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Since his discovery in 1996, scientists, Native American groups, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have fought over his remains. Personally, h-nf first heard about the remains, and the anger around them, in middle school. It has been far too long that this man, whoever he was when he lived, has not been allowed to lay at rest.
Slave codes and slaveholder practices often denied slaves autonomy over their familial relationships.
Abandoned children were a major source of slaves. Although most sub-Saharan Africans forced into slavery were in their teens and 20s, a substantial and growing proportion were children. In the American South in the decades before the Civil War, half of all slaves were under the age of 16. Slave mothers suffered high rates of spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, and deaths shortly after birth. Half of all slave infants weighed less than 5.5 pounds at birth, or what we would today consider to be severely underweight.
Despite restrictions, slaves nurtured and maintained family relationships as much as possible. Sadly though, slave marriages were illegal in southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slaveowners through sale. Sources: Boundless. “Slave Families.” Boundless U.S. History.
Childhood and Transatlantic Slavery - Steven Mintz, Columbia University
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
From: Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American collection
The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery’s photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution.
“It’s a very difficult and poignant piece of American history,” he said. “What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history.”
The photo was found at a moving sale in Charlotte, accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150, not a small sum in 1854.
Black soldiers played a crucial role not only in winning the Civil War, but in defining the war’s consequences. The army, moreover, was a major source of postwar black leadership. Of the African-Americans who served in Congress, state legislatures, and other posts during Reconstruction, many had fought as soldiers and sailors during the war
In his last public speech, shortly before his death in April 1865, President Lincoln endorsed the idea of limited black suffrage, singling out army veterans, along with the educated, as most worthy.
America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BCE. Adena sites are concentrated in a relatively small area - maybe 200 sites in the central Ohio Valley, with perhaps another 200 scattered throughout Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, although their settlements may once have numbered in the thousands. The importance of the Adena comes from their considerable influence on other contemporary and succeeding cultures. The Adena culture is seen as the precursor to the traditions of the Hopewell culture, which some argue is the zenith of Adena culture, and the Hopewell trading system that connected tribes from southern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
Trade sign: spectacles.
Attributed to E. G. Washburnes & Co, ca. 1875-1900.
Opticians and jewelers sold eyeglasses, and Washburne’s cast- and hand-painted signs could be seen hanging in front of both types of businesses well into the twentieth century. This example was found in Danville, Pennsylvania.
Source: Colonial Williamsburg
Abolitionists Pre-Civil War, (1845) Who were these guys? Both praised and vilified by the press and public-now forgotten footnotes to our American History.
America’s first group of social protest folk singers performed throughout the country for more than fifty years.
The original members of the Hutchinson Family Singers were thirteen of the sixteen children of Jesse and Mary Hutchinson of Milford, New Hampshire. The eleven sons and two daughters made their singing debut in the late 1830s and at first sang sentimental, patriotic tunes celebrating the virtues of rural life. In 1842, however, they began to associate closely with the abolitionists, and soon their repertory of songs championed such reformist causes as temperance, women’s rights, and above all, the abolition of slavery.
Hutchinson Family Singers, 1845 Unknown Artist, American School Daguerreotype
In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
On this date, July 19, in 1941, the first U.S. Army flying school for Black cadets is dedicated at Tuskegee, Alabama.
The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated, determined young men who enlisted to become America’s first black military airmen, at a time when there were many people who thought that black men lacked intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism. They came from every section of the country, with large numbers coming from New York City, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each one possessed a strong personal desire to serve the United States of America at the best of his ability.
Those who possessed the physical and mental qualifications were accepted as aviation cadets to be trained initially as single-engine pilots and later to be either twin-engine pilots, navigators or bombardiers. Most were college graduates or undergraduates. Others demonstrated their academic qualifications through comprehensive entrance examinations. No standards were lowered for the pilots or any of the others who trained in operations, meteorology, intelligence, engineering, medicine or any of the other officer fields. Enlisted members were trained to be aircraft and engine mechanics, armament specialists, radio repairmen, parachute riggers, control tower operators, policemen, administrative clerks and all of the other skills necessary to fully function as an Army Air Corp flying squadron or ground support unit.
The black airmen who became single-engine or multi-engine pilots were trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field (TAAF) in Tuskegee Alabama. The first aviation cadet class began in July 1941 and completed training nine months later in March 1942. Thirteen started in the first class. Five successfully completed the training, one of them being Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., a West Point Academy graduate. The other four were commissioned second lieutenants, and all five received Army Air Corps silver pilot wings. [Continue reading.]
Unidentified Soldier in Union Cavalry Uniform with Stocked Colt Pistol, Remington, and Cavalry Saber
[between 1861 and 1865] sixth-plate tintype, hand-colored ; 9.5 x 8.4 cm (case)
Kentucky, being a border state, was among the chief places where the "Brother against brother" scenario was prevalent. Kentucky was officially neutral at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union for assistance, and thereafter became solidly under Union control. Kentucky was the site of fierce battles, such as Mill Springs and Perryville.
Notes: Soldier possibly from Kentucky. photo lightenedbyCivilWarParlor
Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
“Harvard Finds Evidence of a Colonial Boycott Hiding in Plain Sight," the first proof of who exactly signed boycotts because of the Townshend Acts.
It’s probably because I’m from Boston - where you grow up going to every single American Revolution-related historical site for school field trips - but I love old colonial papers like this.
Brooks Brothers manufactured uniforms for New York State troops during the Civil War. One of the largest clothing manufacturers in the city, the Brooks building at Cherry Street was ransacked on Tuesday, July 14, 1863, the second day of the draft riots.
Sacking Brooks Clothing Store. Harper’s Weekly, August 1, 1863. New-York Historical Society.
Black Southerners in Confederate Armies: A Collection of Historical Accounts compiled and edited by J.H. Segars and Charles Kelly Burrow
Large numbers of slaves and freedmen served the South, in some cases as soldiers and sailors for the Confederacy. This book uses official records, newspaper articles, and veterans’ accounts to tell the enlightening stories of these Black Confederates. [book link]
ca. 1865, [carte de visite collage portrait of Jefferson Davis “in disguise, as he appeared at the time of his capture"]
New York was originally called New Amsterdam, until the British gained control of the land. It began life as a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement, the capital of New Netherland.
ca. 1873, [tintype portrait of of James Turner, Master Mason of the Celestial Lodge in Rhode Island and a membership certificate]
Next week, for three days only, the New York Public Library is celebrating Independence Day by displaying two rare pieces of American history from its collections — a manuscript of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand (which includes his denunciation of slavery) and an original copy of the Bill of Rights (featuring 12 amendments, not 10). Starting at noon on Monday, July 1, the public will be able to view these incredible treasures on the second floor of the main library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The exhibition — called "Foundations of Freedom" — will close on July 3 at 4 p.m. So make sure you visit! Don’t miss it! And while you’re here, you can check out our 1909 Honus Wagner card, being displayed in honor of the All-Star Game throughout the month of July, or our critically-acclaimed exhibition The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter. There’s a lot going on, and it’s all free!
Frederick Douglas became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a Major Party’s roll call vote at the 1888 Republican National Convention.
This man is probably one of the most noteworthy and important American Historical figures that we learn almost nothing about in Social Studies and Civics classes. In my opinion, he is as important as President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King.
Read More about him at this Great Website: http://www.frederickdouglass.org/douglass_bio.html
