Digital Humanities Project List

Keywords: African diaspora; 18th-20th century; Britain; West India; soldiers; Caribbean

Africa's Sons Under Arms

The website is a four-year research initiative that commenced in October 2014. It delves into the connections between the arming of individuals of African descent and the evolving perceptions of race from the late 18th century to the early 20th century, using Britain's West India Regients (WIR) as a focal point. This endeavour encompasses three interconnected facets that examine WIR soldiers from distinct angles: as subjects of medical examination during their tenure in the Caribbean, as subjects of public interest who served in the broader British military, and as participants in organized sports observed by both local and visiting spectators.

visit

Project Director(s): David Lambert; Tim Lockley; Elizabeth Cooper
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Warwick
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: academics, educators, public, researchers, students, historians
Other Comments: Arts & Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: France; Guadeloupe; Martinique; 1848 Abolition of Slavery; Freed Slaves; Caribbean Islands

Anchoukaj.org. Les noms de familles Guadeloupéennes et Martiniquaises

This website offers a database in which 30,000 surnames have been listed, given to more than 80,000 Guadeloupeans from 1848. They were all slaves and had just been freed by the decree of the abolition of slavery proclaimed on April 27, 1848 by the provisional government of the second French Republic. By typing a surname in a tab, the users can access the names, first names, matricules, and other information concerning people freed in 1848 and who, before the abolition of slavery, had only a first name and a matricule as their identity. This database has been initiated by the Comité Marche du 23 mai 1998 and the Guadeloupe region.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: West Indian Memorial Association
Language: French
Status: Active
Target Audience: public, researchers, students
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/15/2023

Keywords: Banjo; music; Afro-Atlantic; musical transcription; Haiti; Louisiana; United States; Caribbean

Banjology

This website is a work-in-progress by Laurent Dubois (Duke University), David Garner (University of South Carolina), and Mary Caton Lingold (Virginia Commonwealth University). Their goal is to showcase their research on the history of the banjo in the Afro-Atlantic world, including historical documents, visual materials, material objects, and musical transcription and analysis. They focus particularly on Haiti and Louisiana, but also provide information from other areas along with the transcriptions of a wide range of banjo music. The visitors will be able to explore and comment on sources relating to the banjo’s fascinating history. The website was originally created as the basis for events taking place at Tulane University on April 21-22, 2013 around the theme of “The Banjo and the African Diaspora.”

visit

Project Director(s): Laurent Dubois; David Garner; Mary Caton Lingold
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Tulane University
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: academics, educators, public, researchers, students, historians
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: North America; African diaspora; 19th century; 1800-1860; slave refugee migration; runaway slaves; asylum

Beacons of Freedom: Slave Refugees in North America 1800-1860

This project adopts a social-historical approach to study and compare different groups of African-American slave refugees seeking freedom in North America during the "second slavery" period (around 1800-1860). It stands out from current scholarly perspectives by offering a comprehensive, continent-wide view of slave refugee migration. Additionally, it introduces a novel distinction between various "spaces of freedom" for runaway slaves, including formal, semi-formal, and informal freedom. This innovative approach enriches our understanding of this historical phenomenon.

visit

Project Director(s): Damian Pargas; Oran Kennedy
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Leiden University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: NWO Talent Programme
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Mozambique; Portuguese Colonies; compensation; 19th century

Between Oceans and Continents : The Registers of Slave and Freed Africans of Portuguese Mozambique; 1854–1875

Between Oceans and Continents brings together information on almost 14,000 enslaved Africans registered in Mozambique during the second half of the nineteenth century. These individuals were part of a larger effort by the Portuguese government to register all slaves living in its overseas possessions with the objective of gradually abolishing slavery in the empire. The website provides users with three resources. First, a database of the individuals registered containing their personal information along with that of their masters. Second, short essays about the history of the registration, the documents it produced, and the individuals involved in that process. Finally, a gallery of contemporary images providing visual context for the available information. These resources allow students and teachers to further understand the history of slavery and abolition in Africa, particularly in regions formerly under Portuguese colonial rule. This site is built and maintained by Rice University, USA. Lead Researchers : Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (PI), Rice University and Edward Alpers, University of California-Los Angeles.

visit

Project Director(s): Daniel B. Domingues da Silva; Edward Alpers
Current Team Member(s): Miles Olson; Selase Butasi; Abigail Fiels; Aner Modi; Elcício Rui Macuácua; Ivan Castigo Zacarias
Affiliation: Rice University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Resilient Digital Humanities Jump-Start Grant
Date of Access: 11/15/2023

Keywords: Resources; database

Black Digital Humanities Projects & Resources: A List of Projects, Resources, Events, and Anything Else

This Google Doc showcases a collection of diverse Black Digital Humanities Projects & Resources curated by the Colored Convention Project (CCP). The materials are organized alphabetically, spanning different centuries and pivotal events in Black history.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Colored Convention Project (CCP)
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-01-27

Keywords: Colored Troops; Virginia; soldiers; sailors

Black Virginians in Blue

179,000 African American men from the North and South served in the United States Colored Troops and about 18,000 more served in the Union navy. Black Virginians in Blue began in earnest in the summer of 2016 and was launched on April 13, 2021. Although "complete," we will continue to gather more information and add more Black soldiers and sailors from Albemarle County as they are discovered. This project's database now contains all known Black Virginians from Albemarle who served in the Union army or navy. We have identified 257 men who enlisted or served in more than 80 different regiments and five different naval vessels.

visit

Project Director(s): Brian C. Neumann; William B. Kurtz; Caroline E. Janney; Elizabeth R. Varon; Gary W. Gallagher
Current Team Member(s): Ervin Jordan; Jonathan W. White; Frank Cirillo; Brian Neumann; Kevin Caprice; Clayton Butler; Stephanie Lawton; Ian Iverson; Amelia Gilmer; Sarah Anderson; Jane Diamond; Joseph Wright; Amelia Wald; Matthew Wallace; Matthew Weisenfluh; Casey Bowler; Lily Snodgrass; Annie Valentine; Adam Jacobs; Catherine Kolo; Seth Stowe; Cole Davidson; Marvin Hicks
Affiliation: University of Virginia
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-01-16

Keywords: 1930s; 20th century; United States autobiographies

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project:1936 to 1938

This online collection, provided by the Library of the Congress (US), contains over 2.300 first-person accounts and 500 photographs of former slaves. The narratives were collected as part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) in the 1930s. The volumes are arranged alphabetically by the state in which the interviews were conducted and thereunder by the surname of the informant. The database can also be searched i.e. by format, date or location. Additionally, there can be found some articles and essays about the collection.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: United States Library of Congress
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: United States Congress
Date of Access: 11/15/2023

Keywords: primary document; Brazil

Brazilian Guide to Sources for the History of Africa, Black Slavery, and Black People in Today's Society

This book compiles an extensive array of sources pertaining to the history of Africa, the era of slavery, and the experiences of Black individuals in society. It includes comprehensive details on archival materials, documents, records, and historical references related to Africa's history, the transatlantic slave trade, slavery's impact, and the role of Black individuals in society. The guide presents a broad spectrum of information, offering insights into diverse aspects of African history, the narratives of enslaved individuals, and the contributions of Black people in shaping contemporary society in Brazil.

visit

Project Director(s): National Archives (Brazil)
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: National Archives (Brazil)
Language: Portuguese
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 12/26/2023

Keywords: newspaper ads; Canada; runaway slaves; 18th century; 19th century; historical archive

Canadian Fugitive Slave Advertisements

The site explores the historical significance of fugitive slave advertisements in Canada and the Americas, offering detailed insights into the lives, resistance, and aspirations of enslaved individuals. These ads, while providing unique descriptions of enslaved African Americans' bodies, were created by white slave owners and inadvertently exposed evidence of brutal corporal punishment. They reflect attempts at self-fashioning and resistance by the enslaved, revealing partial glimpses of their lives within the constraints of slavery. Despite limitations, this archive serves as a valuable resource for scholars seeking to recover the voices and histories of the enslaved, emphasizing their persistent resistance and aspirations for freedom across the Americas.

visit

Project Director(s): Charmaine A. Nelson
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: McGill University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: Mauritia; migration; interdisciplinary; immigration

Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture Mauritius

Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture is a multidisciplinary Research Centre based at the University of Mauritius. In its research the CRS focuses on the history of slavery in Mauritius and the associated migration movements by pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, which brings together researchers from the fields of ethnography, archaeology, oral history, genealogy and family history. The Website is still in the process of being set up, but in future it aims to provide a series of databases relating to slave trade and indentured immigration in Mauritius.

visit

Project Director(s): Manorama Akung
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Mauritius
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Britain; 1834; 19th century; slave owners; estates; Caribbean Islands; Jamaica; Barbados; Grenada

Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery

The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, hosted at the University College London (UCL), built a growing online Encyclopaedia of British Slave-Owners. In the first phase, the researchers evaluated data on slaveholders who had received government compensation payments when slavery was abolished in 1807. In the second phase of the project, which is still ongoing, data from the approximately 4,000 estates were evaluated, through which another 20,000 slaveholders could be identified. Detailed filter functions make the database easy to search. It is possible to search not only in the entire data set, but also to search for estates or for persons in the individual categories Commercial, Cultural, Historical, Imperial, Physical and Political Legacies. Family members of the slave owners can also be tracked down.

visit

Project Director(s): Matthew J. Smith; Catherine Hall
Current Team Member(s): Keith McClelland; Jess Hanah; Nick Draper; Matthew Stallard; Nydia A. Swaby; Siddharth Singh Ahlawat
Affiliation: University College London
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/15/2023

Keywords: Africa; forced marriage; gender violence

Conjugal Slavery in War

This SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant (2015-2020) documents cases of so-called forced marriage in conflict situations, places this data in historical context, and impacts the international prosecution of crimes against humanity as well as local reparations programs for survivors of violence. With the central participation of community-based organizations in Africa, this project will strengthen individual’s and organizations’ capacity to prevent violence, and advance understanding of the use of conjugal slavery as a tool of war through evidence-based research.

visit

Project Director(s): Annie Bunting
Current Team Member(s): Véronique Bourget
Affiliation: York University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 12/19/2023

Keywords: Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (BSA); Notary Records Books; Digitization Project; Bahia State Archives; Colonial History; Social and Economic History; Slave Trade; Plantation Society; Legal Documents; Property Transmission; Biographical Research; Document Preservation; Research Group; Historical Preservation.

Digitising endangered manuscript sources: the notary books of Bahia, Brazil, 1664-1889

The project´s goal is to digitise a collection of manuscript documents deposited at the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (Bahia State Archives-BSA): the 841 volumes of the Notary Records Books produced between 1664 and 1889, this last date being the year the Republic was proclaimed, and one year after the abolition of slavery in Brazil. The result will be approximately 450,000 images, which will be deposited at the BSA, the Federal University of Bahia, and the British Library, and will be made available online.

visit

Project Director(s): João Reis
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Federal University of Bahia
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-01-27

Keywords: Trans-Atlantic slave trade; migration; heritage exploration; African ethnonyms; 1500-1867

Documenting Africans in Trans-Atlantic Slavery (DATAS)

Documenting Africans in Trans-Atlantic Slavery (DATAS) is a project which develops a new and innovative method to explore African ethnonyms from the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (ca. 1500-1867). Due to this method, DATAS aims to contribute to the understanding of origins and trajectories of people of African descent in the trans-Atlantic world. The DATAS website serves as a platform which provides access to available data on trans-Atlantic migration and identity through a list of links. The project is directed by Paul E. Lovejoy.

visit

Project Director(s): Paul Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s): Myriam Cottias; Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec; Sean Kelley
Affiliation: York University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Trans-Atlantic Platform; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Fonds de Recherche Société et Culture, Québec; L'Agence nationale de la recherche; Arts and Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 11/17/2023

Keywords: runaway slaves; newspaper ads; United States; Caribbean; Brazil; migration

Documenting Runaway Slaves

The Documenting Runaway Slaves (DRS) project compiles and shares newspaper ads placed by masters seeking to retrieve runaway slaves. The project aims to create a single text-based repository for these ads from the U.S. South to the Caribbean and eventually to Brazil and beyond, and will organize them into standardized, full-text searchable online resource. Dr. Douglas B. Chambers and Dr. Max Grivno from the Southern Miss Department of History lead the project. Their approach involves accurate transcriptions to preserve the narrative quality of the sources. The focus is on individual slaves to avoid duplications. These ads provide personal insights into enslaved individuals' lives, resistance efforts, forced migration patterns, and owner perspectives. The project aims to create a searchable online resource for researchers, genealogists, and those interested in the era of slavery, spanning from the U.S. South to the Caribbean and beyond.

visit

Project Director(s): Max Grivno; Douglas Chambers
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Southern Mississippi
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: academics, educators, public, researchers, students, historians
Other Comments: Mississippi Humanities Council; U.S. National Park Service's Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative; National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program; Center for the Study of the Gulf South
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: digital wave; research methodologies; digital humanities

Embedding Slavery in Digital Humanities

This issue belongs to this digital wave that is sweeping over the history of slaveries in modern times and proposes, at a heuristic level, pathways towards a means of understanding appropriate for a ‘digital creasing of the world’—that is to say using the digital humanities to raise the surface of what was traditionally smoothed over by the sources. It is, we believe, likely to bring those researching the world of slaves and their audiences closer together.

visit

Project Director(s): Jane Landers; Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec; Henry Lovejoy; Paul Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation:
Language: French
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Slave owners; records; slave trade connections

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade

Enslaved.org is an online database, which makes personal data of people who were enslaved, owned slaved and were connected to slave trade freely accessible. The repository already contains over 900.000 records from the historical slave trade and is rapidly expanding. The data can be easily explored using the advanced search function in the categories “Person”, “Event”, “Place” and “Source”. In Addition, enslaved.org provides graphics and visualizations to overview the data as well as articles and data-driven research about the lives of the enslaved in the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation. The project was initiated by the Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU) with the aim to connect and preserve data from a growing number of archives, databases and collections that organize records of historical enslavement.

visit

Project Director(s): Dean Rehberger; Walter Hawthorne; Ethan Watrall; Daryle Williams
Current Team Member(s): Catherine Foley; Jeff Goeke-Smith; Seila Gonzalez; Alicia Sheill
Affiliation: Michigan State University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Mellon Foundation
Date of Access: 11/17/2023

Keywords: Igbo; abolition movement; autobiography; 18th century; Britain

Equianos’ World

Equianos’ World is an online project, which provides information and material about the life of Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved Igbo boy, who is also known under the name given to him as a slave, Gustavus Vassa. Equiano wrote his autobiography “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, as Published by Himself”, which first appeared in 1789 and was influential in the abolition of the British slave trade. Besides documents and editions of Equiano’s writing, the website provides articles and research about him and the context of the British slave trade in the 18th century, including images, maps, audio and video resources. The open-source digital repository is directed by Paul E. Lovejoy and hosted by the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University.

visit

Project Director(s): Paul Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s): Kartikay Chadha; Renee E LeFebvre; Maria Yala; Fernanda Sierra Suárez; Leidy Alpízar Alpízar
Affiliation: York University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 11/17/2023

Keywords: Haiti; France; indemnity payments; reparation; compensation; 19th century; 20th century; 21st century; slave owners

Esclavage & Indemnités. Empire colonial français du XIXe siècle.

The Esclavage & Indemnités website presents data on the indemnities paid by Haiti in 1825 to French slave owners, and those paid by France in 1849 to slave owners in the French Empire. The website was designed within the framework of the REPAIRS research project (CIRESC, ISJPS, URMIS), which aims to make a multidisciplinary study of indemnity, reparations and compensation for slavery between the 19th and 21st centuries.

visit

Project Director(s): Magali Bessone; Myriam Cottias; Elisabeth Cunin
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: French National Centre for Scientific Research
Language: French
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/17/2023

Keywords: Asia, historical roots; maritime Asia; 19th century; Indian Ocean region; East Asia; Southeast Asia; South Asia; South Africa; East Africa

Exploring Slave Trade in Asia

Most of today’s 49.6 million people who live in conditions of slavery are located in Asia (GSI Estimate 2021). These conditions have deep historical roots. Scholarship has noted that slavery and slave trade were widespread throughout maritime Asia from the early modern period well into the nineteenth century and recent estimates indicate that the Asian slave trade may have been almost as extensive as its Atlantic counterpart. However, in contrast to the Atlantic space a comprehensive and detailed insight in the size, structure and patterns of this slave trade is lacking for the maritime Asia and Indian Ocean region. ESTA aims to build a database that reconstructs the historic slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia region in order to facilitate new research, connections, and more global perspectives in collaboration with an emerging network of scholars committed to develop a coherent field of Asian slave trade and slavery studies – including East, Southeast and South Asia as well as South and East Africa.

visit

Project Director(s): Ulbe Bosma; Matthias van Rossum
Current Team Member(s): Merve Tosun; Pascal Konings; Rob Zeeman
Affiliation: International Institute of Social History
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-06

Keywords: Africa; Atlantic Ocean; autobiographies; biographical data; West Africa

Freedom Narratives

The project Freedom Narratives provides an online digital repository of autobiographical testimonies and biographical data of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic world. Most of the individuals in this repository were born free in Africa and travelled within West Africa or across the Atlantic in the so called “Middle Passage”. Until now, the project has digitalized 2.000 testimonies, which can be explored through a search functions or by category (i.e. Gender, Status, Age, Place). Additionally, the website provides bibliographical references and references to teaching and learning material. Freedom Narratives is directed by Paul E. Lovejoy and supported by the York University, the Andre W. Mellon Foundation and Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU).

