The African Origins Portal: Ethnic Roots of Africans Entering the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1819-1845

FAIN: PW-50120-08

Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)
David Eltis (Project Director: July 2007 to February 2013)

The creation of a Web-based resource on the names, cultural identification, and migration patterns of Africans in the trans-Atlantic slave trade between 1819 and 1845.

We know much about the homelands and cultures of European migrants to the Americas. This project will set in motion the discovery of the as-yet unknown backgrounds of millions of their coerced African counterparts by creating an interactive, freely available Web-based resource about the migration histories of Africans forcibly carried to the Americas via the transatlantic slave trade. Using as its base detailed data on 67,000 liberated Africans (from Courts of Mixed Commission slave registers between 1819 and 1845 that documented individuals freed from slaving vessels), this African Origins portal will accomplish two related goals: 1) present and contextualize detailed geographic, ethnic, and linguistic data on movements of peoples and cultures from Africa to the Americas, and 2) foster collaboration between scholars and African Diaspora communities in order to enhance our knowledge of this African migration.

Associated Products

African Origins (Web Resource)
Title: African Origins
Author: David Eltis
Author: Philip Misevich
Abstract: African Origins contains information about the migration histories of Africans forcibly carried on slave ships into the Atlantic. Using the personal details of 91,491 Africans liberated by International Courts of Mixed Commission and British Vice Admiralty Courts, this resource makes possible new geographic, ethnic, and linguistic data on peoples captured in Africa and pulled into the slave trade. Through contributions to this website by Africans, members of the African Diaspora, and others, we hope to set in motion the rediscovery of the backgrounds of the millions of Africans captured and sold into slavery during suppression of transatlantic slave trading in the 19th century.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://www.african-origins.org/

The Diaspora of Africans Liberated from Slave Ships in the Nineteenth Century (Article)
Title: The Diaspora of Africans Liberated from Slave Ships in the Nineteenth Century
Author: David Eltis
Author: Philip Misevich
Author: Olatunji Ojo
Author: Daniel Domingues
Abstract: This article uses the extensive documentation of Africans liberated from slave vessels to explore issues of identity and freedom in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. It tracks the size, origin, and movement of the Liberated African diaspora, offers a preliminary analysis of the ‘disposal’ of African recaptives in societies on both sides of the Atlantic, and assesses the opportunities Liberated Africans had in shaping their post-disembarkation experiences. While nearly all Liberated Africans were pulled at least partly into the Atlantic wage economy, the article concludes that recaptive communities in Freetown and its hinterland most closely met the aspirations of the Liberated Africans themselves while the fate of recaptives settled in the Americas paralleled those who were enslaved.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=AFH
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of African History
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Using African Names to Identify the Origins of Captives in the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Crowd-Sourcing and the Registers of Liberated Africans, 1808-1862 (Article)
Title: Using African Names to Identify the Origins of Captives in the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Crowd-Sourcing and the Registers of Liberated Africans, 1808-1862
Author: Paul Lachance
Author: Richard Anderson
Author: David Eltis
Author: Philip Misevich
Author: Olatunji Ojo
Author: Daniel Domingues
Author: Alex Borucki
Abstract: Between 1808 and 1862, officers primarily from the British navy liberated approximately 175,000 enslaved Africans from transatlantic slavers. Information on more than half of this group has survived in bound ledger books. Based on the assessment of extant data for more than 92,000 Liberated Africans whose information was copied in at times duplicate and triplicate form in both London- and Freetown-based registers, this essay explores the pitfalls and possibilities associated with using the Registers for Liberated Africans as sources for historical analysis of the slave trade. The article explains the relationship of multiple copies of the registers to each other, demonstrates the link between the African names they contain and ethnolinguistic identities, argues for crowd-sourcing – drawing on the knowledge of the diasporic public and not just scholars – and, finally, shows the importance of such an approach for pre-colonial African history.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=HIA
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: History in Africa
Publisher: African Studies Association

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