Introduction
The IHR’s holdings are mostly arranged geographically, therefore material for the history of slavery can be found throughout the collections - both in obvious and less expected places. This guide will highlight selected sources from across the IHR’s collections to demonstrate the wealth of resources available and thereby reflecting the transnational nature of the history of enslavement.
For example there are large number of sources concerning the triangular trade between Britain, West Africa, and the West Indies and American colonies, and this trade’s subsequent abolition. In addition, we have significant holdings documenting the practice in Latin America and sources which cover the trade globally and the nature of the grim trade. These range from an early anti-slavery treatise by Francisco Jose de Jaca, the 17th century Capuchin friar, to a refutation of slavery published during the early stages of the French Revolution, as well as the correspondence and personal diary of a prominent Brazilian abolitionist in the nineteenth century and the papers of Frederick Douglass, formerly enslaved, who became a leader of the abolitionist movement in the United States.
Please note, there is more information about our holdings on this topic in the United States under the heading Slavery in the United States Collection Guide.
Relevant Classmarks
Listed below are examples of classmarks under which large holdings of materials on enslavement can be found. These are mostly within the Colonial section. There are also resources within the Latin American holdings, however these are in the process of being reclassified.
Higlights from the Collections
General Histories and Chronologies
- Andrews and Gates, (eds.), The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives
- Bashir Salau, Mohammed. Plantation slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: a historical and comparative study
- Boukangou, Gabriel (ed.), Esquisse de bibliographie générale comparative autour du probléme de l'esclavage des noirs en Espagne, dans le monde hispano-américain et en France, de 1492 à 1898
- Campbell, Gwyn, Miers, Suzanne and Miller, Joseph C., (eds.), Women and slavery
- Conrad, Robert Edgar. Children of God's fire: a documentary history of black slavery in Brazil
- D’Auvergne, Edmund B., Human livestock: an account of the share of the English-speaking peoples in the development, maintenance and suppression of slavery and the slave trade
- Drescher, Seymour and Engerman, Stanley, L., (eds.), A historical guide to world slavery
- Eltis, David and Engerman, Stanley L., (eds.), The Cambridge world history of slavery
- Geggus, David Patrick. The Haitian Revolution: a documentary history
- Hogg, Peter C., The African slave trade and its suppression: a classified and annotated bibliography of books, pamphlets and periodical articles
- Klein, Martin A., Historical dictionary of slavery and abolition
- Lowell-Dumond, Dwight, A Bibliography of Antislavery in America
- Miller, Joseph C. (ed.), Slavery and slaving in world history: a bibliography
- Miller, Randall M. and Smith, John David (eds.), Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery
- Rodriguez, Junius P., (ed.), Chronology of world slavery
- Rotman, Youval, Byzantine slavery and the Mediterranean world
- Scherer, Jovani de Souza & da Rocha, Márcia Medeiros (eds.) Documentos da escravidão: compra e venda de escravos: acervo dos tablionatos do Rio Grande do Sul
- Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America
Diaries and Personal Narratives
- Abrahams, Roger D. and Szwed, John F., (eds.), After Africa: extracts from British travel accounts and journals of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries concerning the slaves, their manners, and customs in the British West Indies
- Andrews, William L. (ed.), The Life of John Thompson, a fugitive slave: containing his history of 25 years in bondage and his providential escape
- Andrews, William L., (ed.), Slave narratives after slavery
- Baquaqua, Mahommah Gardo. The biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: his passage from slavery to freedom in Africa and America
- Behrendt, Stephen D., Latham, A.J.H. and Northrup, David, The diary of Antera Duke, an eighteenth-century African slave trader
- Bellagamba, Alice, Greene, Sandra E. and Klein, Martin A., (eds.), African voices on slavery and the slave trade
- Bleser, Carol (ed.), Secret and sacred: the diaries of James Henry Hammond, a southern slaveholder
- Burton, Annie L. (et al), Women’s Slave Narratives
- Cugoano, Ottobah. Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery and other writings
- Douglass, Frederick. The life and writings of Frederick Douglass
- Equiano, Olaudah. The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano
- García Rodríguez, Gloria, Voices of the enslaved in nineteenth-century Cuba: a documentary history
- Hall, Douglas, In miserable slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86