visit

Project Director(s): Paul Lovejoy; Érika Melek Delgado; Mégane Coulon
Current Team Member(s): Kartikay Chadha; Leidy Alpízar Alpízar
Affiliation: York University
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: academics, educators, public, researchers, students, historians
Other Comments: Mellon Foundation
Date of Access: 11/18/2023

Keywords: North America; runaway slaves; newspaper ads

Freedom on the Move-Rediscovering. The Stories of Self-Liberating People

Freedom on the Move is a database cataloging fugitives from North American slavery. Enslavers used "runaway ads" in newspapers to locate escapees, while jailers posted ads about apprehended individuals in search of their owners. This project compiles a wealth of resistance stories previously scattered. Originally intended to control movement, these ads inadvertently preserved personal details. Together, they offer a rare, detailed source on the experiences of enslaved individuals. The database serves as a valuable research tool, educational resource, and genealogical aid. Scholars, students, and citizen historians can utilize the data for innovative research and insights.

visit

Project Director(s): Edward Baptist; William Block
Current Team Member(s): Vanessa Holden; Hassan Kwame Jeffries; Mary Niall Mitchell; Joshua Rothman; Claudia Von Vocano; Elena Goloborodko; Christy Hyman; Lynda Kellam; Brandon T. Kowalski; Kate Shuster
Affiliation: Cornell University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities; Cornell University Institute for the Social Sciences; National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Civil war; Ohio; United States; runaway slaves; political parties; abolition; 19th century

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 - Ohio History Central

The author, Larry Gara, explores how the law was more than just an instrument for the return of fugitive slaves, transcending into a symbolic representation of sectional tensions and differing perceptions across the North and South. Gara delves into the perspectives of various groups and individuals affected by the law, detailing the challenges faced by slaveholders in border states, the fears and reactions of fugitive slaves and free African Americans, the responses of abolitionists, and the political implications for both the Democratic and Republican parties. Through historical accounts, case studies, and analyses of legal proceedings related to the law, the page offers insights into the law's enforcement, societal reactions, and its role in intensifying sectional conflicts that ultimately contributed to the growing divide between North and South in the years leading up to the Civil War.

visit

Project Director(s): Larry Gara
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Wilmington College
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: 19th century; United States; Pennsylvania; fugitives; slave owners

Fugitive Slave Records, 1820-1839 - Chester County, Pennsylvania

This index, which covers the time period 1820 - 1839*, is to the evidence gathered in cases in which an African-American was claimed in Chester County as a fugitive slave. The records contain the information specified in “An act to prevent kidnapping,” which was passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature on March 27, 1820.

visit

Project Director(s): County of Chester
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: County of Chester
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: Civil war; 1850; 19th century; Fugitive Slave Act; Underground Railroad

Fugitive Slaves and Northern Racism

This site provides a comprehensive resource on the experiences of fugitive slaves and the challenges they faced in Northern states. It features narratives, such as Harriet Jacobs' harrowing escape story and the remarkable efforts of figures like Harriet Tubman, detailing their courageous endeavors in helping others seek freedom. The resource highlights the significance of slave narratives and the impact of works like Frederick Douglass' autobiography and Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in exposing the horrors of slavery. Additionally, it discusses the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act, revealing the controversies and struggles surrounding fugitive slaves seeking refuge in the North. The site also sheds light on the harsh realities faced by free blacks in Northern cities, including racial segregation, limited opportunities, and racial violence, despite living outside legal enslavement.

visit

Project Director(s): PBS: Public Broadcasting Service
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: PBS: Public Broadcasting Service
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: Canada; fugitive slave act; 19th century; abolition; settlement; Britain; Narratives

Fugitives in Canada

This page explores the influx of African Americans seeking refuge in Canada after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 in the United States. Around thirty thousand escaped slaves sought safety in Canada as the North became unsafe. Henry Bibb and Josiah Henson, former slaves, established the Refugees' Home Colony in Canada in 1851 and launched the Voice of the Fugitive, the first black newspaper in Canada. It includes excerpts from their narratives and Bibb's welcome statement to arriving fugitive slaves, emphasizing self-determination and self-ownership. The content also delves into the growth of fugitive settlements in Canada, especially in western Ontario, referencing Benjamin Drew's "A North-Side View of Slavery: The Refugee." Drew documented narratives of fugitive slaves, depicting various communities, from planned settlements to smaller groups in cities and isolated backcountry farmers. Excerpts from fifteen fugitives' narratives provide insights into their experiences and community formation. This historical documentation prompts discussions on how newly liberated African Americans established communities in Canada, focusing on themes like self-determination, self-respect, and community building despite facing adversity.

visit

Project Director(s): National Humanities Center
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: National Humanities Center
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: newspaper ads; Virginia; United States; runaway slaves; 18th century; 19th century; civil war

Geography of Slavery in Virginia

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.

visit

Project Director(s): Tom Costa
Current Team Member(s): Matt Carter; Emily Hale; Elijah Helton; John Mooney; Jennifer Muter
Affiliation: University of Virginia's College at Wise
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities; Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Digital forum; blogs; academic discussion;

H-Slavery The History of Slavery

H-Slavery is one of the leading online forum for slavery studies, which was founded in 1995. The forum publishes reviews and information on current events, projects and job openings. Via blogs and digital forums, H-Slavery offers opportunities for academic discussions and professional exchange. Due to advanced search functions, the website can be searched for particular content. The forum is run by a group of interdisciplinary scientists from around the world on a volunteer basis.

visit

Project Director(s): David Prior
Current Team Member(s): Andrew Kettler; Annika Bärwald; Sorina Georgescu; Amanda McGee; Claus Meyer; Clifford Oratokhai; Jajuan Johnson; Jeff Forret; Jorge Felipe; Kathleen Hilliard; Mary Cornelius; Matthew Dawdy; Saša Čaval; Steve Peraza; Isabela Morales
Affiliation: H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/18/2023

Keywords: Narratives; Americas; Caribbean; Indian Ocean; courtroom testimony; transcriptions

Hearing the Enslaved Speak : A Multimedia Database of Voices of the Voiceless

Voices of the Enslaved is a digital humanities project that is carried by Sophie White, Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame (USA). White is interested in expanding and rethinking the established canon of slave narratives in the Americas, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. Hearing Slaves Speak : A Multimedia Database of Voices of the Voiceless will be hosted on the Omohundro Institute's OI Reader platform and will feature edited transcriptions and translations of slaves’ courtroom testimony, aimed at both a scholarly and public audience. This project is under contract, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

visit

Project Director(s): Sophie White
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Notre Dame
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: 18th century; 19th century; maps; artwork; Jamaica; Caribbean; Britain; narrative

Hidden in Plain Sight: Escaped Slaves in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Jamaica

Employing sound and video recordings as well as enhanced eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artwork and maps, all in digital format, this article will challenge readers to think about Jamaican society in new ways. It will explore how white men saw and experienced the island and its population in order to enhance our understanding of how enslaved men, women, and children who attempted long-term escapes were able to achieve varying degrees of liberty and self-determination at the heart of Britain’s largest slave society.

visit

Project Director(s): Simon Newman
Current Team Member(s): Anthony King; David Ely; Marenka Thompson-Odlum
Affiliation: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords:

History of Fugitive Slave Chapel - Museum of Ontario

The Fugitive Slave Chapel site is a historically significant location in London, Ontario, known for being the first church of the Black community in the city. Established in the 1840s, it served as a refuge for escaped slaves seeking freedom in Canada following the abolition of slavery. The site's purpose is to preserve and commemorate the history of the Underground Railroad, offer educational resources about Black history, and house a museum displaying relevant historical artifacts. Efforts are underway to relocate the chapel beside Beth Emmanuel Church for preservation and to create a center dedicated to research, education, and the celebration of Black heritage.

visit

Project Director(s): Museum of Ontario Archaeology
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Museum of Ontario Archaeology
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Western University; Government of Canada
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: Indian Ocean; Maritime Asia

Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Databases (IOMASTD)

This project collects and curates datasets on slave trade and slavery in the Indian Ocean and wider maritime Asian worlds. Archival sources and databases are made available online. The IOMASTD is part of the Dataverse Project, an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. The Dataverse Project is being developed at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), along with many collaborators and contributors worldwide. This project collects and curates datasets on slave trade and slavery in the Indian Ocean and wider maritime Asian worlds. Archival sources and databases are made available online.

visit

Project Director(s): Gary King
Current Team Member(s): Stefano Iacus; Ceilyn Boyd
Affiliation: Harvard University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; National Science Foundation; National Institutes of Health; Helmsley Charitable Trust; IQSS's Henry A. Murray Research Archive
Date of Access: 11/18/2023

Keywords: Scotland; surgeon; Sierra Leone; Africa; 1835-1883; soldier

James “Africanus” Beale Horton

This page focuses on James "Africanus" Beale Horton, born in Sierra Leone in 1835. He holds the distinction of being Edinburgh University's inaugural African graduate. The page offers extensive documentation of his life and highlights the significance of African history at Edinburgh University.

visit

Project Director(s): Tom Cunningham
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: 19th century; Africa; Sierra Leone; origin; identity; liberated Africans

