Elementary: Slave Trade, Slavery and Africans in America

Rebels against slavery: American slave revolts

McKissack, Pat, 1944-

Story of the men and women, slaves and free blacks, Northerners and Southerners, whites and Native Americans, who rebelled against the system of slavery, often giving up their lives in the process.

Slavery time when I was chillun

Twelve oral histories of former slaves selected from the more than 2000 interviewed as part of the Slave Narratives of the Library of Congress for the Works Progress Administration in 1936.

Amistad : a long road to freedom

Myers, Walter Dean, 1937-

A history of the 1839 uprising of African captives aboard the slave ship Amistad, telling of their three-year imprisonment in the United States and their eventual acquittal by the Supreme Court.

Bound for America : the forced migration of Africans to the New World

Haskins, James, 1941-

Discusses the European enslavement of Africans, including their capture, branding, conditions on slave ships, shipboard mutinies, and arrival in the Americas.

Revolutionary citizens : African Americans, 1776-1804

Littlefield, Daniel C.

Chronicles the lives of African Americans during the Revolutionary War and the early years of the nation.

Days of Jubilee : the end of slavery in the United States

McKissack, Pat, 1944-

Uses slave narratives, letters, diaries, military orders, and other documents to chronicle the various stages leading to the emancipation of slaves in the United States.

The strength of these arms : life in the slave quarters

Bial, Raymond.

Describes how slaves were able to preserve some elements of their African heritage despite the often brutal treatment they experienced on Southern plantations.

The paradox of Jamestown, 1585-1700

Collier, Christopher, 1930-

Discusses the circumstances surrounding English colonization of Virginia and the evolution of slavery in that colony.

What are you figuring now? : a story about Benjamin Banneker

Ferris, Jeri.

A biography of the Afro-American farmer and self-taught mathematician, astronomer, and surveyor for the new capital city of the United States in 1791, who also calculated a successful almanac notable for its preciseness.

Master of mahogany : Tom Day, free Black cabinetmaker

Lyons, Mary (Mary E.)

Traces the life and accomplishments of this free black artisan, who created elegant furniture and woodwork during the era of slavery in the South.

The kidnapped prince : the life of Olaudah Equiano

Cameron, Ann, 1943-

Equiano relates how he was enslaved in 1755, and how he maintained courage and faith despite the heartbreak of being torn from his family and homeland.

Amazing grace : the story behind the song

Haskins, James, 1941-

Relates the story of the British slave trader who rejected his calling, became a minister, and wrote the words to the popular hymn "Amazing Grace."

Letters from a slave girl : the story of Harriet Jacobs

Lyons, Mary (Mary E.)

A fictionalized version of the life of Harriet Jacobs, told in the form of letters that she might have written during her slavery in North Carolina and as she prepared for escape to the North in 1842.

Hang a thousand trees with ribbons : the story of Phillis Wheatley

Rinaldi, Ann.

A fictionalized biography of the eighteenth-century African woman who, as a child, was brought to New England to be a slave, and after publishing her first poem when a teenager, gained renown throughout the colonies as an important African-American poet.

Second daughter : the story of a slave girl

Walter, Mildred Pitts.

Aissa, the teen-age fictional sister of Elizabeth Freeman, struggles against a system which declares that she is property and that she is to remain silent.

Molly Bannaky

McGill, Alice.

Relates how Benjamin Banneker's grandmother journeyed from England to Maryland in the late seventeenth century, worked as an indentured servant, began a farm of her own, and married a freed slave.