The Yale Tocqueville Manuscripts contains papers of both Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, intermixed. It features material pertaining to Tocqueville’s study of American democracy, including a letter discussing slavery, abolition, and emancipation. The papers also include manuscript drafts and notes for Beaumont’s Marie, ou l’Esclavage aux Etats-Unis (1835), one of the first novels about racial slavery in the United States.

Robert Bostock was a Liverpool trader who continued to be involved in the slave trade after its abolition by Parliament in 1807. His factory on Bunce Island was raided by H.M.S. Thais in 1813 and 233 slaves were seized. Also captured were Bostock, his partner Charles Mason, and the captain of an American slave-ship, the “Kitty,” which was to have smuggled the contraband slaves to Charleston, South Carolina.

Holograph diary addressed to “Meg,” narrating Leveson-Gower’s experiences as a Grenadier Guard, including a voyage to the West Indies and his impressions of slavery there. Illustrated with several drawings and watercolors of ships and scenery.

Papers of the American Slave Trade, provides scholars with access to primary source material on the business aspect of the trade in human beings. The collection documents the international slave trade in Britain’s New World colonies and the United States from 1718 to the trade’s demise after 1808. There are multiple series accompanied by printed guides. The printed guides are also available online.

The collection consists of over 200 original letters to C.K. Prioleau for the period 1860-1869 from figures such as J.D. Bulloch, agent for the Confederate Navy, Caleb Huse, principal Confederate Army purchasing officer in Europe, and General C.J. McRae, Confederate Treasury Agent in Europe. Subjects include the shelling of Charleston, blockade running, battles, armament supply and the financing of the Southern war effort. Accompanied by a printed guide.

The papers document the life and career of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, orator, journalist, diplomat, and public official. They contain correspondence, a diary, speeches, articles, a manuscript of Douglass’ autobiography, financial and legal papers, newspaper clippings, and other material, chiefly covering the years 1862-1895. Topics include emancipation and the problems of emancipated blacks, women’s rights, political affairs, a proposed naval station in Haiti, and family.

Manuscript fair copy, of dated entries recounting the departure from Liverpool, the shipwreck on the Barbary Coast, the crew’s enslavement in northern Africa, and their return to Dartmouth. Many entries concern the work done, foods, illnesses and injuries, and racial and religious differences encountered. The manuscript dates from about 1790.

Holograph manuscript diary describing a trip taken by Charles Peter Gizzard, a New York City businessman, and his wife, Martha Gizzard, to visit Martha’s brother, Major Feltus, on his plantations near Woodville, Mississippi. Gizzard describes in detail his travel experiences, including steamboat travel on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Alabama Rivers, his views on plantation life and slavery, and other impressions of the South.

Painted by the London-based Italian artist Agostino Brunias, circa 1780. The Yale Center for British Art holds numerous oil paintings and engravings by Brunias, all of which document life in the colonial West Indies, especially on the Island of Dominica in the Lesser Antilles.

Group of 18 financial documents connected to John M. McQuie, the majority of which document his purchases, and sales, of slaves. The bills of sale and receipts usually list the names, ages and prices of the slaves, and occasionally other personal characteristics. An indenture for the work of two of McQuie’s slaves specifies that their employer must agree to “treat said negroes with humanity & to find them in good holsome food & cloathing together with a blanket to each.”

The papers include correspondence, journal extracts, newspaper clippings, and printed material relating to Susan Walker’s activities as a teacher for the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society in Port Royal, South Carolina. Originals are in the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Amassed by Frederick Hill Meserve with the help of his daughter Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, the collection contains more than 73,000 items, including 57,000 photographic prints, as well as thousands of books, pamphlets, maps, and theater broadsides. These materials document American history from the Civil War through the end of the 19th century and record the emergence of photography as a distinctive cultural practice. The collection’s significance also lies in the tens of thousands of portraits of American politicians, army officers (of both the Union and Confederate forces), writers, actors, singers, scientists, African Americans, and Native Americans.

Four manuscript letters, dated between 1855 and 1856, provide information on the conflict between antislavery and proslavery settlers in Kansas Territory. Narratives by Frederick and Jason Brown, sons of the militant abolitionist John Brown, describe the family’s encounters with proslavery forces in various locations.

