion Database contains citations from 3 print indexes published annually by ATLA (American Theological Library Association). Coverage is 1949 to date. Citations and some full text to international periodicals, books, and book chapters on religion and theological studies. This database also contains the content of the ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, which is no longer a stand-alone database.