UCF Research Guides: Primary Sources: African History

Primary Source Databases

AfricaBib
The 6 bibliographic databases of AfricaBib:
- Africana Periodical Literature -- African Women -- Women Travelers to Africa -- Islam in Africa -- Kenya Coast -- Water and Africa
"The Africana Periodical Literature database provides metadata of articles on Africa covering a wide range of topics, from geography, history and anthropology to agriculture, women’s studies, medicine and health. It currently (October 2016) contains more than 177,000 records from over 800 journals. The majority of the journals are in English or French. A smaller number is in German, Afrikaans, Dutch, Italian and Portuguese. There is a strong focus on journals published in Africa."
African Women -- "In February 2008 this English-language database contained over 35,000 citations from 1986 onward. The database indexes six types of materials: books and government documents; articles appearing in edited books; periodical and journal articles; Masters theses and Ph.D. dissertations as well as a few B.A. theses and honors papers; conference papers; and videocassettes. "
African American Biographical Database CEASED
CEASED and access discontinued as of summer 2023.
Absorbed into Black Studies.
Biographies of over 30,000 African-Americans from Chadwyck-Healey’s acclaimed Black Biographical Dictionaries 1790-1950.
American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922
"This digital edition of the American Antiquarian Society’s extraordinary holdings of slavery and abolition materials delivers more than 3,500 works published over the course of more than 100 years."
"Long awaited in fully searchable form, The American Slavery Collection addresses every facet of American slavery—one of the most important and controversial topics in U.S. history. These diverse materials, all filmed in full-resolution color, include books, pamphlets, graphic materials, and ephemera; among them are a large number of invaluable Southern imprints.
Coverage spans the Missouri Compromise and the founding of Liberia as a colony for blacks fleeing America; the rise and suppression of abolitionist activities; the first National Anti-Slavery Society Convention in 1837 and the Compromise of 1850; the Emancipation Proclamation and the establishment of “Redeemer” state governments; the birth of “Jim Crow” and the expansion of segregation through the early 1920s. Subjects covered include religion, freedmen, suffrage, insurrections, the slave trade and many others. Genres range from personal narratives to children’s literature to black authors, including Denmark Vesey, Olaudah Equiano, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Ball, and dozens more."
Black Abolitionist Papers (ProQuest)
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"comprehensively detail(s) the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War. Covering the period 1830-1865, the collection presents the massive, international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings and publications of the activists themselves. The approximately 15,000 articles, documents, correspondence, proceedings, manuscripts, and literary works of almost 300 Black abolitionists show the full range of their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany."
"Included in the collection are such types of primary documents as:

-- Correspondence of major African American leaders
-- Speeches, sermons, and lectures
-- Articles, essays, editorials, and other major writings from more than 200 newspapers: African American, abolitionist, and reform newspapers
--Receipts, poems, and other miscellaneous documents"

Available on the ProQuest platform. The Chadwyck Healey platform is no longer available.
Black Drama (Alexander Street)
Contains approximately 1200 plays by 200 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Some 440 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.
Black Thought and Culture (Alexander Street)
"Black Thought and Culture provides approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art. The collection begins with the works of Frederick Douglass and is targeted to include the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Bunche, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis,Thurgood Marshall, James Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, Ida B. Wells, Bobby Seale, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dysonand many others. When complete, the collection will include the first-ever complete full run of the Black Panther newspaper."
HarpWeek: The Civil War Era Reconstruction I & II (1857-1912)
The 56 years of Harper’s Weekly provide a continuous record of what happened on a weekly basis from 1857 through 1912.
- Civil War Era: 1857-1865
- Reconstruction: 1866-1871 & 1872-1877
- Gilded Age: 1878-1912
Index to Black Periodicals (1960-2003)
UCF ARC Main General Collection - A13.O4...
- G.K. Hall Index to Black Periodicals, 1999-2003
- Index to Black Periodicals, 1984-1988
- Index to Periodical Articles by & about Blacks, 1973-1983
- Index to Periodical Articles by & about Negroes, 1960-1972
Slavery & Anti-slavery : A Transnational Archive (Gale)
" Includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions." This collection has four sections: Debates - Slavery & Abolition; Slave Trade in Atlantic World; Institution of Slavery; and Age of Emancipation.
"This database contains:
-- 5.4 million cross-searchable pages: 12049 books, 170 serials, 71 manuscript collections, 377 supreme court records and briefs and 194 reference articles from Macmillan, Charles Scribner's Sons and Gale encyclopedias.
-- Links to websites, biographies, chronology, bibliographies, and information on key collections, to give users background and context for further research.
-- Collections published through partnerships with the Amistad Research Center, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Library, the National Archives in Kew, Oberlin College, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the University of Miami, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and many other institutions."
Slavery and the Law (ProQuest) (1775-1867)
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"Slavery and the Law features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867. These petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with amazing candor. Slavery and the Law also includes the important State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865."
Collections include:
-- Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery & The Negro, Edited By Helen Tunnicliff Catterall
-- Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States by John Codman Hurd
-- Race, Slavery, And Free Blacks Series I: Petitions to Southern Legislatures, 1777–1867
-- Race, Slavery, And Free Blacks Series II: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1777–1867. Part A: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Part B: Delaware, District of Columbia, and Maryland. Part C: Virginia and Kentucky. Part D: North Carolina and South Carolina. Part E: Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. Part F: Louisiana (1775–1867)
-- State Slavery Statutes (1789–1865)
Slavery in America (Gale)
"This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery in America from its origins in Africa to its abolition, including materials on the slave trade, plantation life, emancipation, pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments, the religious views on slavery, and so on. It includes documents published between the 17th and late 19th centuries."
"...a digital collection of over 600 documents in 75,000 pages selected by Vernon Burton and Troy Smith from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and drawn from the Sabin collection and other Gale sources. This project documents key aspects of the history of slavery in America from its origins in Africa to its abolition, including materials on the slave trade, plantation life, emancipation, pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments, the religious views on slavery, etc."
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
"information on more than 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries."
Search the Voyages Database - Look for particular voyages in this database of documented slaving expeditions. Create listings, tables, charts, and maps using information from the database.
Examine Estimates of the Slave Trade - Slaves on documented voyages represent four-fifths of the number who were actually transported. Use the interactive estimates page to analyze the full volume and multiple routes of the slave trade.
Explore the African Names Database - This database identifies 91,491 Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites. It displays the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of each individual.