by David Bristow | Apr 25, 2023 | Blog
Editor’s note: Below is the first part of “Journey to Freedom from Nebraska Territory,” from the Summer 2022 issue of Nebraska History Magazine. Read the complete article (PDF). The author received the 2023 James L. Sellers Memorial Award, given...
by evolempirecreative | Mar 1, 2023 | Blog
On March 1, 1867, President Andrew Johnson reluctantly signed the proclamation declaring Nebraska’s statehood. The signing ended the life of a territory which thirteen years earlier had been organized amid controversy. The quarrels at both the beginning and the end of...
by Chris Goforth | Feb 28, 2023 | Blog
By David L. Bristow, Editor Eliza Grayson was one of the very first enslaved people brought to Nebraska when the territory opened to white settlers in 1854. Her escape from Nebraska City and capture in Chicago created a sensation in 1860. In the archives of...
by David Bristow | Feb 1, 2023 | Blog
By David L. Bristow “I once was in bondage,” Robert Ball Anderson writes in his 1927 autobiography, From Slavery to Affluence, “… owned but owning nothing, valued in dollars and cents as any other chattel, to be bought and sold, traded or worked, even as a horse or...
by evolempirecreative | Jan 3, 2023 | Blog
An 1866 letter shows us something that’s often forgotten when people talk about civil rights history. D.H. Kelsey of Plattsmouth was living in Washington, DC, when the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was ratified following the Civil War. (See below to learn...
