Reenacting slavery at Chickamauga National Military Park. When a reenactor put his knapsack on the ground, the person portraying his slave picked up his knapsack and "moved it before I could say a word. I instantly knew that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the institution's cruelty here, and so I did not acknowledge his act, did not thank him for it, did not make eye contact, did not stop my talk. My own cruelty -- even to make a teaching point to the audience -- made me shudder inside." [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Sep 24, 2008 - 34 comments

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a nice collection of Thomas Jefferson's papers online. It includes two catalogs of Jefferson's books, a draft of the Declaration of Independence and his Garden Book. Architectural Drawings too! [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Aug 22, 2008 - 6 comments

This is what happens when you ask a bunch of fifth-graders to write a play about slavery. The teacher claims the only advice he gave them was "Keep working, it isn't good enough." [via] [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Jun 16, 2008 - 46 comments

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has some cool online exhibits. The original list of dead bodies recovered from the Titanic sinking caught my eye, they also have original log book pages from privateers, lighthouses, slavery and abolition, boats, boats, and more boats. [via]
posted by marxchivist on Apr 20, 2006 - 11 comments

"In slavery times the negroes were sold to the white people." In their simple and plain language, elementary school students describe the horrors of slavery as related by their grandparents. The Greensboro Historical Museum has an online exhibit of the interviews. Another quote: "He said that the white men would whip them and sometimes hung men and women when they were mad with them or if the slaves tried to run away." The handwriting is kind of hard to read on some of these, but worth it.
posted by marxchivist on Aug 17, 2005 - 26 comments

School Drops Slavery Booklet after it receives criticism about the book's description of slavery as a benign institution where the slaves led "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Dec 11, 2004 - 38 comments

The Race & Slavery Petitions Project indexes and abstracts over 18,000 petitions to county courts and state assemblies between the years 1777 and 1867 relating to race and slavery. There is a nice searchable database and the full-text and images of some of them are viewable here.

This has some great slices of life and labor in the old south, from people trying to free their slaves to owners looking to be reimbursed for their dead slaves.

While I'm at it, lots more primary sources on slavery in America at the Documenting the American South web page, a site this history nerd can never get enough of.
posted by marxchivist on Nov 25, 2004 - 10 comments