Slavery and Abolition: Topics in Chronicling America
Conflict due to slavery and abolition led to inspired works and incidents during the 18th and 19th century. This guide provides access to materials related to "Slavery and Abolition" in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers.
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About Chronicling America
Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Introduction
Slavery and abolition are closely connected; for as long as humans have known about slavery, humans have also objected to, resisted, and opposed it. Slavery and abolition are also tightly interwoven through the history of the North American colonies and the United States of America. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic. You can find articles in Chronicling America about each of the items in the timelines. A section of this guide also provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
Timeline
1789
Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery resolves to seek improved conditions for free blacks.
Author Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, a work of fiction, but based on research using documents collected by abolitionists. The work first appears in installments in The National Era newspaper.
1854
Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively repeals the Missouri Compromise restriction on slavery's expansion.
1856
Antislavery U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner gives a speech in Congress titled, "The Crime Against Kansas" which calls out some fellow Congressmen's support for slavery. The next day pro-slavery U.S. Representative from South Carolina Preston Brooks finds Sumner at his Senate desk and beats him unconscious with a heavy cane.
1857
The U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in the case of Scott v. Sandford ("Dred Scott") maintaining that slaveholders may enjoy the protections of their human property anywhere in the Union, that black Americans are not U.S. citizens, and that they "have no rights which the white man is bound to respect."
October 1859
Abolitionist John Brown leads a biracial armed group in an unsuccessful assault on the U.S. Armory at Harper's Ferry.