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- Slavery Collection, 1709-1864
- The Slavery Collection contains correspondence and legal and financial documents related to the North American slave trade, slave ownership, abolition, and political issues pertinent to slavery. The Slavery Collection is called an "artificial" collection because unrelated items with different provenance have been grouped together according to subject matter. Highlights of the collection include the records of Samuel and William Vernon, business partners involved in the triangular trade, 1756-1799; the Rhode Island slave trading firm of Gardner and Dean, 1771-1787; material relating to slavery in Kentucky, 1785-1864; the records of E.H. Stokes, slave trader in Richmond, Va., 1859-1862; manifests of slave ships, 1812-1855; and birth certificates of children born into slavery in New York, 1800-1818.
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- Le code noir ou Edit du roy, servant de reglement pour le gouvernement & l’administration de justice & la police des isles françoises de l’Amerique, & pour la discipline & le commerce des negres & esclaves dans ledit pays. : Donné à Versailles au mois de
- The first edition of the French code noir regulating slavery in the Antilles, and one of only two copies in the United States. "Edit du roy ... pour l’établissement du conseil souverain & de quatre siéges royaux dans la coste de l’isle de Saint-Domingue en l’Amerique. Du mois d’aoust 1685"--Page 12-14. Signatures: A-B⁴. Leaf B4 blank., New-York Historical Society
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- Rhode Island (Ship), Trade book of the sloop Rhode Island, December 1748-July 1749
- Account book, January 18-May 6, 1749, kept aboard the sloop Rhode Island while on a voyage to Africa to transport enslaved Africans to America for her owners, Philip Livingston and Sons, New York City. Peter James was shipmaster. Included are accounts for the purchase of enslaved people, and goods like gold, for sales of rum and other provisions to the crew, various expenses, the purchase of provisions, an inventory of goods delivered to Captain David Lindsey, a record of the deaths of those held captive on the ship, and other incidents aboard the Rhode Island, etc. The trading was carried out on various locations between contemporary Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.
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- An evening thought. : Salvation by Christ, with penetential cries: / composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr Lloyd, of Queen’s-Village, on Long-Island, the 25th of December, 1760
- The first poem published by an African American in North America. Verse of eighty-eight lines; first line: Salvation comes by Jesus Christ alone., New-York Historical Society
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- Granville Sharp collection, 1768-1803 (bulk 1768-1773)
- The collection includes three volumes, correspondence, and documents, 1768-1803, related to English abolitionist and reformer Granville Sharp (1735-1813). The first volume contains copies of letters and related documents, 1768-1773, sent to Granville Sharp, transcribed in his own handwriting and concerning such matters as slavery, the slave trade, its evils, legal and social aspects, etc. It includes letters from Joseph Banks, Anthony Benezet, William Blackstone, Jacob Bryant, John Fothergill, Francis Hargrave, Arthur Lee, Michael Lort, and Benjamin Rush. The second volume contains Granville Sharp's copy of proceedings in the Court of King's Bench, London, February and June, 1771, in the case of Thomas Lewis, an enslaved Black man, against his alleged owner, Robert Stapylton, along with John Maloney and Aaron Armstrong, for assault and imprisonment. Proceedings include transcripts of testimony given by Lewis and others. Also included are tipped-in copies of Granville Sharp's remarks on the case and transcripts of the 1st and 2nd motions for judgment against Stapylton. The third volume consists of Granville Sharp's copy of part of the court proceedings in the 1772 case of James Sommersett, an enslaved man from Virginia belonging to Charles Stewart. The case was heard in the Court of King's Bench, London, before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield and three other Justices. Granville Sharp involved himself in the case, and it was the subsequent decision of the court that enslaved people became free upon entering England. The volume contains the arguments for Sommersett of William Davy and John Glynn, and ends with Mansfield adjourning the proceedings to the following term. In addition, the collection includes miscellaneous documents and letters, 1772-1774 and 1784-1803, including extracts from letters of Anthony Benezet, and letters written by Granville Sharp to correspondents such as Benjamin Franklin, Campbell Haliburton, Rufus King, Joseph Reed, William White, and John Witherspoon.
