Library Guides: Manuscripts of Early National and Antebellum America: Topical Collections

Topical Collections

What follows is a list of Early National and Antebellum topical collections from the North American manuscript holdings dating wholly or primarily from the years 1788 to 1860. They may be broadly characterized as groups of manuscripts of various types gathered artificially around a person or subject, otherwise lacking unity of provenance.

American Slavery Manuscript Collection, 1771-1864
19 manuscripts. An accumulation of documents and other manuscripts with substantial references to slavery. These include personal letters; slave sale documents; wills; itemized sale and appraisal bills of slaveholding estates; and a manuscript written in Arabic by the celebrated freed slave Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima (c. 1762-1829). The manuscripts derive from many parts of the American South, with some emphasis on Kentucky. MSN/EA 0200-01 to MSN/EA 0200-05; MSN/EA 0200-06-F1; MSN/EA 0200-07 to MSN/EA 0200-09; MSN/EA 0200-10-F1; MSN/EA 0200-11 to MSN/EA 0200-19. [Finding Aid]