The collection contains material on the capture, trial, and release of the Amistad captives who were illegally sold into slavery. The collection consists of diaries, letters, court and government records, and newspaper accounts of the case; secondary accounts of the case; and background information on Africa, Cuba, the slave-trade, similar cases, slavery in the United States, and abolitionist sentiment in the North.

A small porcelain jar decorated with two scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Both scenes are variations on illustrations by Hammatt Billings that appeared in the illustrated edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in Boston by John P. Jewett and Company in 1853. Other artifacts relating to the novel include aporcelain statuette and Staffordshire child’s plate.

The records consist of correspondence written by Civil War soldiers from Yale College, 1855-1865. These records might be more revealing for what they do not say about slavery and emancipation than what they do offer on the subject. See also similar holdings at the Beinecke Library.

RAAI aspires to reproduce all the illustrations of figurative African objects published between 1800 and 1920 in books, periodicals, catalogues, newspapers, and other publications. It does not include postcards or pamphlets of very limited distribution. More than 95% of the material is contained in the James J. Ross library, the remainder has been recorded from copies in other libraries. Many of the items pertain in some way to slavery or its legacies.

Report, manuscript in an unidentified hand, signed by Collas, Paris, 1858 December 8, advocating recruitment of agricultural laborers for French Caribbean colonies from Africa, India, and China. The report discusses the history of French and English colonies in the Caribbean, 1827-1858; conflict between France and England after abolition of the Atlantic slave trade; labor in the colonies after the French abolition of slavery in 1848; and colonial policy of Napoléon III.

A collection of correspondence; government documents, including reports, commissions, decrees, and awards; church documents; published illustrated materials; maps; and writings and poems from Mexico on civil, military, economic, religious, and social topics. Includes numerous documents about slavery. This collection is also available online.

Mary Estlin was the daughter of John B. Estlin (1785-1855), a prominent opthalmic surgeon of Bristol, England, a Unitarian reformer and anti-slavery supporter. She was a member of the Bristol and Clifton Auxiliary Ladies Anti-Slavery Society and maintained an extensive correspondence with fellow abolitionists in the United States. After the Civil War she transferred her energies to the Women’s Rights campaign.

The American Colonization Society was formed in Washington, DC, in 1817 to establish a colony in Africa for free people of color residing in the US. Most of the documents found here are letters between Liberia and representatives of the Society. Many cover fundraising issues relating to support and education in the newly-formed country. The collection consists of 324 microfilm reels. A majority of these documents are now available online at Fold3.

In 1771 Thomas Hearne began working for Sir Ralph Payne, the recently appointed Governor-General of the Leeward Islands, a group of sugar colonies consisting of Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher’s (now St. Kitts), and Montserrat. Hearne spent three and a half years making working drawings and, after his return to England in 1775, produced twenty large and highly finished watercolors for Payne, of which only eight are now known.

This collection consists of anti-slavery tracts, pamphlets and journals from the Library of the Society of Friends. Also included is the Thompson-Clarkson Collection of autograph letters, portraits, and printed material relating to Thomas Clarkson’s “The history of the rise, progress and accomplishment of the abolition of the African slave-trade.” Originals are in the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, Friends House, London, England.

The papers include correspondence, journals, memorabilia, and photographs that document the life of Samuel Willard Saxton and the career of his brother General Rufus Saxton during the Civil War. Samuel Saxton’s journal highlights his ardent abolitionist and reformist interests, his work on behalf of freedmen’s education, and his strong Republican loyalties. The letterbooks reflect Saxton’s position as an aide-de-camp for his brother and Rufus Saxton’s administration of the Department of the South and the former slaves under his jurisdiction.

A singular resource for the study of English provincial philanthropic societies. The collection includes documents on Africa, the West Indies, and the American Civil War. Also included are the Raymond English collection of the letters, diaries, pamphlets and press cuttings of the abolitionist George Donisthorpe Thompson and his son-in-law F. W. Chesson and the H. J. Wilson anti-slavery collection of 19th century pamphlets.

Thirteen printed and manuscript documents and fragments of documents, dating from 1794 to 1889, and signed by Haitian presidents and other government officials including Charles Hérard, Jean-Baptiste Riché, Jean Pierre Boyer, François Denis Légitime, Alexandre Pétion, Fabre Geffrard, Faustin Soulouque, Philippe Guerrier, Louis Étienne Salomon, and I. Dufrene.

