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Annie Wallace was the daughter of an enslaved woman and a white man. She described her youth before, during and after the Civil War. She and her late husband, a blacksmith, raised a large family, sometimes under very poor conditions. Although she…

Each year the American Anti-Slavery Society published an almanac containing poems, abolitionist tracts, and, beginning in 1838, drawings. As Angelina Grimké noted, "Until the pictures of the slave's sufferings were drawn and held up to the public…

Illustration of African in chains

Increased shading represents increased age of dwelling.

Groups of enslaved people being sent south

African American Methodists in Portsmouth constructed their own church in 1857. The building was used by escaping slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. Required by Virginia law to have a white minister, the congregation called its first African…