Thomas Paine (by Matthew Pratt, about 1790) In the late 1700s AD, around the same time that Voltaire, du Chatelet, and Rousseau were writing philosophy in France, and Hume was writing in England, Thomas Paine was [...]
Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth didn't know where her people came from, because she was born into slavery. But it was probably West Africa or the Congo. She may have been part Native American. Sojourner [...]
Inside a slave cabin When you got to the plantation (a big farm) after the slave auction, someone would tell you which cabin to sleep in. You shared that cabin with [...]
The Middle Passage: Slave fort in Ghana Millions of people enslaved Although other people, both white and Native American, have been held as slaves in North America, the experience of the African people [...]
A Pueblo family with a donkey in 1885 (Detroit Publishing Company) Since 1500 AD North American people's relationships to one another have seen big changes. In the 1500s, most kids lived in [...]
Reconstruction: A 13-year-old boy sharecropping (1937) The end of slavery: Reconstruction During the Civil War, in 1863 AD, President Lincoln announced the end of slavery. When the North won the war, in 1865, Congress and [...]
Phillis Wheatley Peters Enslaved at seven years old When Phillis Wheatley Peters was seven years old, somebody sold her to European slave-traders, and she left Senegal or Gambia on a slave ship to North America. [...]
Tom Sawyer (1876) The first time you read Tom Sawyer, you'll want to just read it fast all the way through, because it's an exciting story. The second time, slow down [...]
Harriet Beecher Stowe Arrival in the Land of Freedom (1853) LOOK on the travellers kneeling, In thankful gladness, here, As the boat that brought them o'er the lake, Goes steaming [...]
The printing press of the Cherokee Advocate in the 1800s, which first printed a Br'er Rabbit story (the Tar Baby) Why is he called Br'er Rabbit? Br'er Rabbit is short [...]