Reproduces a collection of nearly 3,000 petitions assembled over a period of ten years by the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Documents were drawn from state archives in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The digital compliment to this project is now availableonline.

The collection includes about 73 microfilm reels and several printed guides. Documents cover plantations in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Also included are the Albert A . Batchelor papers, Weeks Family Papers, Hammond Family Papers, 1866 - 1907, and Hammond Bryan Cummings Papers, 1866-1920.

The Civil War Manuscripts Collection was created to give the researcher more direct access to small and fragmentary collections of material on the subject of the Civil War in the United States, 1861-1865. It is an intentionally assembled collection of diaries, correspondence, photographs, printed material, and ephemera primarily documenting military events and daily camp life, as well as family life on the home front and civilian activities.

The papers consist of correspondence, clippings, photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, legal papers, financial records, speeches, articles, and military papers relating to the career of General William Tecumseh Sherman, his father Charles R. Sherman, his wife Ellen Ewing Sherman and her family, and Sherman’s children. Filmed guide available.

The collection contains, 2,604 letters, 2,228 of which are from Lydia Maria Child. Topics include antislavery, politics, Childs’ professional writing experience, her work as an editor of a children’s magazine, her financial assistance to musicians and artists, feminism, and Child’s personal life. Recipients include Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Eliot, Margaret Fuller, Charles Dickens, James T. Fields, William Cullen Bryant and other prominent cultural figures.

The independently catalogued “Slavery Pamphlets” include over 750 books and tracts from several different regions and time periods. The bulk of the collection consists of American and British pamphlets and includes Elizabeth Heyrick’s famous work, Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition(1824), which marked a revolutionary turn in transatlantic antislavery politics.

The Mirror of Liberty was the first magazine owned and edited by an African American. This issue from July 1841 contains a report of a meeting in New Bedford, MA, led by David Ruggles and Frederick Douglass.

The New England Indian Papers Series Database includes several documents directly related to slavery and the slave trade in early America. Manuscripts include information on Indian slaves taken after King Philip’s War and their fate in the Caribbean, Spain, and North Africa.

Slavery tracts and pamphlets from the West India Committee Collection, now housed at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Consists of 28 microfilm reels, including a list of titles and an index

The papers consist of the research files of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, an author and history professor. The papers include Phillip’s notes and transcripts of historical source materials and the collected papers of several southern families from 1712-1933. The collected papers include correspondence, account books, business records, farm and plantation records, diaries, and other papers which focus on the years 1790-1865, and the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia and the Piedmont region of Georgia. Numerous photographs drawn from the collection are available online.

The papers contain four letter books and other official papers sent, received, and kept by George F. Usher, Haitian consul in New York under President Fabre Nicolas Geffrard; the correspondence primarily details Usher’s diplomatic and commercial work in New York City on behalf of the Republic of Haiti during the years 1859-1867, which included, in 1862, the United States’s official recognition of the Haitian government.

Agents within the Office of the Secretary of the Interior were authorized by the Secretary of the Navy to receive any “Negroes, mulattos, or persons of color” found aboard vessels seized off the coast of Africa and relocate them to what is now known as Liberia. Ten microfilm reels, based on the originals held at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. These documents and several related collections are now available in full online.

The papers consist of the personal correspondence, financial and legal papers, plantation and slave records, and writings of the Allston, Blythe, and Pringle families of Georgetown County, South Carolina. The bulk of the material relates to the Allston family and, in particular, to Robert F. W. Allston, planter and governor of South Carolina from 1856-1858. Among the subjects discussed are plantations, slaves, rice planting, politics, and the Civil War.

The Beinecke Library holds numerous books and pamphlets related to slavery and abolition, some of which were owned and annotated by prominent abolitionists. These include two books on the Somerset case (1772), concerning the legality of slavery in England, with extensive marginal annotations by Granville Sharp.

The papers consist of correspondence and official government and military directives to and from Holwell Walshe, which document his career in the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments, particularly his years as commander of Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone. Walshe took possession of Sherbro in September 1862 and successfully defended the island and revitalized its economy. He remained as Civil Commandant until 1871, when he was transferred to Singapore as a police magistrate.

