Slavery in the United States: Home

A guide for resources at the University of Iowa on the history of slavery in the United States

About this Guide

Guide content supports the teaching and research goals of multiple departments on campus. Content represents a non-exhaustive selection of essential resources and tools for engaging a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.

Spotlight on...

Black Abolitionist Papers
This collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.

Archive Finder

Archive Finder including ArchivesUSA and NIDS UK/Ireland

Archive Finder is a current directory which describes over 206,200 collections of primary source material housed in thousands of repositories across the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Powerful searching integrated with detailed subject indexing helps researchers to uncover historical collections.

Sojourner Truth

"Abolitionist and women's-rights leader Sojourner Truth worked tirelessly for the poor and disenfranchised in mid-nineteenth century America. Born into slavery, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843 to reflect her religious conversion and her commitment to reform. soon after, she was traveling throughout the nation lecturing about the inhumanity of slavery and the rights of African Americans and women. A tall and imposing figure, she fought especially for the poor, sho often had no voice in such debates, as she knew from personal experience, asking famously, "and ain't I a woman?" To heighten awareness for her work and to raise funds to support it, Truth sold copies of her autobiography and photographs of herself. As she wrote on the mounts of many of these portraits, "I sell the shadow to support the substance.""

caption credit: Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, "Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits," 2007, (July 27, 2009)