PA-51985, Emory University:
The Expanded, On-Line Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Bringing together information from 90 percent of the transatlantic slaving expeditions from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, this online resource offers researchers and students the most comprehensive picture of the slave trade currently available. A user of the database can search for information about a specific voyage or a large subset of the data, such as all voyages under the Portuguese flag.

This project incorporates forty years of combined archival research, and the database has become the major resource for the study of transatlantic slave voyages. A 1993 NEH award to Harvard University began the development of the data set. Over the next five years extensive research culminated in a data set representing information about more than 27,000 slave voyages, or two-thirds of all transatlantic slaving expeditions. This database was published on CD-ROM in 1999. Its publication led to significant new scholarly findings, such as the enduring links between particular regions of embarkation in Africa and disembarkation in the Americas, and the cultural and linguistic commonalities among captives on any given slave voyage.

The project subsequently moved to Emory University, to which the NEH made a follow-up award in 2006, to expand the database by adding extensive new information on the Portuguese and U.S. slave traffic, the cost of purchasing slaves, and the ethnicity of slaves. The expanded database now offers information on nearly 35,000 slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866, or 90 percent of all slaving expeditions. The database also identifies over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, providing their names, ages, genders, origins, and places of embarkation.

This informative database is made freely accessible online, and its Web site offers resources for professional researchers and students. The Web site enables users to analyze the data and report results in the form of statistical tables, graphs, maps, or on a timeline. The Web site also offers educational resources, such as lesson plans, interpretive maps, and pictures.

For a media discussion of this project, read the Guardian’s feature story here: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/usa-african-american-database-genealogy

Featured Project URL:www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces