This research guide offers digital tools for teachers and students to explore the history of slavery and abolition in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania County Slave Records

• Adams County Register (1800-1820)
• Bedford County Returns and c. 1780 Register and c. 1820 Register (1780-1834)
• Bucks County Register (1783-1830)
• Centre County Returns (1803-1830)
• Chester County Returns (1788-1821)
• Cumberland County Returns and Register (1780-1826)
• Dauphin County Tax Records (1800, 1807)
• Fayette County Register (1788-1826)
• Lancaster County Index of Slave Owners (1780-1834)
• Washington County Register (1782-1851)

Pennsylvania Laws and Court Cases

•  Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery (1780)
• Amendment to the 1780 Law (1788)
• Trial and Execution of Jack Durham, Franklin County Slave (1788)
• Stiles v. Nelly (1823)
• Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law (1826)
• Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)
• An Act to Prevent Kidnapping (1847)

Slavery and Northern Colleges

• Brown University
• Georgetown University
• Harvard
• Princeton

Letters and Diaries

• Benjamin Franklin Papers
• Isaac T. Hopper Biography and Papers
• Published Letters of Prof. John McClintock, discussing the McClintock Riot (1847)
• James Miller McKim Letters (Class of 1828)
• William Still Journal and Book

Speeches and Anti-Slavery Conventions

• Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
• Constitution of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (1787)