Purchased Lives: Torn Apart and Stitched Back Together
Grades 7–9
Over the course of four lessons, students will analyze both primary and secondary sources to study various aspects of the slave trade in the United States, specifically as related to the buying and selling of human beings in and around New Orleans.
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“Lost Friends” Ads Reveal the Heartbreak of Family Separation During Slavery
Messages from the past dispel the benevolent slaveholder myth.
Slavery’s “Lost Friends” Continue to Speak. Are We Listening?
A new novel and a unique genealogical project are bringing fresh attention to the countless stories of separation and struggle in the tragedy of slavery.
Related Virtual Exhibitions
Purchased Lives: New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade, 1808–1865
A groundbreaking examination of America's perpetuation of the slave trade and New Orleans’s role as a hub of slave trading.
Related Resource
Lost Friends
For decades following the end of the Civil War, people placed personal ads to find family members lost in slavery. They ran in a column called Lost Friends in the Southwestern Christian Advocate.The Lost Friends database provides access to more than 2,500 of these advertisements, searchable by name, year, and location.
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