- Huisman, Marijke,Verhalen van vrijheid: autobiografieën van slaven in transnationaal perspectief, 1789-2013
- Ibn Said, Omar, A Muslim American slave: the life of Omar Ibn Said
- McDonald, Roderick A. (ed.), Between slavery and freedom: special magistrate John Anderson's journal of St Vincent during the Apprenticeship
- Nabuco, Joaquim, Diários
- Nabuco, Joaquim. Essencial Joaquim Nabuco
- Northup, Solomon, Twelve Years a Slave
- Parker, Grant (trans.), The agony of Asar: a thesis on slavery by the former slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, 1717-1747
- Perdue, Barden and Phillips (eds.), Weevils in the wheat: interviews with Virginia ex-slaves
- Smith, Robert (ed.), Memoirs of Giambattista Scala: consul of his Italian Majesty in Lagos in Guinea (1862)
- Steward, Austin, Twenty-two years a slave and forty years a freeman
- Toussaint-Samson, Adèle, A Parisian in Brazil: the travel account of a Frenchwoman in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro
- Vikus, Daniel J., (ed.), Piracy, slavery, and redemption: Barbary captivity narratives from early modern England
- Westra, Piet and Armstrong, James C., (eds.), Slawehandel met Madagaskar: die joernale van die Kaapse slaweskip Leijdsman, 1715
- Williams, James. The narrative of James Williams, an American slave
- Wilson, Mona (ed.), Journal of a West India proprietor, 1815-17
- Wright, Philip (ed.), Lady Nugent's journal of her residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805
Correspondence
- Black, John. An Ulster slave-owner in the revolutionary Atlantic: the life and letters of John Black
- Blassigame, John W. (ed.), The Frederick Douglass papers. Series 1, Speeches, debates, and interviews
- Equiano, Olaudah, The letters and other writings of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano, the African) documenting abolition of the slave trade
- Faubert, Michelle. Granville Sharp's uncovered letter and the Zong Massacre
- Fyfe, Christopher (ed.), Our children free and happy: letters from black settlers in Africa in the 1790s
- Grimké, Sarah. On slavery and abolitionism: essays and letters
- McCahill, M. W., (ed.), The correspondence of Stephen Fuller, 1788-1795: Jamaica, the West India interest at Westminster, and the campaign to preserve the slave trade
- Miller, Randall M. (ed.), Dear Master: Letters of a Slave Family
- Pérez Jr, Louis A., (ed.), Slaves, sugar & colonial society: travel accounts of Cuba, 1801-1899
- Schapera, I., (ed.), David Livingstone South African papers, 1849-1853
- Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Wilberforce, Samuel (eds.), The correspondence of William Wilberforce
- Wilberforce, A.M. (ed.), Private papers of William Wilberforce
- Wilson Palmer, Beverly, The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner
- Yellin, Jean Fagan (ed.) The Harriet Jacobs family papers
Official and Legal Sources
For more detailed advice on locating slavery resources within Parliamentary documents, see also the IHR’s collection guide for researching UK Parliamentary History. Some relevant examples include:
- Antonelli, Armando (ed.) Il Liber Paradisus: con un'antologia di fonti bolognesi in materia di servitù medievale, 942-1304
- Baber, Thomas Hervey. An account of the slave population in the western peninsula of India: especially on the coast of Malabar / as contained in the replies of T.H. Baber to the questions referred to him by the Right Hon. the Commissioners of the Affairs of India
- Finkelman, Paul, Slavery in the courtroom: an annotated bibliography of American cases
- González Undurraga, Carolina. Esclavos y esclavas demandando justicia, Chile 1740-1823: documentación judicial por carta de libertad y papel de venta
- Hamilton, Keith and Shaikh, Farida, Slavery in diplomacy: the Foreign Office and the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade
- House of Commons
- Marcas de escravos: listas de escravos emancipados vindos a bordo de navios negreiros (1839-1841)
- Molina, Luis de. On slavery and the slave trade: De iustitia et iure, book 1, treatise 2, disputations 32-40
- Schweninger, Loren, (ed.), The Southern Debate over Slavery. Vol. 1: Petitions to Southern legislatures, 1778-1864
- Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa, Prospectus of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa: instituted June, 1839
- Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, The slave colonies of Great Britain; or, A picture of Negro slavery drawn by the colonists themselves: being an abstract of the various papers recently laid before Parliament on that subject
- Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, Second report of the committee of the society for the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery throughout the British Dominions
- The Statutes at Large: For example, Public Statutes 3-4, 1833, ‘An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves.’
