African American Documents

Scope and Contents note

The African American Documents is a small collection of documents and correspondence pertaining to Africans and their descendents in the Americas in the 18th and 19th centuries. Slavery materials from Rhode Island, Cape of Good Hope, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia include correspondence on the slave trade and slave cargos, assignments on chain gangs, bills of sale, manumission papers, and wills with bequests regarding slaves. Free African Americans in Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts are represented by letters providing character references, reports on schools and the African American religious community in Baltimore, and an indenture between a printer and a new apprentice.