New York Times
New York Times: Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life's Complicated Past
[Free Registration/Login Required] This article describes the controversial history of New York Life Insurance. In 1846 the company began selling insurance policies to slave owners in the South that guaranteed compensation if a slave...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: An Overview of the African American Experience
Lesson with article and questions for discussion on the experience of African-Americans beginning with the slave trade.
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Voices in the Campaign for Abolition
From the mid 18th century, Africans and people of African descent - many of them former slaves - began to write down their stories. This article describes these writings and assesses their role in the abolition of slavery.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Colonial African Americans
This site examines the lives of African-Americans during colonial times in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia. Content provides background information, journal articles, diary entries, biography fact sheets, and more.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Slavery and the Making of America: Slave Responses to Enslavement
Using primary documents, oral histories, and other historical resources, learn how African Americans responded to enslavement prior to the Civil War. Includes interactive exercise.
OpenStax
Open Stax: African Americans in the Antebellum United States
This section of a chapter on "The Antebellum South" discusses the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks and describes the independent culture and customs that slaves developed.
Library of Congress
Loc: American Revolution
The history of the American Revolution is the focus of this article. Divided into topics and time periods, it makes understanding this historical time easier for students for follow.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1844 1877: Life After Slavery for African Americans
Overview of life after slavery for African Americans.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1800 1848: African Americans in the Early Republic
A quick comprehension check over African Americans in the early republic of the United States.
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Mosaic: Black History and Culture
Online version of a Library of Congress exhibit, covering information about black history, including colonization, abolition, migrations, and the WPA. It is multimedia and contains hundreds of primary source documents.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Slavery & Making of America: The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender
Learn about issues related to slave gender roles at this PBS series site that features illustrations and documents dating back to the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods in American history.
Digital History
Digital History: The Diversity of Colonial Slavery
Read about the three distinct systems of slavery that developed in the colonies based primarily on the crops that were grown in each region. See how the system affected the way the culture of slaves grew out of the region.
Info Please
Infoplease: Timeline: Key Moments in Black History
A timeline of African-American history from when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619 up to the present.
The History Cat
The History Cat: African Americans After the War
Provides a discussion of what life was like for African Americans after slavery ended, focusing on the Freedman's Bureau, Freedman schools, and the Ku Klux Klan.
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: The Underground Railroad
This PBS site provides a general history of the Underground Railroad, including a focus on notable participants or "conductors." Click on Teacher's Guide for teacher resources.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Cotton and African American Life
But for the invention of the cotton gin, slavery perhaps would have died out in the United States in the early 19th century. Read about why technological advances caused the spread of slavery in the South and read about how slaves clung...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Preface to Sancho: An Act of Remembrance
Paterson Joseph describes how his research into Black British history led him to write his first play, Sancho: An Act of Remembrance. In this one-man show, Paterson Joseph inhabits the life of Ignatius Sancho, the 18th-century composer,...
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Slave Life and the Underground Railroad
A brief summary of the history of African American slavery and the Underground Railroad. Activities and books pertaining to slave life, plantations, and the Underground Railroad are suggested.
Other
National Civil Rights Museum
Get a glimpse of what is housed in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The interactive tour highlights the struggle and introduces key historical figures such as Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Dred Scott, and Frederick...
Georgetown University
Georgetown: Georgetown Slavery Archive I Know That My Bennett Ancestors
Chapter two of Louis Diggs, Surviving in America: Histories of 7 Black Communities in Baltimore County, Maryland (Uptown Press, 2002), includes fascinating interviews with African Americans in Granite, Maryland, including several...
Digital History
Digital History: The Controversial Dred Scott Decision [Pdf]
The Dred Scott case was a test case on whether African-Americans, whether free or slave, had any rights. Find out what led up to this controverisal decision, and read the reasoning of the majority opinion as expressed by Chief Justice...
Yale University
Yale New Haven Teachers Institute: The Negro Holocaust, 1880 1950
This resource provides information on the lynching of African Americans, what it was, why it happened and how frequently it happened. It also outlines race riots in the first part of the 20th century as well as discussion on the black...
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Slavery and the Making of America: Freedom & Emancipation
Using primary documents, oral histories and other historical resources, learn about the African American reaction to emancipation and to events from the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.
Black Past
Black Past: The First Emancipation
This encyclopedia entry gives interesting information about how the Quakers encouraged legislation that led to the banning of slavery in states in the Northeast by 1820.