- Stephen, James, An inquiry into the right and duty of compelling Spain to relinquish her slave trade in Northern Africa
- The trials of the slave traders, Samuel Samo, Joseph Peters, and William Tufft: and the fugitive slave circulars
- Tunnicliff Catterall, Helen, (ed.), Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro
- United States Congress. The debates and proceedings in the Congress of the United States: For example, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, ‘An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters.’
- United States Congress. Journal of the Senate of the United States of America: For example, Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1864/1865 (abolished slavery and involuntary servitude).
- Worden, Nigel & Groenewald, Gerald (eds.) Trials of slavery: selected documents concerning slaves from the criminal records of the Council of Justice at the Cape of Good Hope, 1705-1794
Online Resources
Please note that access to these resources is available onsite at the IHR, or offsite for staff and students of the IHR only.
- History Online
- Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
- Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007
- Van Norman Jr, William C., Shade-grown slavery: the lives of slaves on coffee plantations in Cuba
- Carey, Brycchan, From Peace to Freedom: Quaker rhetoric and the birth of American antislavery, 1657-1761
Periodicals
Newspapers
Theses
- Chattopadhyay, Amal Kumar, Slavery in the Bengal Presidency under East India Company rule, 1772-1843
- Draper, Nicholas Anthony, 'Possessing Slaves': Ownership, Compensation and British Metropolitan Society at the Time of Emancipation
- Cousins, Winifred Mary, The emancipation of the slaves in Jamaica and its results
- Milne, Alexander Taylor, The slave trade and Anglo-American relations, 1807-1862
- Birtwhistle, Thomas Morton, The development of abolitionism, 1807-1823
Selected Themes within the Collection
Abolition
- Marshall, Peter, The Anti-slave trade movement in Bristol
- Sharp, Granville, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq: composed from his own manuscripts, and other authentic documents in the possession of his family and of the African Institution
- Taylor, Clare, British and American abolitionists: an episode in transatlantic understanding
- Grimké, Sarah and Grimké, Angelina, On slavery and abolitionism: essays and letters
- Ripley, Peter C., (ed.), The Black Abolitionist Papers
- Andrews, William L., (ed.), The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader
- El Proceso abolicionista en Puerto Rico: documentos para su estudio
- Cottias, Myriam (ed.), D'Une abolition, l'autre: Anthologie raisonnee de textes consacres a la seconde abolition de l'esclavage dans les colonies francaises
- Sibille, Claire, (ed.) Guide des sources de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage et de leurs abolitions
Memory Cultures and Debates
- Araujo, Ana Lucia, African heritage and memories of slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic world
- Araujo, Ana Lucia, Public memory of slavery: victims and perpetrators in the South Atlantic
- Araujo, Ana Lucia, Museums and Atlantic slavery
- Beckles, Hilary, Britain's black debt: reparations for Caribbean slavery and native genocide
- Bond, Emma & Morris, Michael (eds.) Scotland's transnational heritage: legacies of empire and slavery
- Cottrol, Robert J., The long, lingering shadow: slavery, race, and law in the American hemisphere
- Donington, Katie (ed.) Britain's history and memory of transatlantic slavery: local nuances of a 'national sin'
- Fogel, Robert William, The slavery debates, 1952-1990: a retrospective
- Frith, Nicola & Hodgson, Kate (eds.) At the limits of memory: legacies of slavery in the Francophone world
- Moody, Jessica. The persistence of memory: remembering slavery in Liverpool, 'slaving capital of the world'
- Scott, Rebecca J., (ed.) Societies after slavery: a select annotated bibliography of printed sources on Cuba, Brazil, British Colonial Africa, South Africa, and the British West Indies
