Bibliography
North American Slavery in Comparative Perspective:
Sources for Teaching, Research, and General Background
Bibliographies:
Miller, Joseph C., Slavery: A Worldwide Bibliography, 1900-1982 (1985); for works published
after 1985, see Miller, “Slavery: Annual Bibliography Supplements,” in Slavery &
Abolition: A Journal of Comparative Studies
Miller, Randal M. and John David Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (1988)
Smith, John David, Black Slavery in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography, 18651980 (1982)
General:
Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves
Blackburn, Robin, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 14921800
Curtin, Philip, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History
Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture
Davis, David Brion, Slavery and Human Progress
Foner, Eric, The Story of American Freedom
Foner, Philip S., History of Black Americans: From Africa to the Emergence of the Cotton
Kingdom
Goodheart, Lawrence B., Richard D. Brown, and Stephen G. Rabe, Slavery in American Society,
3rd ed. (D.C. Heath, Problems in American Civilization series; extensive selections from
secondary and primary sources, excellent for students)
Gutman, Herbert G., The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925
Kelley, Robin D.G. and Earl Lewis, eds., To Make Our World Anew: A History of African
Americans
Kolchin, Peter, American Slavery, 1619-1877
Patterson, Orlando, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
Patterson, Orlando, Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture
Tannenbaum, Frank, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas
Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery
Slavery, Memory and Popular Representations:
Blight, David W., Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
Bogle, Donald, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of
Blacks in American Films
Davis, Natalie Zemon, Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision
Diedrich, Maria, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen, eds., Black Imagination and the
Middle Passage
Fleishner, Jennifer, Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family, and Identity in Women’s Slave
Narratives
Painter, Nell Irvin, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Wood, Marcus, Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America,
1780-1865
1
Bibliography
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:
Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census
Eltis, David, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
Inikori, Joseph E. and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade
Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa
Manning, Patrick, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental and African Slave Trades
Miller, Joseph, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830
Northrup, David, ed., The Atlantic Slave Trade
Phillips, William D., Jr., Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade
Rodney, Walter, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800
Solow, Barbara L., ed., Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System
Thornton, John K., Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680
Slavery in the Caribbean and Elsewhere:
Beckles, Hilary, and Verene Shepherd, eds., Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World
Blackburn, Robin, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery
Dunn, Richard, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the West Indies, 1624-1713
Finley, Moses I., Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology
Goveia, Elsa, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century
James, C.L.R., The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
Knight, Franklin W., Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century
Lewis, Bernard, Race and Slavery in the Middle East
Palmer, Colin, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650
Schwartz, Stuart, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society
Tomich, Dale W. Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar: Martinique and the World Economy, 1830-48
Toplin, Robert Brent, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil
Colonial Slavery:
Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
Berlin, Ira, and Ronald Hoffman, eds., Slavery and Freedom in the Age of Revolution
Breen, Timothy H., and Steven Innes, Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia’s
Eastern Shore, 1640-1675
Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole
Culture in the Eighteenth Century
Kulikoff, Allan, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake,
1680-1800
Landers, Jane, Black Society in Spanish Florida
Morgan, Edmund S., American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
Morgan, Philip D., Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and
Lowcountry
Olwell, Robert, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low
Country, 1740-1790
Quarles, Benjamin, The Negro in the American Revolution
2
Bibliography
3
Usner, Daniel, Indians, Settlers & Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: the Lower
Mississippi Valley before 1783
Walsh, Lorena, From Calabar to Carter’s Grove: A History of a Virginia Slave Community
Wood, Peter, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono
Rebellion
Slavery in the North:
Hodges, Graham Russell, Root & Branch: African Americans in New York & East Jersey, 16131863
Hodges, Graham Russell, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in
Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865
Horton, James O. and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest
among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860
McManus, Edgar J., A History of Negro Slavery in New York
Melish Joanne Pope, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 17801860
Nash, Gary B., Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 17201840
Piersen, William D., Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Sub-Culture in
Eighteenth Century New England