Language of Marks

The digital project “Language of Marks” was initiated by Drs. Ladly and Keefer and aims to develop a searchable visual database using the entries from the 19th century Registers of Liberated Africans, which have been collected and digitized within the archives of Freetown, Sierra Leone. To reveal individual identities and origins, the researchers employ historical and archival research in an interdisciplinary methodological approach adapted from art, design and the digital humanities, with the application of accessible platforms and interfaces for lab and field work. The visual database is still in the process of being set up, but once completed it should “enable researchers and others to review, compare and decode visualised marks connoting individual identities, which may assist scholars and members of the public in better understanding critical questions of African identities and origin”. The project is supported by various Universities from Canada, the United States and Nigeria.

visit

Project Director(s): Martha Ladly; Katrina Keefer
Current Team Member(s): Maria Yala; Kartikay Chadha; Youssouf Traore; Eric Lehman; Michael McGill; Thamires de Andrade
Affiliation: OCAD University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; BrainAlliance; GestureTek
Date of Access: 11/18/2023

Keywords: 18th century; 19th century; Atlantic; French Guiana; Guadeloupe; Jamaica; United States; interactuve map; digitalized documents

Le Marronnage dans le monde atlantique. Sources et Trajectoires de vie

Dedicated to the « maroon » slaves in the Atlantic world, this platform brings together some 150,000 listings of fugitive slaves and 7,000 prison lists. « Marooning » is a form of resistance which has been practiced with regularity by enslaved men and women in the slave societies of the Atlantic world. Initially focused on Santo Domingo, the project now also covers French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, South Carolina, Louisiana and Lower Canada (18th-19th centuries). The website features an interactive map and a database. By entering, for example, the name of the colony or the names of the « maroon » slaves themselves, the user is able to take cognizance of the related (digitalized and retranscribed) documents. The site was first launched in 2009. The co-directors of the research team are Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec and Leon Robichaud (Sherbrooke University).

visit

Project Director(s): Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, Léon Robichaud
Current Team Member(s): Jacqueline Garriss; Thomas Garriss; Geneviève Piché; Anne Bruneau-Poulin; Marie Lemonnier; Annie Pulin; Julie Marleau; Hubbert Sainte-Marie; Mélise Roy-Bélanger; Pierre-Olivier Parenteau; Paquin Design; Heather Robichaud
Affiliation: Université de Sherbrooke,
Language: French
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC)
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Slave owners; Britain; Caribbean

Legacies of British Slave Ownership

The CSLBS (Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery) is an initiative and database that grew out of the highly regarded Legacies of British Slave-Ownership project, which commenced in 2009. Since its inception, the groundbreaking Legacies of British Slavery Database has welcomed over two million distinct visitors from various parts of the globe. Today, they lead a public history center in the UK for the study of the history of British Slavery and its consequences. Their mission is to expand public understanding and foster in-depth discussions in Britain and the Caribbean through our research aimed at the public and our efforts in restorative history.

visit

Project Director(s): Matthew J. Smith; Catherine Hall
Current Team Member(s): Matthew Stallard; Jess Hannah; Keith McClelland
Affiliation: University College London
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Maryland; United States; historical data; 1830-1880; 19th century

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland

This program seeks to preserve and promote the vast universe of experiences that have shaped the lives of Maryland's African American population. From the day that Mathias de Sousa and Francisco landed in St. Mary's county aboard the Ark and the Dove in 1634, Black Marylanders have made significant contributions to both the state and nation in the political, economic, agricultural, legal, and domestic arenas. Despite what often seemed like insurmountable odds, Marylanders of Color have adapted, evolved, and prevailed. The Maryland State Archives' Study of the Legacy of Slavery Staff invites researchers to explore all of these elements and more within its numerous source documents, exhibits and interactive online presentations.

visit

Project Director(s): Christopher Haley
Current Team Member(s): Krystal Appiah; David Armenti; Alex Champion; Ryan Cox; Maria Day; Jarrett Drake; Maya Davis; Rachel Frazier; John Gartrell; Karen Hare; Hannah Lane; Millington Lockwood; Owen Lourie; Allison Seyler; Tanner Sparks
Affiliation: Maryland State Archives
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: City of Annapolis; The Dominion Foundation
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: 19th century; Atlantic Ocean; Indian Ocean; liberated Africans

Liberated Africans

Liberated Africans retraces the lives of over 250.000 people, who were emancipated under global campaigns to abolish slavery in the 19th century. The project includes liberated Africans of the Atlantic slave trade and of the Indian Ocean trade and collects multilingual data from all over the world. The diverse types of documents include proceedings for about 1.000 trials, registers containing biographical sketches for people removed from slave ships (including physical descriptions), labour contracts, anti-slavery legislation, correspondence on resettlement policies, images of captured slave ships and imagery of some Liberated Africans. The growing database can be searched for courts, cases and sources. The project is directed by Paul E. Lovejoy.

visit

Project Director(s): Henry Lovejoy; Kartikay Chadha
Current Team Member(s): Olivia Hart; Ann Chapman Tirill; Chloe Zehr; Vincent Lai; Shruti Kapoor
Affiliation: University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Mellon Foundation; National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access:

Keywords: Louisiana; conspiracy; 18th century; historical trial; rebellion

Louisiana Slave Conspiracies

In April 1795, a number of slaves were arrested at Pointe Coupée for planning a revolution. Their idea was to set fire to a shed on the Julien Poydras estate. The conspiracy was betrayed, and after a crackdown, a trial began on May 4. Within a month, 23 of the 57 convicted slaves had been hanged for their plans to massacre white plantation owners to gain their freedom. The user can search and browse documents from the Pointe Coupée slave conspiracy trials, data and bibliography. An interactive map represents places associated with the 1791 and 1795 conspiracies in Pointe Coupée, Louisiana. Director of the project : Bryan Wagner, University of California, Berkeley.

visit

Project Director(s): Bryan Wagner; Patty Frontiera; Shadrick Small; Jenelle Thomas
Current Team Member(s): Brian Costello; Quinn Dombrowski; Jane Henderson; Julie Lee; Amani Morrison; Susan Powell; Gerard Ramm; Stacy Reardon; Pepa Robles; Janet Torres; Bill Kennedy
Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: trans-Atlantic slave trade; 18th century; 19th century; African diaspora; interactive maps

Marronage Project

Mapping Marronage is an interactive visualization of the trans-Atlantic networks of intellectual, creative and political exchange created by enslaved people in the 18th and 19th century. It traces the geographic reach, crossings and intersections of letters, testimonies and financial exchanges by enslaved people of African-descent. Mapping Marronage visualizes flight as process, as lived reality and as relationship to space and power in slaveholding societies. As a resource for research, the visualization presents information on the overlaps and intersections in the lives, movement and work of different enslaved people who may not initially appear to be connected. The site also provides curated access to archival material and allows users to consult and engage with a variety of primary documents from archives around the world (letters, inventories, manumission papers, testimonies…). As a teaching tool, Mapping Marronage allows students to engage in hands-on collaboration that bridges that gap between often-solitary archival work and collaborative project work.

visit

Project Director(s): Annette Joseph-Gabriel
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Duke University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Atlantic; Brazil; post-colonial; heritage; gender

Memory, Africas, Slavery

The line of research aims to think about the history of Africa and Atlantic slavery, as well as post-colonial and post-abolition African societies in the Americas. We are interested in the history of racism and the theme of the sensitive past in societies colonial and slave, post-slavery and post-colonial, as well as the history of Atlantic slavery and the ways in which it has been narrated in the present time. It proposes debates on social history; gender, heritage, public history and education. We list below the main projects and digital platforms developed by the line.

visit

Project Director(s): Ismênia de Lima Martins
Current Team Member(s): Ana Maria Mauad; Ângela de Castro Gomes; Hebe Mattos; Juniele Rabêlo de Almeida; Mariza de Carvalho Soares; Martha Abreu; Paulo Knauss; Paulo Terra; Samantha Viz Quadrat; Ynaê Lopes dos Santos
Affiliation: Federal Fluminense University
Language: Portuguese
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 12/26/2023

Keywords: Jamaica; African diasporic music; Caribbean

Musical Passage

The digital project “Musical Passage” explores the story of early African diasporic music in Jamaica by providing a multimedia presentation of Hans Sloane’s 1707 “Voyage to the Islands”. This unique document includes the earliest transcription of African music in the Caribbean. It contains several pieces of music, that were collected by Sloane from performers, who were probably survivors of the Middle Passage. The project is a collaborative endeavour by Laurent Dubois, David Gartner, and Mary Caton Lingold, who aim “to make audible what otherwise falls silent in the historical record”. The website offers not only a musical reconstruction and detailed textual interpretation of the piece, but also further reading tips and links to similar projects.

visit

Project Director(s): Laurent Dubois; David Garner; Mary Caton Lingold
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Duke University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Franklin Humanities Institute
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Netherlands; England; Guyana; Suriname; letters; ships' logbooks; plantation lists