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- Jupiter Hammon poem on Anne Hutchinson, 1770
- Untitled poem attributed to Jupiter Hammon (1711-circa 1806), a Black man enslaved by the Lloyd family, proprietors of the Manor of Queens Village in what is now the Village of Lloyd Harbor, N.Y. It was composed as a tribute to Anne Hutchinson, who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for challenging the authority of Puritan ministers. The poem is part of the Townsend family papers, and was written down by Phebe Townsend, youngest of Robert Townsend's three sisters. The Townsends interacted with the Lloyd family. Inscribed at the foot of page [3]: “Compos[e]d by Jupiter Hammon, A Negro Belonging to Mr. Joseph Lloyd of Q[u]eens Villiage [sic] on Long Island. August the 10th 1770. Phebe Townsend.”
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- An address to the inhabitants of the British settlements in America, upon slave-keeping
- Title page of an early appeal against slavery by a signer of the Declaration of Independence and noted physician. The pamphlet will be digitized in full at a future date. Published anonymously. Rush acknowledged authorship in the preface to his Essays, 1798. Signatures: [A]⁴ B-D⁴. References: Evans 12990; Sabin 74202; ESTC W5139., New-York Historical Society
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- New-York Manumission Society records, 1785-1849
- New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves (1785-1849), commonly known as the New-York Manumission Society, was established to publicly promote the abolition of slavery and manumission of enslaved people in New York State. While this was the publicly stated goal, numerous members still enslaved people in their own households, including John Jay and Rufus King. The society provided legal and financial assistance to manumitted African Americans in need of protection and enslaved people seeking manumission, and supported legislation and efforts to enforce laws banning the sale of people in New York State. The records include meeting minutes, commission reports, financial records, indentures, and registers from the year of its organization to its dissolution in 1849. Subjects covered include appointments, elections, political activities, finances, reports on individual cases, the sponsorship and operation of the African Free School and African American houses of refuge. Among its active members were: Robert C. Cornell, W.W. Woolsey, Nehemiah Allen, Melancton Smith, William T. Slocum, Samuel Bowne, Adrian Hegeman, Willet Seaman, Thomas Burling, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, James Duane, John Murray, Jr., William Dunlap, Alexander McDougall, Noah Webster, and Egbert Benson.
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- Plymouth Committee, The annexed plate represents the lower deck of an African ship of 297 tons burthen, with the slaves stowed on it ... [1789?]
- This engraving shows bodies packed into the cargo hold of a slave ship. First published in 1788 by the Plymouth Committee of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, it gestures toward the brutality of the Middle Passage from Africa to New World slave markets. By the end of the eighteenth century, the image had proliferated in British and American abolitionist propaganda in varied forms and with different accompanying texts. It remains today one of the most recognizable symbols of abolition and the transatlantic slave trade. The engraved illustration has caption: "Plan of an African ship’s lower deck, with Negroes, in the proportion of not quite one to a ton". Signed at end: By the Plymouth Committee, W. Elford, chairman. Printed as a broadside in Philadelphia, 1789 under title: Remarks on the slave trade., English short title catalogue T148326, New-York Historical Society
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- William Fox's A call to the people of Great Britain, to refrain from the use of West India sugar and rum, 1791
- Anonymous. By William Fox. Formerly attributed to William Bell Crafton. Also published in the same year under the title ’An address to the people of Great Britain, on the propriety of abstaining from West India sugar and rum’. Signatures: A⁶. ESTC T192271., New-York Historical Society
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- John Clarkson manuscripts, August 6, 1791-August 4, 1792
- John Clarkson (1764-1828) was an English abolitionist, agent for the Sierra Leone Company, and lieutenant in the British Royal Navy. The collection consists of Clarkson's manuscripts, written in journal form, of his involvement with the settlement of free African-American loyalists from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, Africa. The loyalists had been evacuated from New York when the British pulled out at the end of the Revolutionary War and initially settled in Nova Scotia. Volume 1, entitled "Clarkson's Mission to America," covers August 6, 1791-March 18, 1792 as Clarkson arranged for the transportation of the settlers; it provides a detailed account of his activities in Nova Scotia, persons he met there, and the problems fitting out the ships. Volume 2, entitled "Clarksons Mission to Africa," covers March 19, 1792-August 4, 1792. Clarkson's account of the founding and first months of Free Town, Sierra Leone gives numerous details of the difficulties met, relations with the native population, attitudes of the Nova Scotia settlers, and supplies.
