AP African American Studies Resource Archive | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Front page of the newspaper Freedom's Journal, March 30, 1827

“Our Claims Are on America”

1828

Read this excerpt from an oration by Thomas Jennings on Black identity.

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A written legal document from 1781 certifying Cuffee Wells' purchase of freedom.

Doctor Cuffee Saunders

1781

Read about how Cuffee Wells Saunders gained his freedom.

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A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti

1805

Read a translation of some of Haiti’s founding principles as an independent nation.

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