The following are documents which have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These documents are a starting point for additional research and discussions that help further our understanding of the history of people of African ancestry in the United States.
Preamble: Whereas the subscribers, women of color of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, actuated by a natural feeling for the welfare of our friends, have thought fit to associate for the diffusion of knowledge, the suppression of vice and immorality, and for cherishing such virtues as … Read More(1832) Constitution of the Afric-American Female Intelligence Society of Boston
We the undersigned, females of color, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, being duly convinced of the importance of union and morality, have associated ourselves together for our natural improvement, and to promote the welfare of our color, as far as is consistent with the means … Read More(1832) Constitution of the Female Anti Slavery Society of Salem
Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action … Read More(1836) Gag Rule/Pinckney Resolution 3
Decided March 9, 1841 MR. JUSTICE STORY delivered the opinion of the Court. This is the case of an appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court of the District of Connecticut, sitting in admiralty. The leading facts, as they appear upon the transcript of … Read More(1841) United States v. The Amistad
March 1, 1842, Decided OPINION: Mr. Justice STORY delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, brought under the 25th section of the judiciary act of 1789, ch. 20, for the purpose of revising the … Read More(1842) Prigg v. Pennsylvania
On July 19-20, 1848, 68 women and 32 men attended the First Women’s Rights Convention which was held in the upstate New York town of Seneca Falls. One of those men was Frederick Douglass. He wrote his impressions of the Convention which appeared in his … Read More(1848) Frederick Douglass, “The Rights of Women”
February 2, 1848 In the name of Almighty God The United States of America and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war which unhappily exists between the two Republics and to establish Upon … Read More(1848) Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
A BILL TO PREVENT NEGROES AND MULATTOES FROM COMING TO, OR RESIDING IN OREGON, (Enacted by the Oregon Territorial Legislature, 1849) Sect. 1 Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Oregon that it shall not be lawful for any negro or … Read More(1849) Oregon Exclusion Law
Approved, September 18, 1850 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit … Read More(1850) Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The general school committee of the city of Boston have power, under the constitution and laws of this commonwealth, to make provision for the instruction of colored children, in separate schools established exclusively for them, and to prohibit their attendance upon the other schools. THIS … Read More(1850) Sarah C. Roberts vs. The City of Boston