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- Town Book for Castletown For the Entry of Black Children, 1799-1827
- This booklet contains birth records and deeds of manumission for African American children in the town of Castleton, Staten Island, N.Y. between 1799 and 1827. Castleton is a former town located in the northeastern part of Staten Island, prior to the incorporation of Staten Island into New York City in 1898., New-York Historical Society
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- Injured humanity; : being a representation of what the unhappy children of Africa endure from those who call themselves Christians
- A broadside that graphically illustrates the brutalities of the life of enslaved people in the hope of effecting a boycott of the West Indian trade in enslaved people. Wood-engraving at upper left signed: A.A. [Alexander Anderson]. Samuel Wood is listed at this address in New York City directories from 1805-1808. The text and illustrations in this broadside also appear in the following work, first issued by Wood in 1807: The mirror of misery, or, Tyranny exposed. Not in Shaw & Shoemaker. Not in Lib. Company. Afro-Americana. New-York Historical copy: wood engraving at upper left is not signed; wood engraving at middle right is signed: "A"., New-York Historical Society
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- New-York African Free School records, 1817-1832
- These records cover the latter portion of the African Free-Schools' existence, ending two years before oversight for the schools was transferred to the Public School Society. They relate to classroom observation, student performance, behavior and promotions, as well as examples of lessons and student work. The records are in four volumes. The first includes regulations, by-laws, and reports, from 1817 to 1832. The regulations are for the format of the school's examination procedures, while the reports give numbers of students promoted for each quarter. These are limited to school No. 1. A substantial portion of the volume is also made up of observations of the visiting committee, giving their impressions of the progress being made, along with the behavior and organization of the classroom and students. The second volume is also filled with reports and observations of the visiting committee, but these are limited to school No. 2, and cover 1820 to 1831. Added to the closing pages of the volume are several pages of lessons on adding, subtracting and division of money, with examples. The third volume includes extracts, compositions, addresses and pieces spoken at public examinations for 1818 to 1826, but early pages do include some material on promotions. The fourth volume complements the third with penmanship and drawing studies by the students from 1816 to 1826. Of particular interest are copies of the speech given by prominent African American physician James McCune Smith on the occasion of the Marquis de La Fayette's visit to New York in 1824. While there is little, if any, information on individuals in the first two volumes, attributions are often given for the material appearing in volumes three and four.
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- Joseph Goodwin diary, 1820-1827
- Joseph Goodwin was a plantation manager in Cuba originally from Hudson, N.Y. This diary was presumably kept by Goodwin, although it may have been kept by his brother. After leaving home in Hudson, N.Y., Goodwin worked for Gen. George De Wolf, first in Bristol, Rhode Island for a few months and then on De Wolf's plantations near Matanzas, Cuba as a manager or overseer. The plantations grew mainly coffee, although other crops are mentioned. The crops were worked by enslaved labor. The diary entries are mainly routine and record weather, plantation activities, people met, and local news. They often mention George and William De Wolf. While in Cuba, Goodwin stayed first at the home of John Line and later at the plantations Buena Esperanza and Arca de Noe. Some pages of the diary are missing.
