Research Guides: Slavery & Freedom in Maryland: Online Resources

Databases and Journals

Database Finder offers online access to databases and journal articles, and is available only at University of Maryland Libraries or to University of Maryland staff and students. Below is a list of databases that may be useful for located information on early African American history.

African American Studies Database List
Database Finder offers a list of online databases covering African American studies topics, including historical newspapers. This link will direct you to the full list of databases on the topic of African American Studies.

America: History & Life with Full-Text
Core American history database now includes unique full-text coverage of nearly 200 journals and 100 books. Information on articles, books, book reviews, and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Covers more than 2000 international worldwide. All aspects of historical research. Time span: 1964-present.
Black Abolitionist papers, 1830-1865
Online full-text primary source collection is the first to comprehensively detail the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.
Early American Imprints, Series I (1639-1800)
This digital collection contains virtually every books, pamphlet and broadside published in America over a 160-year period. American History. Contains books, pamphlets, games, periodicals, etc. 17th and 18th Century
JSTOR
Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published from volume 1, issue 1. Please note, most journals have a “moving wall” (time lag) of three to five years between the most current issue published and content available on JSTOR. Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Oxford African American Studies Center
A full-text database that provides comprehensive coverage of the African American experience. Updated quarterly, the online collection contains scholarly articles, biographies, commentaries, primary sources, subject entries, film clips, images, maps, charts, tables, web sites, and timelines. The core content of the electronic file consists of reference works including Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. Additional reference titles include the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature; Oxford Companion to Black British History; and selected articles from other major reference titles.

Websites

African American Odyssey
An overview of the rich resources available from the Library of Congress, including the online exhibit "The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship".

Below is a list of websites and online resources related to the topic of slavery in Maryland.

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland
The Maryland State Archives' Study of the Legacy of Slavery Staff invites researchers to explore all of these elements and more within its numerous source documents, exhibits and interactive online presentations.
African American Resources- Maryland State Archives
A resource guide to materials on African American history from the Maryland State Archives. Covers early and modern history, including early census and government records, links to online resources, and a detailed description for the various types of early African American records.
African-American History
A list of digitized collections on African-American history from the American Memory division of the Library of Congress. Materials include slave narratives, pamphlets, legal documents, and ephemera. Type a keyword into the search box to search several collections at once. You may also browse and search collections individually, including the Frederick Douglass Papers, Slavery and Law Documents, and Slave Narratives collections.
Africans in America
An overview of slavery in American from 1450-1865, compiled by PBS, with historical documents and teaching plans.
Belair-at-Bowie Flight to Freedom
A research project from the Maryland State Archives to document the complexities of slavery in Prince George's County community between 1830 and 1860.
Beneath the Underground Railroad
Resource guide on The flight to freedom and communities in Antebellum Maryland presented by the Maryland State Archives.
Manumissions, Indentures, Bills of Sale - Howard County Historical Society
This collection of 168 items from the Howard County Historical Society contains manumissions, indentures, bills of sale, and other documents related to slavery in Howard County, Maryland in the decades before and just after the Civil War, including several manumissions of slaves who had entered military service during the War.
National Underground Freedom Center
The official website for the National Underground Freedom Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Provides information about the history of slavery and the underground railroad, as well as online exhibits.
Slave Documents Collection-Enoch Pratt Free Library
A small digital collection documenting slavery in the state of Maryland.
Slavery and Freedom in Maryland
A resource from the Mount Clare Museum House in Baltimore, MD about the history of slavery in the Baltimore area.
Slavery and the Making of America
An extensive online resource compiled by PBS about the experience of slavery in the United States.
The Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland
A research guide compiled by the Maryland State Archives.

Digital Collections

Select archival and special collection materials have been digitized and made available online through the Digital Collection @ the University of Maryland, a searchable digital repository of scanned materials from the University of Maryland's libraries.

Use the search box on the homepage to search collection by keywords. For example, typing "slavery Maryland" in the search box will retrieve materials realted to slavery in Maryland.