Voyages Project

From Martin Halbert

Bringing together a premier group of world slave trade researchers with an innovative team of Emory University digital library development experts, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database project is an effort to provide the first solid and continually updated database on the trans-Atlantic slave trade -- the major branch of migration that sustained the early modern re-peopling of the Americas.

Goals and Objectives

The present application seeks support for a two-year grant that will accomplish five goals:

1. To create an enhanced open access website for the data, redesigning the delivery system and data selection interface of the 1999 data set;
2. To integrate new data into the existing 1999 data set;
3. To develop and publish contextual materials that are geared toward the needs of a K-12 audience;
4. To establish an editorial distribution system that will enable the integration of new research findings into the database in an ongoing fashion; and
5. To securely archive and preserve the evolving database publication.

Project Timeline

2006 Jun: Project Start
2007 May: Project Midpoint
2008 Winter: Project completion and launch. The Voyages database is undergoing additional performance enhancements and is scheduled for public use by the end of the year.

Project Details

Bringing together a premier group of world slave trade researchers with an innovative team of Emory University digital library development experts, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database project is an effort to provide the first solid and continually updated database on the trans-Atlantic slave trade -- the major branch of migration that sustained the early modern re-peopling of the Americas.

In 2008, as a commemoration of the bicentennial of the slave trade’s abolition in Britain and the United States, this project proposes to release an interactive educational Web-based resource about the trans-Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the New World from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Beginning with information on 27,233 voyages documented in the renowned Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database CD-ROM (Eltis et al 1999), this project will produce a revised and significantly expanded database that will be freely available via the Internet and will contain more than 35,000 voyages, approximately 82 percent of the entire history of the slave trade. The project will present the database and its auxiliary materials, including maps and archival documents, in a format accessible to both professional researchers and K-12 and generalist audiences. The Web-based resource will also enable researchers to submit new data to an Editorial Board for vetting and inclusion in the database. An international digital preservation network will ensure the integrity of the underlying data over time.

Major funding for construction of the expanded, online version of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is provided by Emory University’s Robert W. Woodruff Library and by the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), who have honored this project with its designation as a “We the People” grant. Additional funding is provided by Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and by Emory University’s Robert W. Woodruff Professor of History endowment.

Project Reports and Documentation

File:VoyagesInterimReport.pdf

Project Staff

Project Director: Martin Halbert

For more information, contact Martin Halbert