- About
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Student Exhibits
- Rebellions Abroad! — by Travis Heeren
- A Glossary of Black Women in Rebellion — by Kaylor MacLaughlin
- Rumored — by Serena Morgan
- Fragmented Individual Acts of Rebellion — by Twila Neiwert
- John Brown, Harpers Ferry, and the Media — by Bessie Rudd
- Louisiana: Rumors and Insurrections — by Stephanie Smith
- Revolutionaries & Art in Black Cuban Uprisings — by Jiesha Stephens
- Mapping Rumored Rebellions in the South — by Jalen Thompson
- Black Asylum and Sovereignty — by Adam Vernon
- Days in a Demi-Decade: Miscellaneous Rebellions in 19th Century African American Newspapers (1856-1860) — by Hannah Zeller
- Summarily Punished
Days in a Demi-Decade: Miscellaneous Rebellions in 19th Century African American Newspapers (1856-1860)
About This Exhibit:
This exhibit explores the “Miscellaneous News” sections of 19th century African American newspapers as sites that reveal the consistent presence of rebellion in American chattel slavery. Utilizing various digital tools, the exhibit displays and filters the visual and textual landscape of the “Miscellaneous News” sections of five newspapers from 1856 to 1860.
Through this digital presentation, the threads of rebellion are highlighted and mapped on and off the page of the newspaper. In the entries of the “Miscellaneous” sections, threads and fragments of Black rebellion to enslavement and its physical, legal, and ideological manifestations can be traced to reveal that, as Angela Davis describes, “the few slave uprisings—too spectacular to be relegated to oblivion by the racism of ruling class historians—were not isolated occurrences” (6). Rather, “open rebellions erupted with such a frequency that they were as much a part of the texture of slavery as the conditions of servitude themselves” (Davis 6).
These news sections reveal the presence of rebellion alongside other “miscellany” and everyday news and occurrences. Woven alongside the announcements of marriages, deaths, sales, laws, and gossip are these reports of Black rebellion and resistance.
Navigating the Exhibit:
This exhibit approaches the documents through a chronological and historical contextualization of the pages as well as multiple interactive and visual features.
Background and context:
To explore the pages as they relate to each other chronologically, and also to a few historical events surrounding their publication, click here or go to the "Our Timelines" tab.
To learn more about the three newspapers that published the pages, click here, or go to the "About Our Newspapers" tab.
Viewing the Documents:
To be taken to the page with the five documents in full, and a menu of the available transcribed and annotated pages, go to "Our Pages" or click here.
Mapping the Entries:
To explore the geographical reach of each of these documents' "Miscellaneous" sections, go to "Mapping the Rebellions" or click here.
Works Cited:
To see the sources that helped create these pages, go to "Sources and Citations" or click here.
Credits
Newspaper Content From the Accessible Archives' African American Newspaper Collections; exhibit by Hannah Zeller.