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- Freedom’s journal, Vol. I, No. 3, New-York, Friday, March 30, 1827
- First page of Vol. I, no. 3 (March 30, 1827) of the first newspaper published by African Americans in the United States. Weekly. Published: Vol. 1, no. 1 (March 16, 1827)-v. 2, no. 27 (September 26, 1828) ; v. 2, whole no. 80 (October 3, 1828)-v. 2, whole no. 104 (March 28, 1829). Issues for April 11, 1828-September 26, 1828 called also whole no. 55-whole no. 79. New-York Historical holds scattered issues. Freedom's journal has been digitized in its entirety from microfilm by the Wisconsin Historical Society, and is available on its website, https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS4415., New-York Historical Society
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- James F. Brown papers, 1827-1866
- James F. Brown (1793-1868) was the gardener of the Verplanck family at Mount Gulian, Fishkill, New York. Brown had been enslaved in Maryland before running away, and the Verplancks purchased his time after he was found by his enslaver. The collection consists of 8 diaries, 1829-1866, during which time Brown was gardener for the Verplanck family; 1 receipt book, 1832-1857, recording some personal and household expenses, although most entries are unspecified; and 1 memorandum book, 1827-1843. Entries in the diaries are brief, with little elaboration, and pertain to such matters as the weather, local deaths, his gardening activities, the passage of boats on the Hudson, etc. The diaries are not entirely chronological, as in several instances the entries for a year have been copied into a later volume.
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- Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society records, 1832-1870
- Correspondence and papers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, originally known as the New-England Anti-Slavery Society. Included are petitions to the legislature, resolutions, donations to the Liberator, lists of members and supporters, letters about slavery, editorials, meetings, a list of individuals who had escaped slavery and were aided by the Vigilance Committee, accounts of others who had fled from slavery, including the narrative of Jonathan Thomas, a man who had escaped slavery in Kentucky; and lists, letters, editorials, and other papers pertaining to the notorious case of Anthony Burns. Persons whose names appear frequently include: Francis Jackson, Wendell Phillips, Ellis Gray Loring, Edmund Quincy, William Lloyd Garrison, and Samuel E. Sewall.
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- Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans records, 1836-1972 (bulk 1850-1936)
- The Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans was founded in 1836 and was originally located on Fifth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets in Manhattan. The Colored Orphan Asylum was among the earliest organizations in the country to provide housing, training, and employment specifically for African American orphans. During the Draft Riots of July 14, 1863, the Colored Orphan Asylum was attacked by a mob. At that time, it housed some 600 to 800 homeless children in a large four story building surrounded by grounds and gardens. The crowd plundered the Asylum, then set fire to the first floor. While the children were evacuated, the building burned to the ground. The records of the Colored Orphan Asylum document the activities of the institution from 1836 to 1972, with the bulk of the records falling between 1850 and 1936.
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- Mahlon Day's Journal of a voyage among the West India Islands, November 11, 1839-April 20, 1840
- Mahlon Day (1790-1854) was a Quaker, publisher of children's books, printer, and bookseller in New York City. This is a contemporary copy of a diary kept by Day while on a tour of the West Indies (November 1839-April 1840) in the company of Joseph John Gurney, the English Quaker philanthropist, minister, and writer. In most of the places they visited, they did considerable sightseeing, held religious services for all faiths, and were entertained by many residents. They were particularly interested in education, religion, and the condition of the Black population, especially on the free islands as compared to those that still permitted slavery. Day also includes many rhymes composed by Gurney to commemorate particular occasions. Persons whom they visited include Sir W.M.B.G. Colebrooke and Nathaniel Gilbert of Antigua, and John and Maria Candler of Jamaica.
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- Lysander Spooner papers, 1844-1886
- Correspondence, including letters received and copies of letters sent by Boston lawyer and abolitionist Lysander Spooner (1808-1887). Many of the letters pertain to Spooner’s activities as an abolitionist and author of works opposing slavery. Included are 100 letters to or from George Bradburn, 106 letters to or from Gerrit Smith, 7 pieces of correspondence with Charles D. Cleveland, 7 with Daniel Drayton, 19 with Richard Goodell, 10 with Charles D. Miller, 9 with John A. Thomson, 11 letters from Daniel McFarland, and 4 letters from Lewis Tappan.
