Please consider looking into the following resources to continue learning more about the history of slavery in America and the experiences of both enslaved and free African Americans
Narratives of the Enslaved
The following are personal narratives of people who lived through slavery. The transcripts have been made with attention to grammar and spelling in order to better capture the tone and emotion of these individuals as they tell their stories:
Elijah Greene
James Martin
Delicia Patterson
Henry Watson
Recommended Reading
Books that we recommend to all visitors to better understand the history of African Americans. Some of these titles are sold in the Old Slave Mart Museum’s gift shop, please inquire about them when you visit.
General Reading
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration
by Michelle Alexander
Slaves in the Family, by Edward Ball
Slave Trading in the Old South by Frederic Bancroft
Slavery By Another Name
by Douglas Blackmon
Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition,
by Joyce V. Coakley
Far More Terrible for Women,
Slave narratives from women who were
enslaved in various slaveholding states.
Voices of Black South Carolina, Legend & Legacy
by Damon L. Fordham
Within the Plantation Household, Black and White
Women of the Old South, by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacob
by Harriet Jacob
Down by the Riverside, A South Carolina Slave
Community, by Charles Joyner
To Free a Family, The Journey of Mary Walker
by Sydney Nathans
Gullah People and Their African Heritage
by William S. Politizer
Black Charlestonians, A Social History, 1822-1885
by Dr. Bernard Powers
The Slave Ship, A Human History, by Marcus Rediker
Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon,
& Night, by Sallie Ann Robinson
Birthing of a Slave, Motherhood and Medicine in the
Antebellum South, by Marie Jenkins Schwartz
The American Slave Coast, Slave Breeding Industry,
by Ned and Constance Sublette
Charleston Blacksmith, The Work of Philip Simmons
by John Michael Viach
Ar’n’t I A Woman?
Female Slaves in the Plantation South
by Deborah Gray White
Reading for Children and Students
Children:
Spy on History, Mary Bowser and the Civil War Spy Ring, by Enigma Alberti, 2016
Dave the Potter, Artist, Poet, and Slave from South Carolina, by Laban Carrick Hill, 2010
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, (Rainbow Books), by Deborah Hopkinson, 1997
Henry’s Freedom Box, A True Story from the Underground Railroad,
by Ellen Levine, 2007
Circle Unbroken & Night Boat to Freedom, both by Margot Theis Raven
Follow the Drinking Gourd, by Jeanette Winter, 1992
Elementary and Middle School Students:
Voices from Freedom, Abolitionist Heroes, a series of books from Crabtree Publishing, 2010
(Separate titles for Fredrick Douglas, John Brown, Sojouner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, & Harriet Tubman)
Voices from the Past:
104th Infantry Regiment, USCT, Colored Civil War Soldiers
from South Carolina, by J. Raymond Gourdin, 1997
Black Soldiers / Blue Uniforms, The Story of the First South Carolina Volunteers,
by Thomas Higginson, 2009
Lest We Forget, Freedom’s Children: The Passage from Emancipation to the Great Migration, & No Man Can Hinder Me, The Journey from Slavery to Emancipation through Song, three separate titles by Velma Maia Thomas
Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington, Dover Publications, 1995
Titles on the Finances of Slavery
The Half Has Never Been Told,
Slavery and the Making of American
Capitalism, by Edward E. Baptist
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh
by Daina Ramey Berry
COMPLICITY-How the North Prolonged,
and Profited from Slavery,
by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and
Jenifer Frank of the Hartford Courant
Slave Badges and the Slave Hire
System in Charleston, SC
1783-1865, by Harlan Greene,
Harry S. Hutchins Jr.,
Brian E. Hutchins
Documentaries & Other Media
13th, by Ava DuVernay, Documentary Available on Netflix
Slavery and the Making of America, film and books by PBS