Browse Items (196 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…

As the British presence in America grew, it swiftly became apparent that tobacco was going to become one of the colonies’ most valuable exports – something that ensured more profit for King Charles, as he was able to tax any goods that Britain…

In January 1975, the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year was a presidential commission established by President Gerald Ford. The purpose of the commission was to work in conjunction with the International Women’s Year…

When the first English settlers arrived in 1607, the Church of England served as the official state church of the Virginia Colony. Under the 1689 English Act of Toleration, Protestants who were not members of the Church of England were still required…

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…

The painting entitled “Adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights” was produced in 1974 by Jack Clifton. Clifton was commissioned by the Jamestown- Yorktown Foundation to paint a depiction of the first legislative assembly at Jamestown and was…

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…

Free and enslaved Black people were on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. Many leaders, including George Washington, were largely lukewarm to the thought of recruiting enslaved people for the war, whereas the British side fully embraced…

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…