Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery

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Image, Frederick Douglass, c. 1817-1895, NYPL
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This attractive exhibit utilizes essays and more than 140 images to explore the 400-year history of slavery in the Americas. The site reminds us that together "the slave trade and slavery represented one of the longest, most sustained assaults on the dignity and self-worth of human beings in the history of humankind." The site's home page offers an introductory essay that presents the central themes of the exhibit. The site is centered around nine thematic presentations on the forging of common identities in slavery; the enslavement process in Africa; the transatlantic slave trade; slave labor and slave systems; the struggle against slavery and the abolition of slavery; family life and social development; religion; language, literacy, and education; and culture. Each image is accompanied by an explanatory caption. There is no search feature available on the site. An informative overview of slavery in the Americas, the site is also of interest to those studying African-American culture.

Geography of Slavery in America

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Image, March 14, 1766 slave ad, Geography of Slavery in America
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Transcriptions and images of more than 4,000 newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves and indentured servants between 1736 and 1803 can be browsed or search on this website. The runaways are primarily from Virginia, but also come from states along the Eastern seaboard and locations abroad. Materials include ads placed by owners and overseers as well as those placed by sheriffs and other governmental officials for captured or suspected runaway slaves. Additional advertisements announce runaway servants, sailors, and military deserters.

"Exploring Advertisements" offers browse, search, and full-text search functions, as well as maps and timelines for viewing the geographic locations of slaves. The site also provides documents on runaways—including letters, other newspaper materials, literature and narratives, and several dozen official records, such as laws, county records, and House of Burgess journals. Information on the currency and clothing of the time, a gazetteer with seven maps of the region, and a 13-title bibliography are also available.

Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences

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Photo, Roger Arliner Young, Zoologist
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This site contains biographical profiles of over 200 African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. The site provides brief (roughly 250 word) biographies of scholars from fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, zoology, and veterinary medicine, as well as inventors. Among the scientists included in the site are prominent figures like George Washington Carver, scientist and inventor of numerous industrial applications for agricultural products, and astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker.

Each entry also includes a bibliography of sources for further biographical information. The site is indexed by scientist name and profession, and there are special sections for the biographies of 20 women scientists and 14 of the first African Americans to receive PhDs in science. Though there are no primary documents on this site, it is a good place to find general information on prominent African American scientists throughout American history.

Excerpts from Slave Narratives

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Title, Excerpts from Slave Narratives
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Unadorned and easy to navigate, this comprehensive website contains 46 first-person accounts of slavery and African life dating from 1682 to 1937. Each document is introduced with an illustrative sentence or short paragraph that describes the historical context.

There are both recognizable and unknown actors in this website. Former slaves such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, as well as white abolitionists such as John Brown express forceful, if familiar, condemnations of slavery.

In addition, there are unheralded historical voices that not only speak poignantly, but also reflect different (African-centered) perspectives. For example, a ship doctor's searing report of the Middle Passage; a slave husband's anguished letter to his wife after she was sold; and black social reformers' protests against the cruel punishments of slave owners.

When taken together, the assembled testimonies, including those by women, present slavery as a deeply entrenched institution that provoked a wide range of compelling commentary.

Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718-1820

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Introductory graphic, Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy
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Provides detailed data on more than 100,000 slaves and free blacks in Louisiana from 1718 to 1820 gathered from notarial documents by historian Dr. Gwendolyn Hall. Users can search by name of slave, master's name, gender, epoch, racial designation, plantation location, and place of origin. Each record retrieved pertains to an individual slave. Information was compiled from documents created when slaves arrived by ship, were bought and sold, reported as runaways, testified in court cases, manumitted, and at the death of masters and in other circumstances. As French and Spanish records often were more detailed than those kept by the British, the amount of information provided is relatively extensive. Some records contain as many as 114 fields with information on name, birthplace, gender, age, language group, alleged involvement in conspiracies, skills, family relationships, and illnesses, among other categories. Dr. Hall's analysis documents 96 different African ethnicities of slaves in Louisiana during this period.

