Africana Studies

"Pamphlets represent a genre of printed materials written by authors from an unusually large socio-economic range. Few Americans in the 19th century could afford to publish bound books; however, many more had the means to print pamphlets. As with broadsides and other ephemeral items, pamphlets are a hard-to-find class of primary source materials, rarely collected and catalogued. More so than the heavily researched more traditional print genres, they offer scholars and students in American history, culture and contemporary life fresh opportunities for insight into a wide spectrum of American society."

"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."

"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.

Population: Population Characteristics, Vital Statistics, Internal Migration, International Migration, Family & Household Composition, Cohorts, American Indians
Work & Welfare: Labor, Slavery, Education, Health, Economic Inequality & Poverty, Social Insurance & Public Assistance, Nonprofit, Voluntary & Religious Entities
Economic Structure & Performance: National Income & Product, Business Fluctuations & Cycles, Prices, Consumer Expenditures, Saving, Capital & Wealth, Geography & the Environment, Science, Technology & Productivity, Business Organization, Financial Markets & Institutions
Economic Sectors: Agriculture, Natural Resource Industries, Construction, Housing & Mortgages, Manufacturing, Distribution, Transportation, Communications, Services & Utilities
Governance & International Relations: Government Finance & Employment, Elections & Politics, Crime, Law Enforcement & Justice, National Defense, Wars, Armed Forces & Veterans, International Trade & Exchange Rates, Outlying Areas, Colonial Statistics, Confederate States of America

"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."

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)

"...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."

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.