In addition to our readings on slavery and religion in our segments from Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), we also read excerpts of Frederick Douglas' own memoirs, NarrativeLifeofFrederickDouglass.docx available on the Blackboard and his speeches on abolition: Frederick Douglas Lecture on the Anti-Slavery Movement (1855).
Sources on slave conspiracies and rebellions, notably those of Denmark Vesey, or Nat Turner may be read including Nat Turner's Confessions. We have a wide array of sources that provide insight, including the taped transcription project: Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology oral histories of former U.S. slaves collected in the 1930s by the WPA from American Studies at the University of Virginia. A good list of narratives and memoirs is found at the Slavery in America project. This project was funded by New York Life Insurance because historical research proved that they had profited by selling insurance on slaves to slaveholders.
A major collaborative international scholastic database has been compiled that give us data and details on nearly every slave ship that crossed the Atlantic from the late 15th to late 19th century.
Resources: Transatlantic Slavery Database Project
From the Fordham Internet Sourcebook:
A major collaborative international scholastic database has been compiled that give us data and details on nearly every slave ship that crossed the Atlantic from the late 15th to late 19th century.
Resources: Transatlantic Slavery Database Project
From the Fordham Internet Sourcebook:
The Conflict over Slavery
- WEB American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology [At Virginia]
- WEB Exploring Amistad: Race and the Boundaries of Freedom in Antebellum Maritime America [At Mystic Seaport]
- WEB Statutes of the United States Concerning Slavery, 1794-1850 [At Yale]
- Treaty Between United States and Great Britain for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, April 7, 1862, andAdditional Article to the Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, February 17, 1863 [At Yale]
- Benjamin Drew: The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada [At American Revolution]
- Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903): A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 1856 [At American Revolution]
- Nat Turner (1800-1831): The Confessions, 1831 [At American Revolution]
- American Anti-Slavery Society: Declaration of Sentiments, 1833 [At Virginia]
- Angelina E. Grimké: Appeal To The Christian Women of the South, 1836, full text [At Furman]
Text of one of the few abolitionist treatises published by a Southern
white woman. - Rev. Dr. Richard Furman: Exposition of the Views of the Baptists, Relative to the Coloured Population in the United States, 2nd ed, 1838 [At Furman][Added 9/2/98]
A defence of slavery on Biblical principles. - American Methodist Episcopal Church Conference: Motions on Slavery and Temperance, 1840 [At CSUSM]
- Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): From The Autobiography, 1845 [At American Revolution]
- Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): Autobiography, 1845 [At this Site][Full Text]
- Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, July 4, 1852 [At this Site]
- Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): The Anti-Slavery Movement in 1855, [At Then Again]
- James Stirling: The Life of Plantation Field Hands, 1857 [At this Site]
- The Fugitive Slave Act, September 18, 1850 [At this Site] or here [At Yale] or here [At American Revolution]
- Henry Carey: Excerpts from: The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign, 1853 [At American Revolution]
- John C. Calhoun: The Southern Address, 1849 [At Furman]
- William Henry Seward: "Higher Law" Speech, 1850 [At Furman]
- Calhoun and Seward wordlists, side-by-side [At Furman]
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1853 [At Yale][Full Text]
- Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act, 1855 [At USInfo]
Aimed at hleping runaway slaves. - Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857 [At Landmark Cases]
Infamous Supreme court decision defining an enslaved person as "property". - The Opinions of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case, full texts, [At American Revolution]
Back to Index
Oregon Historical Society blog on the Oregon Constitution, Race, Gender and Suffrage in 1857.
Oregon, "The Negro Question and the Constitution" from the Oregon Secretary of State website.
An interesting question for black history is whether settlers in the West found better chances in Canada and British Columbia than in Oregon or Washington from the 1850s to 1880s.
Oregon Historical Society blog on the Oregon Constitution, Race, Gender and Suffrage in 1857.
Oregon, "The Negro Question and the Constitution" from the Oregon Secretary of State website.
