Slavery: Did you mean...?

Harriet Jacobs (l. c. 1813-1897) was a former slave, abolitionist, and author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), her autobiography, describing her life as a slave in North Carolina, her flight to freedom in the North, and her...

Lear Green (circa 1839-1860) was an enslaved African American woman in Baltimore, Maryland, who had herself shipped in a chest to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to escape slavery. Her story is frequently compared to that of Henry Box Brown (circa...

The Stono Rebellion (also known as Cato's Rebellion or Cato's Conspiracy, 9 September 1739) was the largest slave revolt in the British colonies of North America. Led by an educated slave, Cato (also known as Jemmy), enslaved Black people...

The celebration of Juneteenth – originally known as "Freedom Day" – began on 1 January 1866 in Texas and, since then, a number of myths have grown up around the event it commemorates: the issuance of General Order No. 3 in Galveston Texas...

Ellen and William Craft's Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860) tells the story of the couple's escape from slavery, with Ellen disguised as a young, White gentleman of means and William as her slave. They successfully traveled to the...

The Black Codes were a series of racist and discriminatory policies enacted by several former slave states in the United States during the early years of the Reconstruction Era (circa 1865-1877). Rooted in earlier vagrancy laws and slave...

The Northwest Ordinance was enacted by the Confederation Congress of the United States on 13 July 1787. It created the Northwest Territory – comprised of the modern-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota...

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American philosopher, writer, naturalist, and political activist. He is best known for his book Walden, published in 1854, which recounts his two-year experiment living alone in a small cottage at Walden...

Henry Laurens (1724-1792) was an American statesman from South Carolina who played an important role in the politics of the American Revolution (1765-1789). He served as president of the Second Continental Congress from 1777-78 and presided...

Harriet Tubman (circa 1822-1913) was a former slave, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. She served as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy for the Union Army during the American Civil War and...