Resources

Digital Publications

AfricanRegions.org

African Regions is a teaching/research tool is directed at historical periods between circa 1500 and 1900, for which there are few inland maps other than depictions often based on incomplete and inaccurate information drawn up from hearsay and speculation. The aim is to provide an introductory geographic understanding of the continent and its peoples from perspectives rooted in African and African diaspora history. They are primarily devised as a neutral guide to the continent with labels that are easy to translate and input as categorical data. AfricanRegions.org is helpful for teaching this continent’s complex history in broad, regional terms. It centers on a geographic hierarchy that divides Africa into six broad regions that are sub-divided into 34 subregions, including major offshore islands. They were created following rigorous academic standards and collaboration. The regional labels attempt to avoid terms that might be confused with ethnolinguistic groups, the language of slave traders, colonial places, modern countries, and other biases.

LiberatedAfricans.org

This research database, digital archive and learning resource provides for an unprecedented analysis of the contradiction of abolition as both a humanitarian effort and a crime against humanity. Between 1800 and 1920, abolition advanced legal mechanisms to disguise another type of slavery, which was known paradoxically as Liberated Africans. Under the pretense of freedom, Portugal, France, Britain, Spain, Brazil, Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, and various Latin America republics involuntarily indentured and conscripted people for terms lasting several years. LiberatedAfricans.org is dedicated to the legacies of 700,000 people. Alongside millions of indentured Europeans and Asians, Liberated Africans were settled into various societies transitioning out of a dependency on chattel slavery. This digital publication includes an anti-slavery legislation archive, and over 4,000 cases involving the departure, capture, indenturing, and settlements. These case files are gradually being attached to a growing digital archive.

SlaveryImages.org

Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora is an educational resource with a two-part website created for teachers, researchers, students, and the general public. It exists to assist anyone interested in visualizing the experiences of Africans and their descendants who were enslaved and transported to slave societies around the world. The website is built using Omeka-S and integrated with the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), while the mapping of images on the landing page uses Leaflet. The project has also begun to consider the possibilities and difficulties related to hosting and making accessible 3D point clouds of full-scale world heritage sites to develop augmented/virtual/mixed reality educational environments.