White, Shane, Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City
Zilversmit, Arthur, The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North
Identities, Culture, and Religion:
Abrahams, Roger D., Singing the Master: The Emergence of African American Culture in the
Plantation South
Bentley, Judith, Harriet Tubman
Fields, Barbara J., “Race and Ideology in American History,” in J. Morgan Kousser and James
McPherson, eds., Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward
Frey, Sylvia R.and Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the
American South and British Caribbean to 1830
Gomez, Michael, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in
The Colonial and Antebellum South
Levine, Lawrence, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from
Slavery to Freedom
Mintz, Sidney W. and Richard Price, The Birth of African American Culture: An
Anthropological Perspective
Painter, Nell Irvin, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Palmie, Stephan, ed., Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery
Rael, Patrick, Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North
Stuckey, Sterling, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundation of Black America
Thompson, Robert Faris, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy
Vlach, John Michael, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery
Woodson, Carter G., The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written during the Crisis,
1800-1860
Bibliography
Gendered Slavery:
Alexander, Adele Logan, Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Antebellum Georgia
Brown, Elsa Barkley, Darlene Clark Hine, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds., Black Women in
America: An Historical Encyclopedia
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old
South
Frankel, Noralee, Freedom’s Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi
Gaspar, David Barry and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More Than Chattel: Black Women and
Slavery in the Americas
Jones, Jacqueline, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family, From
Slavery to the Present
Schwalm, Leslie A., A Hard Fight for We: Women’s Transition from Slavery to Freedom in
South Carolina
White, Deborah Grey, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South
Antebellum Slavery and Freedom:
Berlin, Ira and Philip D. Morgan, eds., Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave
Life in the Americas
Berlin, Ira and Philip D. Morgan, eds., The Slaves’ Economy: Independent Production by Slaves
in the Americas
Berlin, Ira, Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South
Blassingame, John, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South
Dew, Charles B., Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge
Elkins, Stanley, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life
Faust, Drew Gilpin, James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery
(especially chapter 5)
Fogel, Robert W., Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery
Fogel, Robert William, and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of
American Negro Slavery
Genovese, Eugene, Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
Hudson, Larry E. Jr., ed., Working Towards Freedom: Slave Society and Domestic Economy in
the American South
Hudson, Larry E., To Have and to Hold: Slave Work and Family Life in Antebellum South Carolina
Johnson, Michael P. and James L Roark, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old
South
Johnson, Walter, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
Jones
Joyner, Charles, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community
King, Wilma, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America
Kolchin, Peter, Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom
Lockley, Timothy, Lines in the Sand: Race and Class in Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1860
Painter
Phillips, Christopher, Freedom’s Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 17901860
Reidy, Joseph, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central
Georgia, 1800-1880 (especially chapters 1-5)
4
Bibliography
Schwartz, Marie Jenkins, Born in Bondage: Growing up Enslaved in the Antebellum South
Stampp, Kenneth, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South
Stevenson, Brenda E., Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South
Tadman, Michael, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders and Slaves in the Old South
Takagi, Midori, Rearing Wolves to our own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond, Virginia, 17821865
Whitman, T. Stephen, The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early
National Maryland
Slavery and the Law:
Fehrenbacher, Don, The Slaveholders Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s
Relations to Slavery
Finkleman, Paul, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity
Lynd, Staughton, Class Conflict, Slavery and the United States Constitution
Morris, Thomas, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1689-1860
Schafer, Judith Kelleher, Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana
Schwartz, Philip, Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1856
The Destruction of Slavery:
Berlin, Ira, Barbara J. Fields, Steven F. Miller, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, Slaves
No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War
Faust, Drew Gilpin, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American
Civil War
Fields, Barbara Jeanne, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the
Nineteenth Century
Mohr, Clarence L., On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia
Quarles, Benjamin, The Negro in the Civil War
Published Primary Sources:
Andrews, William L., ed., Six Women’s Slave Narratives
Berlin, Ira, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., The Black Military Experience
Berlin, Ira, Barbara J. Fields, Thavolia Glymph, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., The
Destruction of Slavery
Berlin, Ira and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African
