Rowland Hazard was a well-known philosopher, politician and businessman, but he was proudest of something he did in the shadows: He released 100 African-Americans from New Orleans jails. He was a rich, Rhode Island textile manufacturer, a founder of the ...

James Mye, a poor Indian boy, was apprenticed to a Nantucket couple whose children treated him like a slave. The commonwealth never passed a law making slavery illegal until it ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. Slavery ...

The Underground Railroad was a network of people who hid fugitives from slavery in their homes during the day and moved them north by night to free states, Canada or England. New England was a natural destination for refugees. The ...

In early spring of 1861, the Nightingale of Boston set sail for Liverpool. Her cargo was grain, bread and barrels, broken down for easy shipping and ready to be reconstructed in England to transport goods. But Liverpool was just a ...

Leonard Black couldn’t read or write when he escaped slavery in Maryland, but he found a way to pay for his education. He told the story of his cruel masters in a booklet printed by a New Bedford printer. Leonard ...

In 1863, Louisa May Alcott horrified a Virginia woman by kissing an African-American baby. She had volunteered as a Civil War nurse at Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, D.C. She called it the ‘hurly burly hotel.’ It was cold, poorly ventilated and ...

Elizabeth Buffum Chace belonged to old and distinguished Rhode Island families, but she was distrusted and shunned because of her ardent opposition to slavery. Her ancestor Daniel Gould came from England and settled in Newport in 1637. He became a ...

A meeting of four dozen women and a British abolitionist inspired thousands who considered themselves gentlemen to riot and drag a magazine publisher through the streets of Boston. In 1835, 147 riots broke out in U.S. cities, with the most ...

In 1781, Quock Walker took to heart the new idea that all men are born free and equal, and that everyone is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws. He sued for his freedom before the ...

Austin Bearse sailed the waters of the southern coast of America between 1818 and 1830. The sea captain of Barnstable on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod had started out as a mate on coastal schooners, and in the winter months the schooners ...