Slavery in the United States

This article is about slavery from the founding of the United States in 1776. For the colonial period, see Slavery in the colonial history of the United States. For modern illegal slavery, see Human trafficking in the United States. For modern legal forced labor, see Penal labor in the United States.

"Peculiar institution" redirects here. For the book, see The Peculiar Institution.

See also: Abolitionism in the United States

Whipping a slave, wood-engraving made 1834; Wilson Chinn, showing a slave collar and facial branding of the initials of his enslaver, Valsin B. Marmillion; slavery survivor Adam Crosswhite photographed 1878; Franklin & Armfield's slave jail in Alexandria, D.C., 1836; freedmen leaving South Carolina on the USS Vermont in 1862; Delia Garlic at age 100; 1818 Kentucky slave trader's ad; daguerreotype made at the 1850 Fugitive Slave Convention; White Gold in the Delta, painted 1939 by Beulah Bettersworth for the Indianola, Mississippi post office, mural destroyed 1960s