Nationaal Archief (Netherlands)

This digital archive presents the results of a huge digitalization afford, undertaken by the National Archives of the Netherlands. 1.9 million scans have become accessible so far from important archives of slavery from the Netherlands, England, Guyana and Suriname. These include manifold sources like ships’ logbooks, shipment overviews, invoices, plantation lists and letters. Numerous links to scans from the collections of other institutions are also included. The digital archive is searchable and thereby very user-friendly, even though you have to book an online seat to enter the reading room. Although most of the inventories are only available in Dutch, the website offers the possibility to translate some of the content by using the Google Translate extension.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: the National Archives of the Netherlands; The National Library of the Netherlands.
Language: Dutch
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: New York; United States; 1850; Underground Railroad; 19th century; fugitives

National Humanities Center: Primary Resources on US History & Literature

This page compiles historical data and excerpts related to the Convention of Fugitive Slaves and Free Blacks held in Cazenovia, New York, in 1850. It contains references and excerpts such as narratives from individuals like Arnold Gragston and John Parker, both African American "conductors" on the Underground Railroad, along with documents like the expenses of the Boston Vigilance Committee from 1850-1855. The page explores the involvement of African Americans in aiding escaped slaves through the Underground Railroad, vigilance committees, and the "Negro convention" movement in the northern United States. The content delves into the methods used to assist runaway slaves, challenges faced, and the communal efforts of free blacks in supporting fugitives in free territories. It also includes a significant "Letter to the American Slaves" issued by a convention in 1850, providing guidelines for slaves considering insurrection and advice for fugitives newly arrived in the north.

visit

Project Director(s): National Humanities Center
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: National Humanities Center
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: images; primary sources; Colombia; Antioquia

Negroes and Slaves Collection: Judicial Historical Archive of Medellín

The Black and Slave Virtual Collection was created in 2018 as an initiative of the Historical Sources Laboratory and had the support of the General Archive of the Nation (AGN) that advised the digitization process. The Collection is part of the Judicial Historical Archive of Medellín (AHJM) Fund and is composed of 456 files whose extreme dates are 11671, 1910. In some of these files there are wills, letters of release, letters, contracts and even images or what today we would call graphic pieces that served within the process as evidence offered by the parties involved. The historical, scientific and patrimonial value of this Collection is associated with the legal knowledge and the legal provisions, present in the civil and criminal summaries, which are related to the life of blacks and slaves in Antioquia during the Old Regime and the Republic. In the perspective of historical, social and humanistic research, the Collection of Blacks and Slaves is also a key source for the study of problems related to social imaginaries around the lives of slave women, children and relationships, as well as the forced labor of slaves, the trades as artisans, musicians and scholars in which blacks worked in Antioquia and the material life of these population groups. At the same time, it is a source for the institutional history of justice, for economic and social history and for the analysis of the relationship between the meanings of slavery and freedom, through the reading of the different files and the sentences handed down in them, concerning crimes such as: resistance to authority, theft, abuse of trust, pimping, homicides, personal injuries, disobedience to justice, adultery, amance, concubinages, illicit relations, escapes, wounds, successions, transfers, sale of slaves, requests for freedom, among others.The Black and Slave Virtual Collection was created in 2018 as an initiative of the Historical Sources Laboratory and had the support of the General Archive of the Nation (AGN) that advised the digitization process. The Collection is part of the Judicial Historical Archive of Medellín (AHJM) Fund and is composed of 456 files whose extreme dates are 11671, 1910. In some of these files there are wills, letters of release, letters, contracts and even images or what today we would call graphic pieces that served within the process as evidence offered by the parties involved. The historical, scientific and patrimonial value of this Collection is associated with the legal knowledge and the legal provisions, present in the civil and criminal summaries, which are related to the life of blacks and slaves in Antioquia during the Old Regime and the Republic.

visit

Project Director(s): Catalina González Hincapié
Current Team Member(s): Zoriana Gliseth Marín Álzate; Alexandra Carmona Vera; Germán Alexander Sánchez Higuera; María Fidela Rodríguez Molina
Affiliation: National University of Colombia
Language: Spanish
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Archivo Histórico Judicial de Medellín (AHJM)
Date of Access: 2023-12-09

Keywords: 18th century; 19th century; 20th century; autobiographies; self-emancipated; biographies; North America

North American Slave Narratives

North American Slave Narratives collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people and some significant fictionalized first-person accounts of enslavement published in English before 1920. "North American Slave Narratives" is part of Documenting the American South (DocSouth), one of the most important digital publishing initiatives at the University of North Carolina.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: North Carolina; United States; runaway slaves; newspaper ads; 1751-1865; 18th century; 19th century

North Carolina Runaway Slaves

The North Carolina Runaway Slave Notices project makes available over 5000 advertisements that appeared in North Carolina newspapers between 1751 and 1865. A collaboration between The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), the project builds on the work of Freddie L. Parker (Stealing a Little Freedom: Advertisements for Slave Runaways in North Carolina, 1791-1840) and Lathan Windley (Runaway Slave Advertisements)and presents digital images of the advertisements alongside full-text transcripts and additional metadata to facilitate search and discovery. The project was initially funded through a 2011-2012 NC ECHO Digitization Grant.

visit

Project Director(s): David Gwynn
Current Team Member(s): Anna Craft; Euthena Newman; Gloria Pitts
Affiliation: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: North Carolina ECHO Digitization Grant
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Netherlands; Africa; Caribbean; interactive map; archives; voyages

On board a slave ship (1761–1763)

This blog presents one of the triangular voyages of the transatlantic slave trade. The journey of the ship The Unity can be followed via an interactive map. First traveling from Flushing, Netherlands, with exchange goods to Africa, then with enslaved Africans to the Caribbean and finally back home with a ship hold loaded with the harvest of plantations. The Unity departed on October 1, 1761, and completed her voyage on March 25, 1763. The administration of The Unity (the logbook of the first mate, the journal of the surgeon, the trade book etc) has been preserved in the archives of a Dutch private commercial enterprise, the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC), which are administered by the Zeeland Archives in Middelburg, the Netherlands. The idea for this blog is from the Zeeland Archives. The objective is to draw attention to archives in general and the archives of the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC) in particular. The weblog was published day by day from October 1, 2013 to March 25, 2015.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Zeeuws Archief
Language: Dutch
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Mondriaan Fund; VSB fund; Prince Bernhard Culture Fund; Delta Networks
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Resources; database

Oxford African American Studies Center

The Oxford African American Studies Center combines the authority of carefully edited reference works with sophisticated technology to create the most comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. The Oxford African American Studies Center provides students, scholars and librarians with more than 10,000 articles by top scholars in the field.

visit

Project Director(s): Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Current Team Member(s): Ira Berlin; Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw; Paul Finkelman; Trudier Harris; Darlene Clark Hine; Graham Russell Gao Hodges; Valerie Smith.
Affiliation: Oxford University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-01-27

Keywords: Middle east; database

REMAP Database: Runaways Enslaved and Manumitted on the Arabian Peninsula

A searchable database for scholarly work on slavery in the Middle East

visit

Project Director(s): Alaine Hutson
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Huston-Tillotson University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-01-27

Keywords: Maryland; United States; runaway slaves; newspaper ads

Runaway Slave Ads - Maryland

This page compiles historical data of runaway slave advertisements in Maryland, United States in the 19th century

visit

Project Director(s): Brandywine Maryland
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Brandywine Maryland
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: 18th century; runaway slaves; Britain; historical recors; newspaper ads

Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Britain is a searchable database of over 800 newspaper advertisements placed by masters and owners seeking the capture and return of enslaved and bound people who had escaped. In these advertisements physical characteristics, mannerisms, habits, skills and inclinations of the enslaved people or bound servants are described. Therefore, the newspapers provide a rich source of information about slavery and bondage in eighteenth-century Britain, which differed considerably from slavery in the colonies. The database is easily searchable and sorted by newspaper title, region and date. Runaway Slaves is a project hosted by the University of Glasgow.

visit

Project Director(s): Simon Newman; Stephen Mullen; Nelson Mundell; Rosyln Chapman
Current Team Member(s): John Cairns; Audrey Dewjee; Laurence Westgaph; John Levin; Tony Berrett; Luca Guariento; Anthony King; Graeme Cannon
Affiliation: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Leverhulme Trust; Economic and Social Research Council; College of Arts of the University of Glasgow
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Brazil; Salvador; 18-19th century; Bahia; maps

Salvador Escravista

The "Salvador Escravista" project explores Salvador's history during the transatlantic slave trade era. It focuses on the impact of slavery, highlighting forgotten spaces and figures related to this period. The site offers insights into the roles of individuals, challenges tributes to slave traffickers, and promotes a more equitable and just understanding of history. It collaborates with experts, maps significant locations, and serves as an educational resource for teaching history related to slavery in Salvador, fostering a deeper understanding of its societal impact.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s): Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto; Antonio Luigi Negro; Cândido Domingues; Carlos da Silva Jr.; Érica Lôpo de Araújo; Felipe Azevedo e Souza; Iacy Maia Mata; João José Reis; Luciana Brito; Moreno Pacheco
Affiliation:
Language: Portuguese
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 12/26/2023

