Highlights
- Nearly 70 items document the court cases surrounding the revolt by enslaved captives on the Amistad. These include handwritten transcripts of testimony given by the African rebels during the trial in Connecticut.
- The US Navy’s African Squadron’s efforts to protect American trading activity in western Africa and suppress the illegal import of enslaved people are reported in more than 70 letters and two letterbooks.
- A collection of 87 documents spanning two centuries chronicles slavery in Middlesex County, Virginia. The materials include slave sales documents, a document regarding a free Black man purchasing and emancipating his bride-to-be, and the by-laws for the Colored Ladies Lincoln Association.
- John English’s Mississippi plantation journals totaling more than 400 pages cover all aspects of running a plantation in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods; includes records such as lists of enslaved peoples’ names and how much cotton each person picked per day.
- More than 200 documents chronicle the career of Andrew Jackson as a soldier and the US president. These include materials relating to his American Indian policies, nullification, personal letters, and his last will and testament.
- Approximately 700 items relating to Texas history including colonization, independence from Mexico, annexation by the United States, and the Civil War; includes four rare petitions from free Black people in Texas who sold themselves and their families into slavery in order to stay in the state.
- 41 items from Army Surgeon John B. Moore written during the Utah Expedition contain his firsthand account of the Mormon wars and his graphic description of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Moore’s service and his letters continue through the Civil War.
- Compilation of the proceedings of women's rights conventions from 1850 to 1854, including a printing of the Declaration of Sentiments from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.