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A Slave's Walk in Colonial New York
By 1740, almost twenty percent of New York's population was African American and roughly half of white households owned at least one slave. While slaves were forced to live and work alongside whites, they sought out the company of other [...]
New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (Excerpt)
In the following passage, historian Jill Lepore carefully considers an enslaved man's walk through 1740s Manhattan. The slave, who was known as Pedro, described a Sunday walk through Manhattan as part of a confession that he gave during the [...]
A Southern Professor Defends the Fugitive Slave Law
Albert Taylor Bledsoe, a professor at the University of Virginia, wrote this proslavery tract, Liberty and Slavery, in 1856. Bledsoe defended the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, justified slavery as compatible with the Bible, [...]
Excerpt from Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (with text supports)
In this book excerpt, historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger explain the difficulties faced by runaway slaves who attempted to escape to northern states or Canada. Franklin and Schweninger studied many primary source documents to reach [...]
Colonial New York Slave Codes: Pedro's Walk (with text supports)
By 1740, almost twenty percent of New York's population was African American and roughly half of white households owned at least one slave. While slaves were forced to live and work alongside whites, they sought out the company of other African [...]
Militant Abolitionists Rescue a Fugitive Enslaved Man in Troy, New York
Militant black and white abolitionists organized opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act. In 1859 Harriet Tubman, a former enslaved person and leader of the underground railroad, played a central role in rescuing Charles Nalle. Nalle, who had run away [...]