Correspondence, writings, speeches, diaries, clippings, printed matter, sermons, and other papers of two centuries of Beecher family members. The papers relate principally to Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), popular 19th century clergyman and orator, and members of his family. Among those represented are his father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), clergyman; his brothers, Edward Beecher (1803-1895), educator and antislavery leader, and Thomas Kinnicut Beecher (1824-1900) and Charles Beecher (1815-1900), both clergyman and antislavery activists; and his sisters, Harriett Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe (1811-1896), author, Catherine Esther Beecher (1800-1878), pioneer educator and writer on ‘domestic economy,’ and Isabella Homes (Beecher) Hooker (1822-1907), well-known suffragist.

Although not focused primarily on slavery and abolition, this collection is a key resource for understanding the history of race in America. In addition to Johnson’s papers, there are significant manuscript materials from W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White, Poppy Cannon White, Dorothy Peterson, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Wallace Thurman.

Correspondence, sermons, speeches, missionary reports, writings, and printed matter of approximately three hundred nineteenth-century black abolitionists, documenting their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland. The collection consists of 17 microfilm reels, drawn from numerous international archives. This collection is also available online.

Bound holograph draft, revised, of a fictional or semi-fictional autobiography of a former slave. It details her experiences as a maid in several households in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina, and her subsequent escape to the North, where she settled in New Jersey. The narrator also tells the stories of other slaves she knows or comes into contact with, and to some extent the histories of the families she works for, identified as the De Vincents, the Henrys, and the Wheelers. An edited editionof this manuscript was published by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The collection consists of over 100 reels, divided into six parts. Part one includes the complete papers of Thomas Clarkson, William Lloyd Garrison, Zachary Macaulay, Harriet Martineau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Wilberforce from the Huntington Library in California. Parts two and three reproduce the slavery collections of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool. Part four reproduces the Granville Sharp Papers from the Gloucestershire Record Office. Part five reproduces the Papers of Thomas Clarkson from the British Library, London. Part six reproduces the Papers of William Wilberforce, William Smith, Iveson Brookes, Francis Corbin and related records from the Rare Books, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, Duke University.

The papers document the activities of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, the first formal abolitionist society in America. Included are minutes from 1787 to 1916, and the society’s large collection of manuscripts dealing with abolition, dating from 1774 through 1868. More information is available online.

Two manuscript legal documents written in unidentified hands concerning the purchase of slaves by David D. Withers of New York. A receipt, December 20, 1854, New Orleans, acknowledges the sale of thirty-seven slaves from Walter L. Campbell to Withers. There is another manuscript document regarding the 1855 sale of ninety-one slaves from the Union Bank of Louisiana to Withers for fifty-five thousand dollars.

The papers of Lewis Tappan, merchant and abolitionist, consist of correspondence, letterbooks, journals, notebooks, clippings, photocopies, notes, and miscellanea. The journals and notebooks, which date from 1814-1869, document Tappan’s activities in the antislavery movement. The bulk of the correspondence consists of copies of Tappan’s outgoing letters. Originals are in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was a Quaker abolitionist and poet of international renown. He was affiliated with the National Era, one of the most important abolitionist newspapers in America. This collection consists of miscellaneous correspondence, manuscripts, and other material by and about Whittier. Included is the orignal draft for “Moloch in State Street,” about the arrest of fugitive slave Thomas Sims, with significant alterations and revisions.

The records include correspondence, notes, printed circulars, and memorabilia which document the organization and functioning of the Liverpool Emancipation Society. The society sought to educate the public and thereby garner support for the Union side during the American Civil War. The society also raised funds to aid distressed freedmen.

Correspondence, diaries, writings and other papers of John Pitkin Norton, professor of agricultural chemistry at Yale from 1846-1852. Norton’s diaries contain observations on slavery and abolition, the Amistad case, the Liberty Party, religion, and temperance, among other topics. Professor Norton was also closely associated with the early days of the Sheffield Scientific School and was a pioneer in the application of scientific principles and methods to agriculture.

The papers consist of letters written to John J. Crittenden, law papers, a few copies of his own letters, and speeches relating to Crittenden’s political career in Kentucky and the United States Senate, with extensive material on the United States Civil War, 1861-1865, and the compromise efforts which proceeded it.

The papers consist of correspondence, writings, manuscript notes, and printed material documenting the life of Harriet Martineau. Among the noteworthy correspondents are Matthew Arnold, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Samuel Courtauld, W. E. Gladstone, Robert Graves, Samuel Lucas, Lord John Russell, Maria Weston Chapman, and Henry William Wilberforce.

