Browse Items (192 total)

In 1790 the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, led by Benjamin Franklin, submitted a plea to Congress to end slavery. Congress considered the petition and formed a committee for further examination. They debated what was and was not within their…

This document is a proclamation written by King Charles I on January 6, 1630 (1631 by the New Style Calendar), in the hopes of regulating the tobacco trade between England and the British colonies. As the British presence in America grew, it swiftly…

This report, published in June 1977 by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, reviewed the laws of Virginia in regards to the rights of married or once married women, who were not employed outside of the home. The…

Following American Independence, key political leaders in Virginia pursued the disestablishment the Church of England as the state church of the young state. Initially introduced in 1776 by George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Rights,…

Enslaved Virginians were often hired out by their owners during the course of their lives. Industries such as the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond and the many iron and woolen mills throughout the state employed skilled and unskilled slaves to augment…

This piece titled “Adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights” was painted in 1974 by Jack Clifton. Clifton, who was commissioned by the Jamestown Foundation to paint a depiction of the first legislative assembly at Jamestown, painted the…

This document is a map of Africa that was published by Gerhard Mercator in 1607. Mercator was a cartographer of great renown and he was very well known for his world map Typus Orbis Terrarum. While quite detailed and relatively correct in shape, it…

This broadside is an 1836 publication by the American Anti-Slavery Society. The broadside highlights the group’s opposition to slavery through quotations from the Bible and some of America’s Founding Documents. In the 1830s, moves were made to…

CONTENT WARNING: Materials in the Library of Virginia's collections contain historical terms, phrases, and images that are offensive to modern readers. These include demeaning and dehumanizing references to race, ethinicity, and nationality; enslaved…

White English colonists and Natives were openly viiolent to each other for much of the early seventeenth century. A few months prior to the passing of this act, the Third Anglo-Powhatan War started, resulting in many deaths and injuries on both…