Slate Academy: The History of American Slavery

The History of American Slavery

With Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion
Special appearances by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

America's defining institution, as told through the lives of nine enslaved people. Enroll in the college course you wish you'd taken, learning from acclaimed historians and writers, alongside Slate's Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion.


This Slate Academy includes:
  • A nine episode podcast series
  • Archival documents, essays, and bonus podcasts
  • Book excerpts highlighting the research of leading scholars of American slavery
  • A private Facebook group for thoughtful conversation with your hosts and fellow students
Sign up for access

Already a Slate Plus member? Sign in.

Email Notification

Notify me when new episodes and content are available.

Episodes

Welcome! Introductions. Our inspiration. Our policy on grades (there are none).

Preview // Playing Now

Slavery in America started out pretty bad in the 17th century. White colonists made it way, way worse in the 18th.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript
  3. Berlin excerpt
  4. Wood excerpt

Experiencing the Middle Passage: What was it like to be removed from one continent and sold on another?

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript
  3. Rediker excerpt
  4. Hochschild excerpt
  5. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (complete book)

Preview // Playing Now

Enslaved in a time of revolution: The turmoil of the Revolutionary years made freedom possible for some—and put it out of reach for others.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript
  3. Blanck excerpt
  4. Egerton excerpt

Preview // Playing Now

What happened when Thomas Jefferson and other slaveholders tore apart the families they owned.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript
  3. Williams excerpt
  4. Gordon-Reed excerpt

Preview // Playing Now

Assessing the slave narrative, as literary genre and as historical source.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript

Preview // Playing Now

Did slavery have a frontier? As the domestic slave trade expanded in the early 19th century, slavery's center of gravity shifted west.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Rothman excerpt
  3. Baptist excerpt

Preview // Playing Now

Money and cotton: How cotton's ascendancy as a cash crop in the first decades of the 19th century changed the lives of enslaved workers.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Baptist excerpt
  3. Berry excerpt

Preview // Playing Now

Experimenting with the enslaved: The disturbing relationship between slavery and 19th-century science and medicine.

  1. Complete episode

Preview // Playing Now

Fugitives and their defenders: How runaways and their Northern helpers forced the conflict between the North and South in the 1850s.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Transcript
  3. Foner excerpt
  4. Lubet excerpt

The journey of emancipation: The many ways enslaved Americans had to grab freedom for themselves during the war years.

  1. Complete episode
  2. Williams excerpt
  3. Rothman excerpt

Audio from the Academy's capstone symposium at George Washington University.

  1. Complete episode

Preview // Playing Now

Blogging DuBois’ Black Reconstruction

The Freedman's Bureau
Chapters 1 & 2: “The Black Worker” and “The White Worker”
by Jamelle Bouie
Read More
United States Slave Trade: 1830
Chapter 3: “The Planter”
by Jamelle Bouie
Read More

Supplementary Materials

"Slave" or "Enslaved Person"?
by Katy Waldman
Read More
Ep. 1: America's First Generation of Slaves
by Ira Berlin
Read More
Ep. 1: The Birth of Race-Based Slavery
by Peter H. Wood
Read More
Ep. 2: Experiencing the Middle Passage
by Marcus Rediker
Read More
Read a 1700 Anti-Slavery Tract
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
Ep. 2: The First Bestselling Slave Narrative
by Adam Hochschild
Read More
Read the Complete Autobiography
by Olaudah Equiano
Read More
Ep. 3: If a Slave Is Family, Is He Still a Slave?
by Emily Blanck
Read More
Ep. 3: "Born Free and Equal"
by Douglas R. Egerton
Read More
The Surprising Demographics of American Slavery
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes
by Andrew Kahn, Jamelle Bouie
Read More
Ep. 3: Compartmentalizing Slavery
by Heather Andrea Williams
Read More
Ep. 4: The Unsung Hemingses
by Annette Gordon-Reed
Read More
Ep. 5: The Slave Bubble
by Joshua Rothman
Read More
George Washington's 1761 Ad Seeking Fugitive Slaves
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
Ep. 5: The Most Successful Slave Rebellion in History
by Edward E. Baptist
Read More
Ep. 6: How Enslaved Families Navigated the Auction Block
by Daina Ramey Berry
Read More
A Detailed 1855 Slave Auction Brochure
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
Ep 6: Why Systematic Violence Became a Necessity
by Edward Baptist
Read More
Ep. 7: How Enslaved Women Wielded Reproductive Capital
by Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Read More
Ep. 8: Why They Fled
by Eric Foner
Read More
Ep. 8: Strength in “Ober-litionism”
by Steven Lubet
Read More
Rare Records of Underground Railroad Activity
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
Enslaved People's Poignant Petitions for Freedom
by Rebecca Onion
Read More
The Largest Slave Rebellion in History?
by Steven Hahn
Read More
7 Myths About Slavery Debunked
by Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion
Read More
Ep. 9: Desperate Ads by Free People Seeking Lost Relatives
by Heather Williams
Read More
Ep. 9: The End of Slavery in New Orleans
by Adam Rothman
Read More
What I Learned From Making This Academy
by Rebecca Onion
Read More

Timeline: Slavery in America

Slate Academies are published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company.
All contents © The Slate Group LLC. All rights reserved.