Slavery

A letter dated 1835 Dec 24-26, at Clinton, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, was written while Hulin worked as a schoolteacher in Louisiana. He discusses his impressions of the South, the character of Southern planters, slavery, and attitudes of Southerners toward Arthur Tappan and other Northern abolitionists. The letter reports the hanging of a group of African American slaves and whites accused of planning a rebellion against slave owners in Jackson, Louisiana. Hulin also gives examples of Southern dialect and briefly discusses his work as a teacher.

The papers primarily document the administration of the debt-burdened estate of Auchinleck after the death of Sir Alexander Boswell in 1822. The collection also includes the letters by Charles Douglas, a planter in Jamaica, concerning many aspects of his life and career, such as his ownership of slaves and opinions about slavery, immigrant life in Jamaica, and the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on the Caribbean.

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.

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.”

Fourteen autograph letters, signed, by members of the extended Junken family, primarily to Noble and Maria Junken. Margaret Junken and Richard Conkling both write on the subject of African Americans: Margaret describes what she sees as the happy lives of Louisiana slaves and Richard describes a hired African American girl’s attempted murder of her child in 1837.

Holograph manuscript containing copies of letters sent by William Codrington to his agents in Antigua and Barbuda from 1779 to 1782 concerning the management of his estates and accounts, the employment of servants and slaves, the sugar trade, and the effects of war on contact with the West Indies.

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.

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.

Printed forms, completed in manuscript, containing the triennial registration information for the slaves of Edward Owen of Jamaica as required by the Jamaica Registration Act of 1816 and the British Slave Registration Act of 1819. The 1817 form contains information for each slave including name, age, color, and origin (African or Creole) and often lists the mothers of Jamaica-born slaves. The returns for 1820 and after provide information on slaves acquired since the previous return, and also indicate whether they were obtained by birth, purchase, or inheritance.

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.

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.

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 collection contains plantation records and a manuscript volume, “Obras completas de Juan Francisco Manzano esclavo de la Isla de Cuba.” The volume includes Manzano’s autobiography, letters, poetry and the drama, Zafira. Also included is a list of people who contributed money to purchase Manzano’s freedom.

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.

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.

The records consist of family papers, plantation journals, crop books, overseers’ journals, account books, medical records, and slave lists relating to antebellum southern plantations from the American Revolution through the Civil War. Over 600 microfilm reels from numerous regional archives.

Materials related to slave labor in skilled industries such as gold and coal mining, iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brick-making, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and heavy construction. Including over 150 microfilm reels, the collection is based on documents from the Duke University Library, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the Virginia Historical Society and the University of Virginia Library. More information is available online.

The records consist of statutes passed in fifteen states that deal with slavery, free blacks, and the broader issue of race. Also included are private laws, special acts, legislative resolutions, and state constitutions with subsequent revisions. A published guide is available.