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Voices of the Enslaved in Wilson Special Collections Library: Poetry & Other Writing

Poetry and Other Writing

This page includes information about mostly published narratives, poetry, and other literary genres written by enslaved people and held by Wilson Special Collections Library. Additionally, there is information with links to databases and resources outside of Wilson Library providing research help and further digitized material to view and read. While this is not a comprehensive list of texts held at Wilson Special Collections Library, included are key works and references providing a useful starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the experiences of those enslaved.

George Moses Horton

For biographical information about George Moses Horton, please see entries in NCpedia and Documenting the American South, plus links to transcriptions of published material on DocSouth.

For a deeper look at the holdings related to Horton at Wilson Special Collections Library, please see the Research Guide.

Archival Collections
Books

A few of the books listed below are photostats or facsimiles.

Omar ibn Said

For biographical information about Omar ibn Said, please see NCpedia and Documenting the American South. This research guide also lists materials by Omar ibn Said in Wilson Special Collections Library.

Archival Collections

23rd Psalm written in Arabic by Omar ibn Said and laid into the scrapbook of John Frederick Foard, 1856. Held in the North Carolina Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library.

The 23rd Psalm manuscript was received by John Frederick Foard, associate of the Owen family, as a gift. Foard dedicates a chapter of his book North America and Africa: Their Past, Present and Future, and Key to the Negro Problem to the story of how he received the piece.

Sūrat al-Naṣr, سورة النصر, circa 1857. Held in the North Carolina Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library.

Sūrat al-Naṣr is understood to be Omar ibn Said's latest known extant writing. A note on the verso incorrectly states that it is the Lord's Prayer. Reproduced and transcribed at Documenting the American South.

Other Printed Books

Harriet Jacobs

For biographical information about Harriet Jacobs, please see NCpedia.

Frederick Douglass
Phillis Wheatley

Other Materials

Harriet Jacobs Family Papers Project Records, 1890s-2005 (bulk 1989-2005)

Harriet Jacobs was an escaped enslaved woman and abolitionist who wrote about her experiences in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Jean Fagan Yellin, head of the Harriet Jacobs Family Papers Project, is Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University in New York, N.Y., and author of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers (2008), a two-volume collection of primary source material related to Jacobs and her family. The collection consists chiefly of materials collected by Jean Fagan Yellin in her work as the head of the Harriet Jacobs Family Papers Project. Included are several original letters by or about members of the Jacobs family; Yellin's administrative files; email print-outs and correspondence with archives and research centers; photocopied primary source materials, including letters, newspaper clippings, and other documents; indexes of collected and consulted items; and background subject files compiled to supplement the research effort. Topics include the Jacobs family and the related Knox family; slavery and fugitives from slavery; abolition; Harriet Jacobs's life in North Carolina, New York (with the Willis family), and Boston; her antislavery work during the Civil War; and other topics.

Browse the collection here

Databases

These databases may require either access on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill or affiliation with UNC-Chapel Hill.