Keywords: Africa; Europe; abolition of slavery

Slafnet. Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa

Setting up an international research network dedicated to the legacy of slavery in Africa and Europe : such is the purpose of the SLAFNET research project coordinated by the IRD. Funded by the European Commission, it brings together a multidisciplinary team of some 50 researchers in a consortium of 13 partners from the North and South. One of the objectives is to conduct an inventory of the accumulated scientific capital that exists in the various slavery databases in which members of Slafnet have been involved in the past decade. A Slafnet’s website is in progress.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Slafnet Network
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Europe Comission
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Africa; Europe; abolition of slavery

Slafnet. Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa

Setting up an international research network dedicated to the legacy of slavery in Africa and Europe : such is the purpose of the SLAFNET research project coordinated by the IRD. Funded by the European Commission, it brings together a multidisciplinary team of some 50 researchers in a consortium of 13 partners from the North and South. One of the objectives is to conduct an inventory of the accumulated scientific capital that exists in the various slavery databases in which members of Slafnet have been involved in the past decade. A Slafnet’s website is in progress.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Slafnet Network
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Atlantic Ocean; Brazil; United States; Louisiana; biographical information

Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network

The Atlantic Database Network is an open access database, including biographical information on the identities of enslaved people in the Atlantic World. The project is still in process and has digitalized until now three data sets: one about slaves in Maranhão, Brazil, one about slaves in colonial Louisiana, and another about freed slaves in Antebellum Louisiana. The Datasets are searchable by the categories date, name, race and gender, which makes it easy for the user to search for ancestors or run statistical analysis. There can be also found a list of other slave datasets, which are available online. In its next phase, the project invites researchers of slavery in the Atlantic World to contribute new databases.

visit

Project Director(s): Gwendolyn Midlo Hall; Walter Hawthorne; Dean Rehberger; Ethan Watrall; Daryle Williams
Current Team Member(s): Brian Mitchell
Affiliation: Michigan State University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Portugal; Brazil; Angola; 19th century

Slave Registers of Angola

This site is a digital database documenting the the range of uses of slave labor in Luanda and the immediate interior following 1850, when the illegal shipments of captives entered its phase of decline.The site was formed by Vanessa S. Oliveira is a historian working on African history, colonialism, women, gender and sexuality. This website results from the project “A Social History of Slavery in Luanda, 1854-1873,

visit

Project Director(s): Vanessa S. Oliveira
Current Team Member(s): Kartikay Chadha; Maria Yala; Bilal Mian; Daniel Domingues da Silva; Tracy Lopes; Ana Iria
Affiliation: Royal Military College of Canada
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: academics, educators, public, researchers, students, historians
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 2023-12-02

Keywords: 18th century; Britain; Jamaica; interactive map; France; war

Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760–61: A Cartographic Narrative

This website provides an animated thematic map, narrating the spatial history of the greatest slave insurrection in the eighteenth century British Empire, that took place in 1760-1 in Jamaica during Britain’s Seven Year’s War against France. The animated map was curated by Prof. Charles Warren and aims to offer an archive of key documentary evidence. Although the presentation cannot be taken as an exhaustive database, the interactive map offers an enlightening interpretation of the military campaign’s spatial dynamics

visit

Project Director(s): Vincent Brown
Current Team Member(s): Trevor Burnard; Jeffrey Caldwell; Laurent Dubois; Katharine Gerbner; Steven Hahn; Rebecca Ladbury; Cory Paulsen; Marcus Rediker; Rachel St. John; Ajantha Subramanian; Scott Walker; Ben Weber; David Wells; Jeremy Zallen.
Affiliation: Harvard University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Mellon Foundation; National Humanities Center
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Africa; Atlantic Ocean; Brazil; Colombia; Cuba; Spanish Florida; 16th-20th century; geographical origin; Angola; Benin; Mexico; Uruguay; documents

Slave Society Digital Archive

The Slave Society Digital Archive, initiated and led by Jane Landers and hosted at Vanderbilt University, digitalized and thereby preserved a huge amount of endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to Africans and African-descended people in the slave societies of Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and Spanish Florida. The archive contains over 700.000 digital images drawn close to 2.000 volumes dating from the sixteenth to twentieth century and thereby constitutes the most extensive serial record for the history of Africans in the Atlantic World. The vast material can be searched by geographical origin and provides also further information about the indigenous, European, and Asian populations who lived alongside the slaves. The project continues its digitalization work in Angola, Benin, Mexico and Uruguay.

visit

Project Director(s): Jane Landers
Current Team Member(s): Mariza de Carvalho; Paul E. Lovejoy
Affiliation: Vanderbilt University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Liverpool; Africa; letters; journals; inventory lists; journals; sales accounts; 18th century; Britain

Slave Trade Records from Liverpool, 1754–1792

On this website of the British Online Archives can be found five digitalized volumes concerning the slave trade in Liverpool in the second half of the 18th century, supplemented by the papers of captain James Brown, from the post-abolition period (ca. 1807-1851). Over the course of the century, Liverpool became Britain’s busiest and most profitable slave-trading port. The collection contains the papers of merchants who sold enslaved African people to new markets in the Americas. These include sales accounts, letters, journals, inventory lists, sailing directions and logs and thereby deal with diverse aspects of the trade, from payments made by slave owners to dealings with groups along the coast of West Africa. A contextual essay and archive guide by Prof. Kenneth Morgan provides further context and helps to navigate in this rich collection.

visit

Project Director(s): Kenneth Morgan
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Liverpool Record Office
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: slave trade; Europe; abolition

Slave Trade, Slavery Abolitions and their Legacies in European Histories and Identities. (EURESCL)

EURESCL intends to locate the slave trade and slavery in the history of the construction of the European identity, interpreted at national or local levels, and to investigate the continuity – or discontinuity – between historical processes in which turning points might have been defined by different dates of the abolition of slavery. The research activities are implemented, in a multidisciplinary and comparative approach, within several thematic areas distributed in 7 workpackages with databases put online directly on the website (launched in 2008). EURESCL is a project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project has been awarded the 2013 "Stars of Europe" prize. Scientific Coordinator : Myriam Cottias, CIRESC-CNRS.

visit

Project Director(s): Myriam Cottias
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation:
Language: French
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Atlantic Ocean; maps; voyages

Slave Voyages

Slave Voyages is an innovative digital project in which vast amounts of data from libraries and archives of the Atlantic world (concerning trans-Atlantic and intra-American slave trade as well as African names) have been systematically processed and made accessible in interactive maps, timelines, graphics and animations. The project is unique both in terms of the creative and user-oriented modes of representation and the amounts of data processed, and is the result of years of interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, librarians, curriculum specialists, cartographers, computer programmers, and web designers, in consultation with scholars of the slave trade from universities in Europe, Africa, South America, and North America. The database offers unique possibilities for quantitative research, especially since the available maps, graphs and statistics can be quickly and precisely adapted to the respective research interests by means of filter and search functions. The website is currently hosted at Rice University.

visit

Project Director(s): David Etlis
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Emory University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: United States; newspaper ads; 18th century

Slavery Adverts 250

The Adverts 250 Project explores the history of advertising in eighteenth-century America. It features a daily image of an advertisement published in a colonial newspaper 250 years ago that day. Brief commentary accompanies each advertisement.

visit

Project Director(s): Carl Robert Keyes
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Assumpton University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Mali; Africa; equality rights; post-colonialism; Western Mali; descent-based slavery

Slavery and Forced Migration in Western Mali

The SlaFMig program seeks to analyze historical and current connections between prolonged forced displacement and descent-based slavery in Western Mali, aiming to propose effective solutions. Over the past century, these displacements, often ignored by colonial and post-colonial authorities, have predominantly occurred in rural areas. The resulting challenges impact the development and socio-economic integration of displaced communities and the entire region. Limited access to essential resources, including land and economic support, hinders the affected populations from leading stable lives. Consequently, those fleeing slavery remain susceptible to various forms of exploitation, such as modern slavery. Mali currently lacks legislation criminalizing descent-based slavery, leaving these populations without legal protection in their pursuit of equality. The action research program, accompanied by outreach and awareness campaigns led by the Malian association Donkosira, aims to combat discrimination against certain Western Mali communities labeled as "slaves." These efforts contribute to fostering a more inclusive and equitable society.

visit

Project Director(s): Marie Rodet
Current Team Member(s): Lotte Pelckmans; Mamadou Sène Cissé; Bakary Camara; Haben Hill; Marie-Christine Deleigne; Leah Durst-Lee
Affiliation: SOAS; University of London; University of Copenhagen; LERDDL research center
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2024-02-02

Keywords: Britain; countryhouses; Atlantic Ocean; trans-Atlantic; properties; abolition