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- Caesar, an enslaved man, 1851
- Daguerreotype. Portrait of an African-American male figure, three quarters-length, front view, holding a staff or a shovel (?) in his right hand, wearing a white collar, dark foulard, and checked waistcoat. A note taped to the back of the case identifies the sitter and sitter's history: "born a slave of Van R. Nicoll, son of William, in 1737 at Bethlehem, N.Y., where he died in 1852, the last slave to die in the North.”, New-York Historical Society
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- Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a northern slave : emancipated from bodily servitude by the state of New York, in 1828 …
- Frontispiece portrait of Sojourner Truth from the New York, 1853 edition of her published memoir. Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries has digitized its copy of this book and made it available via the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/narrativeofsojour00gilb. New-York Historical copy has imprint date on cover: 1855., New-York Historical Society
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- Charles Sumner's The anti-slavery enterprise, 1855
- Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was a United States senator from Massachusetts and a campaigner against slavery. This is a draft of a version of the speech delivered in New York on May 9, 1855, and published that year under the title "The anti-slavery enterprise." Internal evidence indicates that it was to be delivered to a Boston audience, probably on May 15, 1855. The digital collection includes the draft along with the published version (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855).
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- Bolton, Dickens & Co. account book, 1856-1858
- Account book, 1856-1858, kept by the prominent slave trading firm of Bolton, Dickens & Co. of Lexington, Kentucky, with branches in Memphis, Charleston, Natchez, and New Orleans. It chiefly records people purchased and sold by the firm, with entries giving the names of enslaved people, purchase and selling price, profit, names of suppliers, and occasional remarks. Some persons involved in the firm's recorded transactions were Washington Bolton, Isaac Bolton, Samuel Dickens, and the slave trader G.L. Bumpass. Of additional note is a copy of an 1857 letter to Isaac Bolton, probably written by his brother Washington Bolton while Isaac was in prison awaiting trial for the murder of slave dealer James McMillan of Kentucky following a dispute in Memphis concerning McMillan's sale to Bolton of an enslaved 16-year old boy who was later revealed to be free, and other related documents. The volume was later employed as a day book by "B.B.W." (possibly B.B. Wadell) and contains accounts for the year 1865.
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- Petition of Citizens of New York to Abraham Lincoln, undated [circa 1862]
- Undated petition, probably circa 1862, to United States President Abraham Lincoln from citizens of New York requesting that the governor of New York be authorized to raise a number of regiments composed wholly or partly of African American troops, including the signatures and addresses of petitioners. In scroll form, approximately 25 feet long., Mss Collection - BV Petitions, New-York Historical Society
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- Men of color, to arms! : a call by Frederick Douglass
- In this broadside, African American statesman Frederick Douglass urges Black men to fight for the Union and enlist in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Signed at end: Frederick Douglass, Rochester, March 2, 1863., New-York Historical Society
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- I sell the shadow to support the substance. Sojourner Truth
- Carte de visite photograph of the antislavery activist, feminist, and social reformer Sojourner Truth. The "shadow" refers to her photographic image, which she sold to raise money for her various progressive causes., New-York Historical Society
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- By the president of the United States. A proclamation. … That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof sh
- Souvenir copy of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, with autograph signatures of Lincoln, William Seward, Secretary of State, and John Nicolay, Private Secretary to the President. This is known as the Leland-Boker edition of the Emancipation Proclamation, after the two men who arranged for its printing by Frederick Leypoldt and subsequent sale at the Philadelphia Great Central Sanitary Fair of June 7-29, 1864. The Sanitary Fairs were created to raise money for sick and wounded soldiers, and to improve conditions in military camps., New-York Historical Society
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- Seven moments of love : an un-sonnet sequence in blues : typescript, 1939
- Typescript of a series of seven poems by Langston Hughes, the African American poet and playwright. The title page is inscribed by Hughes to Earl Jones and dated 1939. Robert Earl Jones was an American actor and prizefighter and a figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, having worked with Langston Hughes early in his career., New-York Historical Society