 An Act to enable persons held in slavery, to sue for their freedom |
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This territorial statute presented an opportunity for enslaved people to sue for their freedom in Louisiana Territory courts. It also specified how petitioners were to be treated by defendants while the freedom suit was being heard.
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| Code Noir |
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A set of laws in French colonies that regulated the lives of enslaved and free black people. The code primarily defined slavery, but it also expelled all Jewish people from French colonies and required Black people to be Catholic and not protestant. The Code Noir demonstrates the way enslaved people's lives were regulated under French colonial rule.
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| Emancipation Proclamation |
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The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime measure that freed the enslaved people in territories occupied by confederate forces. Given by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the document represents the first step in ending American slavery by declaring those enslaved within confederate territories free and protected by the United States military.
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| Gradual Abolition Laws, Race, and Freedom in the Early Republic |
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This module highlights the complexities of gradual abolition legislation in the Early Republic, focusing on a lawsuit to reestablish the freedom of an African American teenager from New York City named John Johnson. Johnson's experience demonstrates the new opportunities and distinct challenges that gradual abolition laws created for African Americans.
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| Haaland v. Brackeen |
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In Haaland v. Brackeen, the Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, ruling that states could not circumvent ICWA adoption protocol.
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| Indenture of John Johnson |
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Following his successful petition for freedom, John Johnson entered into a contract of indenture for four years in exchange for the $150 loan Johnson secured over the course of obtaining his freedom.
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| John Johnson v. Sosthene Allain |
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John Johnson filed a petition for freedom in a New Orleans court, asserting that although born free in New York, he had been illegally sold into slavery and was now being held on a sugar plantation. Johnson and his attorneys invoked New York's gradual abolition laws to establish his free status. The Louisiana court ruled in his favor and Johnson claimed his freedom.
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| Plessy v. Ferguson |
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In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court found that racial discrimination did not violate constitutional equal protection. This case established the principle of "separate but equal" which was overturned in 1965 by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
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| She's Been Her Own Mistress: The Long History of Charlotte Dupee v. Henry Clay, 1790-1840 |
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This essay refocuses the story of Charlotte Dupee v. Henry Clay on Charlotte herself, detailing her long struggle navigating the strategies and pathways to freedom.
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