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This petition illustrates how enslaved people used the rhetoric of the American Revolution to point out the colonies’ hypocrisy of demanding freedom and liberty, while themselves having slavery.

The petitioners, who fear that the free black population of Currituck County will join with enslaved people in a revolt against the white people of the county, request that the North Carolina General Assembly to remove all free black people from the county. They suggest this can be done either by forcing them from their homes or by condemning them into slavery. The petitioners also advise the assembly to boost the number of enslavers in Currituck.

In this story, a young boy learns the history behind the abolitionist song “John Brown’s Body.”

This image group features portraits of Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, who all learned to read and write while they were enslaved. Each used their gifts to help end slavery.

In the face of extreme punishment for enslaved people and breaking the law for whites, roughly 5 percent of the enslaved population learned to read and write. Letters like the ones written below show the lengths they would go to learn.

This is the story of Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black senator in the United States.

In this story, Elizabeth and her family escape their plantation in the middle of the night with help from Harriet Tubman.

This is an image of enslavers burning brands into the skin of people they enslaved, this engraving illustrates the way that enslaved people were treated as property.

This act shows the ways in which Virginia regulated manumitting (freeing) of enslaved people and the subsequent race-based laws for freedpeople.