Documents in Series I: Petitions to State Legislatures, 1777-1867 include primary source materials digitized from the state archives of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The collection includes nearly all existing legislative petitions on the subject of race and slavery. Documents in Series II: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1777-1867 were collected from local courthouses, and show the realities of slavery at the grassroots level in southern society. This collection also includes State Slavery Statutes, a master record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789â1865.