Slavery and the British Country House

This work delves into the relationship between England's historic countryhouses and their ties to transatlantic slavery. These estates, symbolic of English heritage, represent not just architectural landmarks but also privilege and power. English Heritage initiated research in 2007, revealing that 26 out of 33 properties surveyed had connections to slavery or abolition. Detailed studies followed on four sites. The findings, presented at the 2009 conference 'Slavery and the British Country House,' prompted a reevaluation of these houses in light of their ties to slavery. The resulting volume offers a comprehensive exploration for historians, educators, and heritage professionals, shedding light on this critical aspect of national history.

visit

Project Director(s): Madge Dresser; Andrew Hann
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: English Heritage
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Atlantic; Indian Ocean; Africa; Islamic regions; Americas; Europe

Slavery Digital Humanities

This inventory is a collection of websites, Databases, and digital projects over the longue durée. It covers a wide range of research areas (the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, continental Africa, Islamic regions, and the Americas) and many different approaches, techniques, and media. The inventory is intended to be a pedagogical tool for students and junior researchers, an outreach mechanism to make these numerous digital projects accessible to a wider public and reveal the extensive scholarship on the study of slavery. The idea for the inventory emerged from an e-workshop on Slavery Digital Humanities held by the BCDSS in collaboration with the European research program SLAFNET and the Center for Research on Slavery and Indenture Studies (CRSI) of the University of Mauritius in June 2021. Our intention is to encourage a peer-based « living medium » that will improve in time with the participation of all those involved in the development of Slavery Digital Humanities. This inventory is a collection of websites, Databases, and digital projects over the longue durée. It covers a wide range of research areas (the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, continental Africa, Islamic regions, and the Americas) and many different approaches, techniques, and media.

visit

Project Director(s): Klara Boyer-Rossol; Paul Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: students, researchers
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/15/2023

Keywords: Africa; images; visual record; Virgin Islands

Slavery Images. A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora

The project “Slavery Images. A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora” is a growing digital collection, which currently contains over 1.200 images. The rich material can be searched according to its geographical origin via an interactive map according or via thematic headings. Another visual feature provided by the project is a 3D browser-based model of Annaberg, which is one of the most intact sugar plantations in the Virgin Islands. The project was initiated by Prof. Jerome S. Handler and set up by Michael Tuite to serve as a tool and resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students and the general public.

visit

Project Director(s): Henry Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s): Ben Brumfield; Sara Brumfield
Affiliation: University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Indigenous people; Americas; 1492-1900

Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas

Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas is a community-driven initiative based at Brown University. The project aims to construct a comprehensive database documenting enslaved and unfree Indigenous individuals across the Americas, spanning various historical periods. Its primary goal is to enhance awareness and comprehension of the historical context and enduring trauma of settler colonialism. It's important to note that the website is still in development, and the database is not yet publicly accessible.

visit

Project Director(s): Linford Fisher
Current Team Member(s): Ashley Champagne; Birkin Diana; Annette Lee; Mairelys Lemus-Rojas; Patrick Rashleigh; Khanh Vo; Elizabeth Yalkut
Affiliation: Brown University
Language: English
Status: In Progress
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: National Endowment for the Humanities
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Africa; diaspora; primary documents; archival inventories

Studies in the History of the African Diaspora – Documents (SHADD Hub)

SHADD hosts an extensive collection of primary documents and archival inventories that are housed at the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas under the direction of Prof. Paul. E. Lovejoy. SHADD was founded in association with the UNESCO Slave Route Project with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History. SHADD publishes manuscripts, documents and transcriptions in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Hausa and other languages relevant to the history of African diaspora and has evolved into an umbrella that links various research initiatives, including Freedom Narratives, Proyecto Baquaqua, Equiano’s World, Liberated Africans, Le Marronnage dans le Monde Atlantique, Slave Societies Digital Archive, Slavery Images.

visit

Project Director(s): Paul E. Lovejoy; Kartikay Chadha
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: York University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: New York; United States; 1850; Underground Railroad; 19th century; fugitives

Sydney Howard Gay's "Record of Fugitives"

The Record of Fugitives is a treasure trove of information about how and why slaves escaped, who assisted them, and where they were sent from New York. It contains references to well-known individuals like Harriet Tubman, who passed through New York City twice during these years, and little-known figures such as Louis Napoleon, a black porter who worked in Gay’s office and was the key operative in meeting fugitives who arrived in New York and assisting them on their journeys to freedom. But at its heart lie the arresting stories of the fugitives themselves, as Gay, an accomplished journalist, recorded them. This website reproduces the Record of Fugitives, both in high resolution images of all of its pages (as well as of a few separate sheets on which Gay recorded the experiences of additional runaway slaves), and in a searchable transcript. It also includes a spreadsheet compiled by Professor Eric Foner, that summarizes the information noted by Gay and William Still combined with data from other sources. For a full analysis of the Record of Fugitives, as well as a history of the underground railroad in New York City and the northeastern metropolitan corridor, see Eric Foner, Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (W. W. Norton and Co., 2015)

visit

Project Director(s): Eric Foner
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Columbia University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 2023-12-01

Keywords: Texas; United States; runaway slaves; newspaper ads; primary sources; court records

Texas Runaway Slave Project

The Texas Runaway Slave Project is a database of runaway slave advertisements, articles and notices from newspapers published in Texas, as well as materials from court records, manuscript collections, and books. It documents more than 2,500 fugitive slaves from Texas. The project is ongoing and new content is regularly added to the webpage.

visit

Project Director(s): Kyle Ainsworth
Current Team Member(s): Christy Costlow; Patricio DeJesus; Hayley Ellisor; AnnElise Golden; Nydia Hernandez; Rox Ann Johnson; Joanna Lovejoy; Wallace Scot McFarlane; Mark Musquiz; William Page Michael Smith; Darah Vann
Affiliation: Stephen F. Austin State University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: abolitionism; narratives; heritage; past to present slavery; antislavery activism

The Antislavery Usable Past

The Antislavery Usable Past project is an AHRC-funded project (£1.84 million, 2014-2019) led by the University of Nottingham, in partnership with the Universities of Hull and Queen’s Belfast. We are unearthing and theorizing the lessons of historic abolitionism for contemporary use - providing the movement against contemporary global slavery with a usable past of antislavery examples and methods. The site is an archive that collects the visual culture and narratives of contemporary antislavery and heritage and public history projects that grapple with past and present slavery and antislavery. Its collections are a resource for understanding cultures of antislavery activism and protest memory.

visit

Project Director(s): Jean Allain; Kevin Bales
Current Team Member(s): Katie Donington; Hannah Jeffrey; Rebecca Nelson; Katarina Schwarz; John Oldfield; Zoe Trodd; Mary Wills
Affiliation: University of Nottingham
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Arts & Humanities Research Council
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Britain; Black history; Olaudah Equiano; theories of race

The Equiano Centre, UCL

The Equiano Centre is an initiative that has been established to create a focus for academic and community scholars and research students of all levels to come together and debate emerging and new ideas, theories and research methods around subjects such as Black History in Britain, and theories of race, racism and anti-racism. The website can be used as a tool for historical research into the Black presence in Britain.

visit

Project Director(s): Hakim Adi
Current Team Member(s): Lynda Agard; Makeda Coaston; Paul Goodwin; Wangui wa Goro; Catherine Hall; Colin Prescod; Stephen Quirke
Affiliation: University College London
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Scotland; plantation managers; Caribbean; North America

Transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the Americas: exploring Scottish connections

This site hosts digitized film recordings of a symposium convened by archivists, librarians, heritage sector representatives, historians, and archaeologists. A great many Scots served as factors, agents and plantation managers in the Caribbean and mainland North America, and these links created what historian Douglas J. Hamilton has described as ‘a lattice of connections that enmeshed Scotland, the Caribbean and Britain’. Such activities have created a rich archive of records in Scottish libraries and archives, both private and public, many of them little-studied, but which may yield a great deal of information about the role of Scots in creating and maintaining plantation slavery in the Americas. Their collective interest lies in raising awareness about the involvement of Scots in the slave trade and plantation slavery and understanding the influence of these individuals and the wealth they generated in Scotland.

visit

Project Director(s): Roderick McDonald
Current Team Member(s): Stuart Nisbet; Stephen Driscoll; Eric Graham
Affiliation: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, academics
Other Comments: Royal Society of Edinburgh
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Brazil; images; labor on farms; crimes; arrests; documentation

Virtual Exhibition "History of Slavery in Maranhão: Preserved Memories"

The Public Archive of the State of Maranhão-APEM, references May 13, with the virtual exhibition "History of Slavery in Maranhão: preserved memories", through its research instruments, inventories and repertoires that rescue a large volume of documents that tell and prove the History of Slavery in Maranhão, from the Colony to the Empire. The exhibition was planned and organized from the reading and selection of official documents from different funds and documentary series that make up the APEM collection, aiming to offer society a show of documents related to the themes: slave trade, slave labor on farms or in daily activities, infractions, crimes, arrests, punishments and convictions, suicides, formation of quilombos, insurrection movement and measures taken, san sentrances, entrances and exits from the port of São Luís and many others.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Public archives of the state of Maranhão
Language: Portuguese
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 12/26/2023

Keywords: Brazil; images; videos; virtual museum

Virtual Museum of Slavery in Brazil

Discover the connections between slavery in Brazil and prevalent social inequalities. Explore why certain social groups face unfavorable statistics. This site offers answers to questions like these, providing insights into the historical narrative that shapes identity.

visit

Project Director(s): Anderson Lima
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation:
Language: Portuguese
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 12/26/2023

Keywords: Modern slavery; estimates; International Labour Organization; ILO; International Organization for Migration; IOM; Global Slavery Index; GSI; data portal; 2023; prevalence; vulnerability factors; government responses; forced labor; G20; import analysis.

