HISU 4250 - Atlantic Slave Trade: Archives:
Databases & Microfilm

From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers' Project employed writers and journalists to interview ex-slaves in the United States. Nearly 4,000 interviews were ultimately collected and are presented in this database.

Part of Proquest's Black Studies Center, this collection details 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 international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings 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.

The first of a four part collection devoted to the transatlantic history of slavery. It includes books, manuscripts, court records, and serials. This first part documents the debates surrounding slavery and its abolition in the U.S. but also in the UK and other European countries, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa.

Primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world. Coverage of topics such as the African Coast; the Middle Passage; the varieties of slave experience (urban, domestic, industrial, farm, ranch and plantation); Spiritualism and Religion; Resistance and Revolts; the Underground Railroad; the Abolition Movement; Legislation; Education; the Legacy of Slavery and Slavery Today.

Because the plantation was a commercial enterprise, record keeping was essential, and many documents have been preserved in archives. This online collection includes planters' journals, crop books, overseers' journals, and account books; family members' personal diaries and correspondences; and more.