Yale Divinity Library

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Aaron Dutton and his son Samuel William Southmayd Dutton were Congregational clergymen in Connecticut who were known for their abolitionist views.  Aaron Dutton served as minister of the First Congregational Church in Guilford from 1806 until 1842, at which time he resigned due to the dissension in the congregation regarding his abolitionist stance. Samuel Dutton was minister at North Church (now United Church on the Green), New Haven from 1838 to 1866.  He was a noted champion of the antislavery cause. Selected sermons of Samuel Dutton and an article by Aaron Dutton are available online.

The Freedmen’s Aid Society was founded in 1866 as an agency of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Society established and maintained schools and colleges for former slaves in the postbellum South. This collection consists of 120 microfilm reels, based on the originals housed at the Woodruff Library at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.

Waller went to Africa in 1861 as Lay Superintendent of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. He resigned from the Mission in 1863 following a disagreement related to liberated slaves under the care of the Mission. These papers document the Zambezi expedition of David Livingstone (1813-1873) and the early history of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa.  Waller’s deep interest in Africa and the problem of slavery continued throughout his life and is reflected in his correspondence with Livingstone and in diaries dated 1875-1876, after his return to England.  Selections from Waller’s diaries for 1875 and 1876 have been scanned.

The Society originated in a bequest by Robert Boyle in 1691 for advancing religion amongst infidels. In 1794, the charity was reconstituted as “The Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands,” and in 1836, after the abolition of slavery, as “The Society for Advancing the Christian Faith in the British West-India Islands, and elsewhere, in the Dioceses of Jamaica, and of the Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, and in the Mauritius.” The papers document the Society’s activities from the 17th through the 20th centuries.

Established in Philadelphia in the 1700s by Richard Allen, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was the first black church to expand on a national level in the United States. These extensive records of the first AME church detail the establishment and daily operation of the church. The collection also contains committee meeting minutes, records of marriages and baptisms, financial records, receipts, lists of church officers, class roll books, records of committee activities, and other items. More information is available online.

The Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society was the British Counterpart to the American Missionary Association. It provided financial support for educational and religious work among former slaves and their descendants in Africa and the United States.

This newspaper was printed by students at the Mendi Mission in Sherbro, West Africa, beginning in March 1861. Established by American abolitionists in the wake of theAmistad slave revolt, the Mendi Mission served as a bridge connecting the struggle against slavery across two continents. The Divinity Library also holds a rare copy of the Sherbro and English Book published by the mission in 1862.

The New England Indian Papers Series Database includes several documents directly related to slavery and the slave trade in early America. Manuscripts include information on Indian slaves taken after King Philip’s War and their fate in the Caribbean, Spain, and North Africa.