The story of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who ran her father's plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina in the 1700s and struck a bargain with the plantation's slaves--teach her how to make indigo and she would teach them to read.

"A harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. Born a free man in New York, Solomon Northup was abducted in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, he published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life--perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives. It became an immediate bestseller and today...

Could Romans have achieved all they did without the labor of slaves? Imagine yourself as part of the largest slave force in human history, perhaps as an agricultural slave worked to death or as a semi-independent craftsman. Then explore manumission, the process by which domestic slaves were sometimes freed.

Using original slave auction and plantation estate documents, contrasts the monetary value of a slave with the priceless value of life experiences and dreams that a slave owner could never take away.

The American slave trade began in Africa. It is an uncomfortable truth that African rulers and merchants played a hand in supplying slaves to Europeans. However, a look at the African continent also shows us the first strategies of resistance, from defensively trying to elude capture to offensive efforts to get away from the hellish confinement of European forts.

Discover how American slavery became more diverse as it expanded over a huge area. Consider the wide variety of trades engaged in by the enslaved, and the complex mix of white and black cultures in the South. Learn more about the mechanics of slave trading, the terrible treatment of those sold, and how slaves lived and worked both on plantations and farms and within Southern cities.

It was Rufus King who, at the debates, questioned the admission of slaves into the rule of representation. First, explore the dissonance between liberty and slavery in the new United States. Then, come to see how Rufus King predicted the angry tiger slavery would become in America.

Although historical records are relatively scarce, the clever detective work of some enterprising scholars has revealed the rich religious world of enslaved Africans, and highlights Christianity's role in both oppression and liberation. Trace the evolution of religion among slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, and consider how they made "white man's religion" their own.

The citizens of the newly formed United States could not agree on the overall moral issue of slavery, but they were willing to take up its more narrow legal issues. Gain a greater understanding of the many ways in which the legal system supported the institution of slavery by examining the trials of two slaves: Anthony Burns and Celia (no last name).

The transition of settlements to stable commercial success would not have been possible without a source of cheap labor. America's immensity of land and lack of labor to develop it required forced migration of laborers: convicts, indentured servants, beggars. But a less expensive and more permanent source of labor was the 11 million Africans who were torn from their homes to be slaves.