Browse Items (58 total)

This was a cartoon created by Richmond Whig and featured in the publication Harper's Weekly, which would go on to use the image on multiple occasions, the first one in 1868 and then once again in the year 1872. The cartoon itself showed an African…

William D. Washington’s renowned painting, The Burial of Latané, poignantly captured a Confederate memory of the Civil War. The painting depicts the funeral of Confederate Captain William Latané who led Confederate forces to a…

John Thompson’s celebrated poem, “The Burial of Latané,” epically portrays a Confederate victory at Hanover Courthouse, Virginia. In June of 1862, Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart led the 9th Virginia Calvary in a scouting…

In the cartoon, Jefferson Davis is placed on a chair upon a barrel of gunpowder. There is a large hand giving Jefferson Davis a large cup containing a “smash.” The “smash” contains a grouping of ships crowded in the water. The ships in the cartoon…

In this cartoon found in Issue 152, Volume 3 of Harper’s Weekly, the artist satirizes John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in October of 1859. A scene is depicted of a conversation between John Brown on the right and a black male slave…

In 1865 and 1866, blacks throughout the South held conventions to determine the best strategies for protecting their freedoms in the aftermath of the war. This document is an excerpt from a convention of “colored citizens” that met in Alexandria,…

Virginia's secession ordinance was created in April of 1861, after months of meeting as the Virginia Session. The Session was called on January 7, 1861, and met from February to May of that year. Many counties in the western part of the state felt…

David Walker was one of the most influential black voices of the antebellum era. Little is known about his early life. The son of a slave father and a free black mother, Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, perhaps in 1796 or 1797. In…