Overview

Advertisement for the sale of 23 slaves. “Auction Sale of Negros” located in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.

• Slavery Timeline
  See key events in the history of slavery in America.
• Slaves in South Carolina: 1525-1865
  Read more about the selling of slaves, the life of a slave, and black revolts in South Carolina.
• African Americans at the Nathaniel Russell House
  Find out more about the lives of the eighteen enslaved African Americans living in this Charleston home.
• The African American Experience
  Learn about slave life and see the inside of a slave cabin on the Latta Plantation in North Carolina.
• The Middle Passage
  The Middle Passage was the boat trip from Africa and the Americans that enslaved Africans were forced to take.

Culture

• What is Gullah?
  Learn about the rich Gullah culture that continues in Charleston and the Lowcountry.
• A Year in the Life
  Read the entries from a plantation account book to learn more about the life on a plantation.
• Slaves of General Thomas F. Drayton
  This photograph of a large group of slaves in Hilton Head shows the dress and living quarters of the slaves.
• Harvesting the Rice
  The slave in the drawing from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine is harvesting rice on a plantation in the Lowcountry.
• Slave Quarters
  Click and drag on the image to explore a slave dwelling at the McLeod Plantation on James Island.
• Slave Work Songs
  Slave work gangs sang call-and-response songs to regulate their movements, talk about their feelings, and make comments about their masters and overseers.
  • Music in Slave Life

Pieces of History

• Slave Artifacts
  Take a look at several artifacts made and worn by slaves, including shackles, servant tags, and a slave-made chair.
• Charleston Slave Passes
  In Charleston, slaves needed permission notes to be away from their master’s property.
• Slave Collar
  Slave collars made of iron were used to punish and identify slaves who had tried to run away.
• Ran Off
  Read a newspaper advertisement from September 18, 1762, offering a reward for a runaway slave.
• Broadside Announcing the Sale of Slaves
  A broadside is a sheet of paper used as a poster to announce an event. This one is from 1769, announcing the sale of 250 slaves in Charleston.

Explore with DISCUS*

* Requires access to the DISCUS databases. Learn more here.

• Follow the Drinking Gourd: North to Freedom
  Find out how some slaves escaped and where they went.
• The Fugitive Slave Law: Meet the People
  The Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850 and declared that fugitive slaves who escaped to Northern states must be returned to their masters.
• Slavery
  Learn more about the practice of slavery in America and around the world.