The papers contain correspondence, business and land records, writings, legal records, and maps of Peter Smith, land speculator and local politician in Madison County, New York and his son Gerrit Smith, land owner, philanthropist, reformer, abolitionist, and temperance advocate. 89 reels, plus finding aid.

The Yale University Art Gallery holds numerous bronze and copper tokens related to slavery and abolition, including this one, which was manufactured in the United States and issued by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1838.

Waller went to Africa in 1861 as Lay Superintendent of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. He resigned from the Mission in 1863 following a disagreement related to liberated slaves under the care of the Mission. These papers document the Zambezi expedition of David Livingstone (1813-1873) and the early history of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa.  Waller’s deep interest in Africa and the problem of slavery continued throughout his life and is reflected in his correspondence with Livingstone and in diaries dated 1875-1876, after his return to England.  Selections from Waller’s diaries for 1875 and 1876 have been scanned.

Autograph manuscript letters and receipts, dated 1858 to 1868, and other letters, deeds and documents relating to slaves and the slave trade, from 1788 to 1863. The focus is on the firm of J. D. Fondren & Bro., based in Richmond, Virginia. About 80 items total, in one volume.

The collection comprises Howe’s outgoing and incoming correspondence, third-party correspondence, and six manuscript writings pertaining to slavery and ethics. The letters address Howe’s religious beliefs, opposition to the institution of slavery, support of the temperance movement, the annexation of Texas, and other political matters.

This newspaper was printed by students at the Mendi Mission in Sherbro, West Africa, beginning in March 1861. Established by American abolitionists in the wake of theAmistad slave revolt, the Mendi Mission served as a bridge connecting the struggle against slavery across two continents. The Divinity Library also holds a rare copy of the Sherbro and English Book published by the mission in 1862.

Documents relating to the registration, sale and manumission of slaves in Cuba, and contracts outlining the terms of service of African and Chinese indentured servants working in Cuba, for the Compañía Asiatica de la Habana and for other companies and individuals. The documents include a death certificate, identification passes, and authorizations to transfer slaves.

Manuscript of a detailed description of the geography, population, economy, government, and social organization of Jamaica by John Dalling, who was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the colony in 1767. Topics include agriculture, the sugar trade and the mechanics of a typical sugar plantation, slavery and slave customs, and relations between the races.

The papers document the life of Southern women through diaries, correspondence with family and friends, and business correspondence and records. The primary focus of the papers and diaries is on home life. Among the frequently discussed topics are courtship, education, child rearing, marriage, and religion. Discussions of family business dealings and women’s thoughts on temperance, slavery, and women’s rights also appear in the collection. Printed guides are available online.

Manuscripts and typewritten copies of newspaper articles, ships’ logs and letterbooks in the Library of Congress relating to the slave trade after 1806, especially during the years 1810-1811, 1816-1821 and 1860-1863. These were collected but not used in connection with herDocuments Illustrative of the Slave Trade, published 1930-1934.

William Clark, Ten views in the island of Antigua: In which are represented the process of sugar making, and the employment of the Negroes, in the field, boiling-house and distillery (London, 1823). A rare view of the large-scale industrial and agricultural plantations of Antigua.

The papers consist primarily of correspondence and other papers relating to John Brown and events in Kansas for the years just before the Civil War. Some correspondence is family related, but the bulk concerns Brown’s anti-slavery activities. A series of documents from 1878-1919 consist of reminiscences about Brown and events like the Pottawatomie massacre. Originals at the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

This print, made by W. Pyott in 1792, was based on C. F. von Breda’s 1789 painting, “Portrait of a Swedish Gentleman Instructing a Negro Prince.”

Correspondence, diaries, writings, photographs, scrapbooks, research materials, and miscellanea documenting the personal life and literary career of Katherine Mayo, an author of several historical and investigative articles, essays, and books from 1896 to 1940. Prior to Mayo’s success as a literary figure she was employed by Oswald Garrison Villard to conduct extensive field research for his biography of John Brown. The collection includes a piece of the rope allegedly used to hang Brown.

The collection includes annual reports, 1883-2000, submissions to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and other related bodies, 1965-2000, ephemera & publications of Anti-Slavery International, 1980-2000, and publications and reports of Anti-Slavery International and its predecessors, 1880-1979.

