[Undated photograph of formerly enslaved people, likely from WPA project], [Petersburg, Va], Visual Studies Collection.
This is a guide for researchers interested in published and online resources about the history of slavery, the slave trade, and the antislavery movement in Virginia and the United States.
From the seventeenth century through the end of the Civil War, slavery was a major feature of life in Virginia. British colonists began participating in the transatlantic slave trade to supplement other categories of labor, including enslaved Indigenous peoples and white indentured servants. Enslaved Africans became Virginia’s primary agricultural laborers, and in the 1660s, Virginia passed its first laws codifying a system of race-based chattel slavery.
In 1807, the United States abolished the transatlantic slave trade. Already active in the domestic slave trade, slave states in the upper South became the primary source of enslaved labor for the agricultural economies of the lower South. Cities such as Richmond and Alexandria were key players in this trade, which separated family members, shattered relationships, and destroyed communities. In total, more than a million enslaved people were sold in the domestic slave trade.
Daily life for enslaved people was characterized by dehumanization, violence, and an absence of legal protections. Enslaved people resisted slavery through a variety of tactics, including self-emancipation. Slavery became a hotly debated issue throughout the United States, with white and free Black abolitionists working to end slavery through new forms of political and social activism.
The American Civil War saw the demise of Southern slave societies. With the end of the war in April 1865, the promise of emancipation became a reality for formerly enslaved Virginians. In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting most forms of unfree labor. In the following decades, systems of racial inequality would persist in Virginia, but slavery was over.
Last updated April 2024
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Includes company records; business and personal correspondence; documents pertaining to the purchase, hire, medical care, and provisioning of enslaved laborers; descriptions of production processes; and journals recounting costs and income.