Walk Free - Global Slavery Index

An estimated 50 million people were living in modern slavery on any given day in 2021, according to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery. These estimates, produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), are the starting point for the national estimates of modern slavery for 160 countries presented here in Walk Free's flagship report, the Global Slavery Index (GSI). The global data portal allows you to explore the 2023 Global Slavery Index data, enabling country and region comparisons for each measurement – an estimated prevalence of modern slavery along with the number of people in modern slavery, an analysis of factors that make communities vulnerable, and an assessment of government responses to modern slavery. It also provides a high-level indication of the goods at risk of forced labour G20 countries import each year.

visit

Project Director(s): Grace Forrest; Jacqueline Joudo Larsen
Current Team Member(s): Certainly, here are the names separated by semi-colons: Katharine Bryant; Franca Pellegrini; Martina Ucnikova; Jade Delaney; Serena Grant; Gabrielle Ashworth; Santiago Baruh; Matthew Coghlan; Maria Collazos; Alexandra Flynn; Elise Gordon; Charlotte Gwynn; Bernadette Joudo; Abigail Munroe; Catherine Parsons; Brittany Quy; Louise Renwick; Patrycja Tokarczyk; Elly Williams; Elizabeth Poku
Affiliation: Walk Free Organization
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Freedom Fund
Date of Access: 2023-12-06

Keywords: Digital research; management service; humanities projects; North America; Europe; Caribbean; Latin America; Africa

Walk With Web

Walk With Web provides digital solutions to humanities projects to make their research accessible online in a sustainable and user-friendly way and to develop robust databases. In doing so, the organization supports digital research in North America, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. Walk With Web has created a digital content management service, which is currently supporting many research projects, including Freedom Narratives, Slavery Images, Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, Creating a Visual Language of Marks, Documenting Africans in Trans-Atlantic Slavery (DATAS) Project, Studies in the History of the African Diaspora Documents, Liberated Africans, Yoruba Diaspora, Equiano’s World, Baquaqua Project.

visit

Project Director(s): Kartikay Chadha
Current Team Member(s): Vincent Lai; Wacera Muriuki; Shruti Kapoor; Kriti Kakkar; Maria Yala; Dvir Malka; Aadil Baig; Leighanna Estrella; Abrar Tarafder; Hayden Wice; Shanna Welch; Fábio Silva Magalhães
Affiliation: Walk With Web Inc.
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Mellon Foundation
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: human rights; emancipation; projects

Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation

This institute focuses on researching and understanding historical and contemporary issues related to slavery, emancipation, and human rights. They engage in various projects, research initiatives, and educational programs to delve into the legacies of slavery and work toward social justice and human rights. Their site consists of databases, ongoing research projects, academic programs, publications, and other activities related to their mission of studying slavery and the quest for emancipation.

visit

Project Director(s): Trevor Burnard
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: University of Hull
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: 1724-1827; New Orleans; municipal records; 18-19th century;

Xavier University of Louisiana Library - Digital Archives & Collections

The Charles F. Heartman Manuscripts of Slavery Collection holds over 6000 pieces dating from 1724 to 1897, which relate to the social, economic, civil, and legal status of enslaved and free people of colour in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. A large part of the manuscripts consists of municipal records from the city of New Orleans. There is a collection guide which organizes the material by place and date and a person Index which enables you to find the names of individuals. On the website of the Xavier University of Louisiana Library Digital Archives & Collections (second link) the collection can also be explored by the advanced search function.

visit

Project Director(s):
Current Team Member(s):
Affiliation: Xavier University of Louisiana
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/17/2023

Keywords: primary sources; abolition; original manuscripts; material artifacts

Yale Slavery and Abolition Portal

The Yale Slavery and Abolition Portal provides an instrument to help researchers and students find primary sources related to slavery and abolition within the university’s many libraries and galleries. The website is easily searchable and includes also a detailed listing of external databases.

visit

Project Director(s): Joseph Yannielli
Current Team Member(s): Richard Huzzey; Thomas Thurston; David Blight
Affiliation: Yale University
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Keywords: Yoruba; maps; Africa; slave voyages; Americas

Yoruba Diaspora

Yoruba Diaspora is a Cartographically Based Interactive Digital Archive (CBIDA), which hosts a series of annual maps that operates on a temporal scale (1816-1838) and hosts archival materials concerning historical developments in the Oyo Empire, which was the largest slave trading state in West Africa. The project is led by Henry Lovejoy, who has compiled geo-referenced data that are aligned with slave voyages to visualize the process whereby inland conflict became a source of captives who boarded slave ships destined for the Americas. The interactive maps will be further developed in the future and new functions (such as zoom) will be added.

visit

Project Director(s): Henry Lovejoy
Current Team Member(s): Ben Brumfield; Sara Brumfield; Kartikay Chadha
Affiliation: University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Status: Active
Target Audience: historians, researchers, students, educators, academics, public
Other Comments:
Date of Access: 11/25/2023

Digital Humanities List on Slavery and African Diaspora

No results found

Africa's Sons Under Arms

Anchoukaj.org. Les noms de familles Guadeloupéennes et Martiniquaises

Banjology

Beacons of Freedom: Slave Refugees in North America 1800-1860

Between Oceans and Continents : The Registers of Slave and Freed Africans of Portuguese Mozambique; 1854–1875

Black Digital Humanities Projects & Resources: A List of Projects, Resources, Events, and Anything Else

Black Virginians in Blue

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project:1936 to 1938

Brazilian Guide to Sources for the History of Africa, Black Slavery, and Black People in Today's Society

Canadian Fugitive Slave Advertisements

Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture Mauritius

Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery

Conjugal Slavery in War

Digitising endangered manuscript sources: the notary books of Bahia, Brazil, 1664-1889

Documenting Africans in Trans-Atlantic Slavery (DATAS)

Documenting Runaway Slaves

Embedding Slavery in Digital Humanities

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade

Equianos’ World

Esclavage & Indemnités. Empire colonial français du XIXe siècle.

Exploring Slave Trade in Asia

Freedom Narratives

Freedom on the Move-Rediscovering. The Stories of Self-Liberating People

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 - Ohio History Central

Fugitive Slave Records, 1820-1839 - Chester County, Pennsylvania

Fugitive Slaves and Northern Racism

Fugitives in Canada

Geography of Slavery in Virginia

H-Slavery The History of Slavery

Hearing the Enslaved Speak : A Multimedia Database of Voices of the Voiceless

Hidden in Plain Sight: Escaped Slaves in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Jamaica

History of Fugitive Slave Chapel - Museum of Ontario

Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Databases (IOMASTD)

James “Africanus” Beale Horton

Language of Marks

Le Marronnage dans le monde atlantique. Sources et Trajectoires de vie

Legacies of British Slave Ownership

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland

Liberated Africans

Louisiana Slave Conspiracies

Marronage Project

Memory, Africas, Slavery

Musical Passage

Nationaal Archief (Netherlands)

National Humanities Center: Primary Resources on US History & Literature

Negroes and Slaves Collection: Judicial Historical Archive of Medellín

North American Slave Narratives

North Carolina Runaway Slaves

On board a slave ship (1761–1763)

Oxford African American Studies Center

REMAP Database: Runaways Enslaved and Manumitted on the Arabian Peninsula

Runaway Slave Ads - Maryland

Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Salvador Escravista

Slafnet. Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa

Slafnet. Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa

Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network

Slave Registers of Angola

Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760–61: A Cartographic Narrative

Slave Society Digital Archive

Slave Trade Records from Liverpool, 1754–1792

Slave Trade, Slavery Abolitions and their Legacies in European Histories and Identities. (EURESCL)

Slave Voyages

Slavery Adverts 250

Slavery and Forced Migration in Western Mali

Slavery and the British Country House

Slavery Digital Humanities

Slavery Images. A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora

Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas

Studies in the History of the African Diaspora – Documents (SHADD Hub)

Sydney Howard Gay's "Record of Fugitives"

Texas Runaway Slave Project

The Antislavery Usable Past

The Equiano Centre, UCL

Transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the Americas: exploring Scottish connections

Virtual Exhibition "History of Slavery in Maranhão: Preserved Memories"

Virtual Museum of Slavery in Brazil

Walk Free - Global Slavery Index