The site additionally offers tables and graphs presenting Dr. Hall's calculations concerning the data collected and presents results from three useful searches: on African names, individual slaves involved in revolts or conspiracies, and runaways. Seven examples of original documents are displayed, and downloads of complete databases on Louisiana slaves and free blacks are available. An extremely valuable site for professional historians, anthropologists, geneticists, and linguists, in addition to people conducting genealogical searches.

Scarsdale Historical Society and Cudner-Hyatt House [NY]

Description

The Scarsdale Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Scarsdale and the Central- and Mid-Westchester area, NY. The society operates two historic properties, the circa 1734 Cudner-Hyatt House and an 1828 Quaker meeting house. Topics addressed include daily life in the late 19th-century, the Civil War, and the Lenape people.

The society offers exhibits; two-hour curriculum-based educational programs with a lesson, tour of the Cudner-Hyatt House, activities, and a take-home project; one-hour educational programs; group tours; Scout activities; three themed traveling trunks with artifact replicas; and outreach presentations for schools. The exhibits and Cudner-Hyatt House are partially wheelchair accessible.

Benjamin Franklin

Description

Author Walter Isaacson discusses the life of Benjamin Franklin and his many contributions to the prosperity of colonial Philadelphia and his place in American history.

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French and Indian War

Description

This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the war that ignited between England and France when a young George Washington was drawn into a skirmish with French scouts. Control over the continent of America was at stake as the two world powers conducted a massive war in the colonies.

Quantity of Soldiers—not Quality of Their Aim—Won Battles

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British toy soldiers
Question

Why did armies, during the American Revolution and at other times, fight with lines of men standing near each other? Why did they not simply fight from behind cover?

Answer

The use of linear formations in European army infantries was one element of what military historians have called the "Military Revolution," though they have disagreed on the period within early modern history—the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), 1550–1660, or 1660–1720—during which the tactic became most significant.

In linear formations, infantry troops, armed beginning in the late 17th century with bayoneted flintlock muskets, marched in columns until they were ordered by commanders to form lines, usually three-to-five men in depth, and charge enemy targets while firing in unison. The tactic did not require skilled marksmanship or out-of-the-ordinary heroics, but relied instead on well-drilled and disciplined soldiers delivering massive amounts of firepower.

Line charges, especially when accompanied by artillery fire that arrived at enemy lines just as the advancing soldiers came into firing range, could be decisive in battle. Defending armies, arranged in similarly cohesive lines, could respond with corresponding volleys of ammunition and fend off larger forces. Army size was greatly increased due to the institutionalization of linear formations within a framework of centralized bureaucratic organization, as was the impact of the military on societies.

Historian Guy Chet has discredited a popular "Americanization thesis" that attributed colonists in militias during the late 17th and early 18th centuries with adopting guerrilla warfare tactics learned in battles with Indians as more appropriate than linear formations for fighting in wilderness terrains. Chet finds a lack of evidence for the claim and maintains that contrary to popular belief, the initial victories of American forces in the first battles of the War of Independence were not due to so-called American tactics, but from the failure of the British forces to adhere to established tactics and strategies.

While guerrilla warfare did break out in the backcountry of the South during the final year of the Revolutionary War, both sides for the most part engaged in battles fought according to tactics developed during the Military Revolution.

Bibliography

Clifford J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1660–1815. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Guy Chet, Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.

Centre Hill Museum [VA]

Description

The Centre Hill Museum is a historic house museum. The 1823 residence is used to discuss its own history, including Presidential visits and its role in the Civil War. The interior houses decorative arts dating from 1700 through the 1900s. Collection highlights include a circa 1900 aviary of stuffed birds. The structure displays Greek Revival, Federal, and Colonial Revival elements.

The museum offers exhibits.