Slavery: Did you mean...?

John Brown (1800-1859) was a militant abolitionist best known for the part he played in the violence of Bleeding Kansas (1854-1859) and his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia) in October...

Illustration of the American anti-slavery almanac for 1840, New York. One of the many defenses of American slavery was that the imagined "benevolent paternalism" of planters was beneficial or necessary. Library of Congress...

Broadside condemning the sale and keeping of slaves in the District of Columbia, issued during the 1835-36 petition campaign by the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1836. Library of Congress...

The Dred Scott Decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) was the infamous ruling of the United States Supreme Court that, according to the US Constitution, Black people...

Did you know that 1 in 5 people were slaves during the Roman Empire? This video is all about the widespread institution of slavery in ancient Rome. Slavery was a widespread institution in ancient Rome with...

Front page of the "Address to the National Assembly", an anti-slavery pamphlet written by the French abolitionist group Société des amis des noirs ("Society of the Friends of the Blacks") in 1790.

William Still (1819-1902) was an African American abolitionist known as the "Father of the Underground Railroad" for his efforts in helping to free between 600 to 800 people from slavery. Born the son...

Frederick Douglass (circa 1818-1895) was an abolitionist orator, minister, writer, editor, reformer, and statesman, who had been born a slave in Maryland, escaped to New York at around the age of 20, and became...

The movement to abolish slavery took root in Pennsylvania, from the Quaker principles of its early settlers to the Free African Society and the fiery activism of John Brown. Amidst...

Slavery was inherently cruel and unjust, and it was cruel and unjust to different people in different ways. Today, Clint Smith teaches you about the experience of enslaved women, and...