- Small, Stephen, In the shadows of the big house: twenty-first century antebellum slave cabins and heritage tourism in Louisiana
- Stuckey, Sterling, Slave culture: nationalist theory and the foundations of Black America
- Swaminathan, Srividhya, Debating the slave trade: rhetoric of British national identity, 1759-1815
Britain
- Thomson, Andrew Mitchell, Substance of the speech delivered at the meeting of the Edinburgh society for the abolition of slavery, on October 19, 1830
- Stephen, James Esq., A defence of the bill for the registration of slaves
- Burnley, William H., Opinions on slavery and emancipation in 1823 referred to by Thomas Folwell Buxton. With additional observations applicable to the Right Hon. E.G. Stanley's plan for the extinction of slavery
- Hughes, Derek, (ed.) Versions of blackness: key texts on slavery from the seventeenth century
- Richardson, David, (ed.) Bristol, Africa, and the eighteenth-century slave trade to America
- Suzanne Schwarz, Suzanne, (ed.) Slave captain: the career of James Irving in the Liverpool slave trade
- Owen, Nicholas, Journal of a slave-dealer: "A view of some remarkable axcedents in the life of Nics. Owen on the coast of Africa and America from the year 1746 to the year 1757”
- Tattersfield, Nigel Howard, The Forgotten trade: Including the log of the "Daniel and Henry" of 1700 and accounts of the slave trade from the minor ports of England, 1698-1725
- Phillips, Joseph, West India question: the outline of a plan for the total, immediate, and safe abolition of slavery throughout the British colonies
- Porter, Andrew, (ed.) The Oxford history of the British Empire: Vol.3, The nineteenth century
Latin America
- Salmoral, Manuel Lucena, Regulación de la esclavitud negra en las colonias de América Española (1503-1886): documentos para su estudio
- Conrad, Robert, Brazilian slavery: an annotated research bibliography
- Cabral de Mello, Evaldo, (ed.), Essencial Joaquim Nabuco
- Guia brasileiro de fontes para a história da Africa, da escravidão negra e do negro na sociedade atual: fontes arquivísticas
- Moritz Schwarcz, Lilia, Retrato em branco e negro: jornais, escravos e cidadãos em São Paulo no final do século XIX
- Conrad, Robert, Children of God's Fire: a documentary history of black slavery in Brazil
- Lohse, Russell, Africans into Creoles: slavery, ethnicity, and identity in colonial Costa Rica
- Orozco, Luis Chávez, Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en México, 1865-1866
- Armas Briz, Luz Amelia and Hernández, Olivia Solis, Esclavos negros y mulatos en Querétaro, siglo XVIII: antología documental
United States
- Ashton, Susanna, (ed.), I belong to South Carolina: South Carolina slave narratives
- Innes, C.L. (ed.), Slave life in Virginia and Kentucky: a narrative by Francis Fedric, escaped slave
- Bonnell Phillips, Ulrich and Glunt, James David, (eds.), Florida plantation records from the papers of George Noble Jones
- Meaders, Daniel, Advertisements for runaway slaves in Virginia, 1801-1820
- Drew, Benjamin, The Refugee: narratives of fugitive slaves in Canada
- Jefferson, Paul (ed.), The Travels of William Wells Brown: narrative of William W. Brown, fugitive slave and the American fugitive in Europe: sketches of places and people abroad
- Fagan Yellin, Jean, (ed.), The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers
Other Collections
- UCL Legacies of British Slave Ownership: searchable database
- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
- The National Archives
- Senate House Library: Slavery Archive Sources
- Institute of Commonwealth Studies
- Institute of Latin America
- Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Also see the IHR’s collections guides on: UK Parliamentary History and United States History.
Further Help
Contact us if you would like help on finding or using our collections, or if you have any comments or suggestions about the content of this guide. We are happy to help.
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