Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860

Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, presents pamphlets and books documenting legal cases argued in courts in the United States and Great Britain on the issue of slavery. Included are accounts and analyses of cases and the court decisions for these cases, arguments from cases, and proceedings. Of special interest are copies of the slave code of the District of Columbia, material on the Dred Scott case, and material documenting the activities of John Brown, John Quincy Adams, and William Lloyd Garrison.

You may go directly to the collection, Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, in American Memory.

Slave Code for the District of Columbia

The New Nation — 1780-1815
Expansion and Reform — 1801-1861
The Civil War and Reconstruction — 1850-1877

African-American Odyssey
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Fredrick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909

Related Resources

Search the collection using the keyword search, or browse the Subject, Author or Title indexes. For help with search words, go to the Synonym List. For help with search strategies, see Finding Items in American Memory.

To see high-resolution quality images of photographs, you may need a special viewer. For help with viewers and players, go to American Memory Viewer Information.

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