The Middleton "Spike" Harris Slavery and Abolition Collection consists of individual documents pertaining to slavery and abolition in the United States. Included are legal documents, indentures, manumission papers, bills of sale, agreements to hire slaves and other business records, deeds, letters, and indentures referencing specific slaves and their masters and detailing the situations for which the documents were produced. The states in which these documents were issued are Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.There are also letters from the following abolitionists: Granville Sharp, Gerrit Smith, Charles Sumner, and Francis Jackson.
Biographical/historical: Author, amateur historian, collector and dealer of African Americana. Middleton Alexander "Spike" Harris (1908-1977) was founder of the Negro History Associates in 1964, an organization which collected and disseminated information about African Americans.