American Kinship in the Civil War Era
Berlin, Ira, Barbara J. Fields, Steven F. Miller, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds.,
Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War
Berlin, Ira, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom’s Soldiers: The Black Military
Experience in the Civil War
Berlin, Ira, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller, eds., Remembering Slavery: African Americans
Talk about their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation
Blassingame, John W., ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews,
and Autobiographies (CALL #: E444.S57)
Carretta, Vincent, ed., Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English
Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century
5
Bibliography
6
Conrad, Robert E., ed., In the Hands of Strangers: Readings on Foreign and Domestic Slave
Trading and the Crisis of the Union (CALL #: E441.I49 2001)
Curtin, Phillip, ed., Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans From the Era of the Slave
Trade
Davis, Charles T. and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., The Slave’s Narrative
Davis, David Brion and Steven Mintz, eds., This Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History
of America From Discovery Through the Civil War (CALL #: MCK Ref E187.B65 1998)
Douglass, Frederick, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, ed. David
W. Blight
Equiano, Olaudah, Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, ed. Vincent
Carretta
Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, ed., Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy,
1699-1860: Computerized Information from Original Manuscript Sources
Hodges, Graham Russell and Alan Edward Brown, eds., “Pretends to Be Free:” Runaway Slave
Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (CALL #:
E445.N56P74 1994)
Jacobs, Harriet A., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself
McLaurin, Melton A., Celia: A Slave
Miller, Randall M., ed., Dear Master: Letters of a Slave Family (CALL #: E444.D42 1978)
Mullin, Michael, ed., American Negro Slavery: A Documentary History (CALL #: E441.A577 1976)
Newman, Richard, Patrick Rael, and Philip Lapsansky, eds., Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology
of Early African American Protest Literature, 1790-1860
Prince, Mary, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, ed. Sara Salih
Purdue, Charles, et al., eds. Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves
Rawick, George P., ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography Two series, 1972
and 1979 (CALL #: E441.A58)
Ripley, Peter C., ed., Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and
Emancipation
Rose, Willie Lee, ed., A Documentary History of Slavery in North America (CALL #: E441.D64)
Rosengarten, Theodore, Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter
Smith, Billy G. and Richard Wojtowicz, eds., Blacks Who Stole Themselves: Advertisements for
Runaways in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1790 (CALL #: E443.B525 1989)
Starobin, Robert, ed., Blacks in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves (CALL #: E444.S82 1974)
Taylor, Susie King. A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs. Eds. Patricia W. Romero and Willie Lee
Rose
Windley, Lathan A., A Profile of Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730
through 1787 (CALL #: E445.V8W593 1995)
Wish, Harvey, ed., Slavery in the South: First-Hand Accounts of the Antebellum American
Southland from Northern and Southern Whites, Negroes, & Foreign Observers (CALL #:
E441.W78)
Selected Slavery Websites and Electronic Databases:
Andrews, William. “Documenting the American South: North American Slave Narratives,” at
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/neh.html
Ayers, Edward L. “Valley of the Shadow—Two Communities in the American Civil War,” at
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
Bibliography
7
Costa, Thomas, ed., “Runaway Slave Advertisements from 18th Century Virginia Newspapers,” at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/runaways/
Eltis, David. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM.
Freedmen and Southern Society Project, at
http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/index.html
Handler, Jerome and Michael L. Tuite, Jr., “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the
Americas: A Visual Record,” at
http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/Slavery/
History Department, University of Maryland and Montgomery County Public Schools. “Rethinking
the Americas: Teaching History Outreach Project on the Americas,” at
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/mcpshistory/berlin_workshop.html
H-Slavery (the history of slavery on the web) Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and
Emancipation at
http://www.h-net.org/~slavery/
Library of Congress Collection of Slave Narratives. Go to American Memory website, at
http://memory.loc.gov
Click on “Collection Finder,” then search under terms “slave narratives.” Also very useful for map
collections and many other documents.
Mintz, Steven and Sara McNeil. Digital History, at
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/black_voices.cfm
Among other resources, this site includes extensive materials on slavery, including annotated
excerpts from the slave narratives.
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, at
http://www.huarchivesnet.howard.edu/
Mystic Seaport. “Exploring Amistad: Race and the Boundaries of Freedom in Antebellum Maritime
America,” at
http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/main/welcome.html
New York Public Library. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, at
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
Selected Genealogical Websites:
Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society
http://www.aahgs.org/
Afrigeneas
http://www.afrigeneas.com/
Bibliography
Christine's Genealogy Website
http://www.ccharity.com/
Cyndi's List
http://www.cyndislist.com/african.htm
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