Slavery: Did you mean...?

John Wesley Cromwell (l. 1846-1927) was an African American civil rights activist, educator, historian, journalist, and lawyer who wrote extensively on slave revolts, especially Nat Turner's...

Slaveholders in the United States frequently claimed that Blacks were 'happy' to be slaves and could, in no way, function as free people as they would find freedom 'burdensome'...

Abolitionist author, orator and statesman Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) is well-known for his speeches, autobiography, and other works addressing the issue of slavery in the United States...

Jane Johnson (circa 1814/1827-1872) and her two young sons, Daniel and Isaiah, were slaves of one John Hill Wheeler of North Carolina, who brought them north to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you ????) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: https://to.pbs.org/DonateORIG Subscribe to Origin of Everything! http://bit.ly/originsub Why were most slaves in...

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was a planter, soldier, and politician from Mississippi, who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States during the American Civil War (1861-1865...

Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) was a French journalist, abolitionist, and politician who played a prominent role in the French Revolution (1789-1799). A leader of the Girondins, a moderate political faction...

James Ewell Brown Stuart (1833-1864), better known by his initials as J. E. B. Stuart, was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Known for his flashy style of dressing...

Patrick R. Cleburne (1828-1864) was an Irish-born Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Having immigrated to Arkansas in 1850, Cleburne fell in love with his adopted state and volunteered...

Anna Maria Weems (circa 1840 to circa 1863) was an enslaved African American woman in Rockville, Maryland, who escaped by posing as a young Black livery man and carriage driver, assisted by...