New Haven resident William H. Townsend made pen-and-ink sketches of the Amistad captives while they were awaiting trial. Twenty-two of these drawings were given to Yale in 1934 by Asa G. Dickerman, whose grandmother was the artist’s cousin. Townsend, who was about 18 years old when he made the drawings, is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, beside the Yale University campus.

The collection consists of letters sent to New England resident Adella Fowler Larkin by her family and friends during the second half of the nineteenth century. Prominent in the collection are letters from her sister Myra Fowler McFarland, a teacher with the American Missionary Association working in Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia before, during, and immediately after the Civil War.

A rare line engraving, produced by Robert Brandard at some point in the first half of the nineteenth century. Based on an earlier image by George Cattermole.

The records consist of fifty volumes of the confidential print relating to the slave trade. The confidential print is a collection of selected correspondence, memoranda and other documents printed for internal use in the Foreign Office and for distribution to the missions. Originals are in the Public Record Office, London, England. Published finding aid available.

The collection consists of 37 manuscript legal documents from Adair County, Kentucky, regarding slaves and freedpersons. The papers include affidavits, summonses to court, and deeds of emancipation; most are docketed on the verso. Several of the documents deal with the apprenticeship of children, and one concerns the marriage of two former slaves.

The Yale Map Collection has the largest collection of maps in Connecticut and one of the largest university collections in the United States. Its collections are geographically comprehensive and consist of over 200,000 map sheets, 3,000 atlases, and 900 reference books. There are several maps and atlases with an explicit focus on slavery, including Lewis’ Free Soil, Slavery, and Territorial Map of the United States, “Gulag Slavery” maps of Russia, and theAtlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture. 

Part one centers on Jamaica, c1765-1848. It includes the Taylor and Vanneck-Arcedekne Papers from Cambridge University Library and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Highlights include the correspondence and papers of West Indian agents, correspondence and accounts of London agents concerning Jamaica, and materials covering the Maroon and French wars, slave revolts, the treatment of colonists by the British government, births, deaths, marriages, inheritances, debts and family quarrels. A detailed guide is available online.

Correspondence, business and personal papers, volumes and pamphlets, diaries, family papers, planation records, and miscellanea of families and individuals in Louisiana and the Mississipppi Valley. The effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction, emancipation, and social and economic change in the South are documented in nineteen separate collections. An unpublished finding aid is available.

The E. L. McGlashan Collection of Papers Concerning Slavery in the United States consists of bills of sale, receipts, estate records, and other material documenting slave ownership and the slave trade in the United States. The papers span the dates 1770-1862, and predominantly document transactions in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, and Alabama. There are also records which document legal actions involving slaves in Maine, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana.

The collection consists of photoduplicates of original Mary Chesnut manuscripts, from the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina and from private owners, collected by C. Vann Woodward for the preparation of his book, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War.

This is a rare copy of a play about slavery, published in Mexico in 1825. Totaling 65 pages, the play is billed as a “melodrama in two acts.”

The papers consist of diaries, weather journals, commonplace books, reading notes and other material documenting the life, work, and intellectual interests of the Jamaican planter and slaveowner Thomas Thistlewood. Thistlewood’s 37 diaries, in Series I, contain daily entries dating between 1750 and 1786. Topics include Thistlewood’s work as an overseer, and later owner, of slaves, including his methods of assigning work, alloting provisions, and discipline; his personal and sexual relationships with several, including his lengthy relationship with Phibbah; and slave rebellions and rumors of rebellions, including Tacky’s Revolt (1760).

Twelve manuscript legal documents in unidentified hands concerning the slave trade in Louisiana and Mississippi and one printed broadside advertising the sale of slaves in St. Louis, Missouri. The legal documents include bills of sale for slaves.

A portrait of Elihu Yale (1649-1721) and associates being waited upon by an enslaved young man. Painted circa 1708. The Yale University Art Gallery owns a different version of this painting and a related portrait depicting Yale interacting with a similar “black servant.”

Benjamin Lincoln, physician, anatomist, and medical educator, taught anatomy and dissection at the University of Vermont. His papers include a journal of travel to New Orleans, describing plantations and slavery, the physical, economic, and social conditions, and medicine and public health. The papers also include manuscripts on slavery and the Civil War.