A decisive vote
Oregon's electorate voted decisively on all three questions. Their viva voce votes (oral votes in public view) left no doubt that the convention had indeed reflected their attitudes. Oregonians endorsed the constitution by more than two to one. Their votes against slavery and free blacks, expressing their ideal of an Oregon with only free white labor, were even more striking—with 75 percent voting down slavery and 89 percent in favor of prohibiting the immigration of free blacks to the state. Two counties, Columbia and Wasco, voted against the constitution. No county was even close to voting in favor of allowing free blacks in Oregon. Likewise, no county voted in favor of slavery. However, Jackson County narrowly voted it down 426 to 405.(5)
Oregon's electorate voted decisively on all three questions. Their viva voce votes (oral votes in public view) left no doubt that the convention had indeed reflected their attitudes. Oregonians endorsed the constitution by more than two to one. Their votes against slavery and free blacks, expressing their ideal of an Oregon with only free white labor, were even more striking—with 75 percent voting down slavery and 89 percent in favor of prohibiting the immigration of free blacks to the state. Two counties, Columbia and Wasco, voted against the constitution. No county was even close to voting in favor of allowing free blacks in Oregon. Likewise, no county voted in favor of slavery. However, Jackson County narrowly voted it down 426 to 405.(5)
The Oregon Statesman published the following official returns on the November 9, 1857 vote:
Constitution
|
Slavery
|
Free blacks
| ||||
| Counties |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Benton |
440
|
215
|
283
|
368
|
132
|
459
|
| Clackamas |
530
|
216
|
98
|
655
|
113
|
594
|
| Clatsop |
62
|
37
|
25
|
71
|
25
|
65
|
| Columbia |
30
|
66
|
11
|
84
|
24
|
66
|
| Coos |
68
|
26
|
19
|
72
|
10
|
79
|
| Curry |
117
|
14
|
35
|
95
|
8
|
121
|
| Douglas |
419
|
203
|
248
|
377
|
23
|
560
|
| Jackson |
465
|
372
|
405
|
426
|
46
|
710
|
| Josephine |
445
|
139
|
155
|
435
|
41
|
534
|
| Lane |
591
|
362
|
356
|
602
|
97
|
783
|
| Linn |
1111
|
176
|
198
|
1092
|
113
|
1095
|
| Marion |
1024
|
252
|
214
|
1055
|
76
|
1115
|
| Multnomah |
496
|
255
|
96
|
653
|
112
|
587
|
| Polk |
528
|
188
|
231
|
484
|
53
|
584
|
| Tillamook |
23
|
1
|
6
|
22
|
1
|
25
|
| Umpqua |
155
|
84
|
32
|
201
|
24
|
181
|
| Wasco |
55
|
89
|
58
|
85
|
18
|
122
|
| Washington |
265
|
226
|
68
|
428
|
80
|
393
|
| Yamhill |
371
|
274
|
107
|
522
|
85
|
521
|
----------------
|
----------------
|
----------------
|
----------------
|
----------------
|
----------------
| |
| Total |
7195
|
3215
|
2645
|
7727
|
1081
|
8640
|
| Majorities |
3980
|
5082
|
7559
| |||
(6)
| ||||||
An interesting question for black history is whether settlers in the West found better chances in Canada and British Columbia than in Oregon or Washington from the 1850s to 1880s.
Black Settlement on Vancouver Island:
Foner, Philip S. "The Coloured Inhabitants of Vancouver Island." B.C. Studies No. 8. Winter 1970-71. Includes an anonymous Black person's account of Victoria in the mid-1860s.
Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar. Shadow and Light: An Autobiography. New York: Arno Press, 1968. Gibbs' autobiography gives an account of the atmosphere in San Francisco which prompted the Black migration to B.C. Also describes, in a few glimpses, his time in B.C. before returning to the United States.
Howay, F.W. "The Negro Immigration into Vancouver Island in 1858." British Columbia Historical Quarterly. Vol. 3, 1939, pp. 101-113.
Irby, Charles. "Black Settlers on Salt Spring Island in the Nineteenth Century." Association of Pacific Coast Geographers Yearbook. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1974, pp. 35-44.
Killian, Crawford. Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of B.C. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1978.
Pilton, James W. "Negro Settlement in B.C., 1858-1871". Master's Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1951.
Reid. P.H. "Segregation in British Columbia". The Bulletin(United Church of Canada) Vol. 16 (1963), pp. 1-15.
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