Biographies: The Atlantic Slave Data Network

FAIN: PW-50851-11

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
Walter Hawthorne (Project Director: July 2010 to April 2013)

The development of a digital repository for datasets contributed by scholars in the course of their research on African slavery.

The Biographies: The Atlantic Slaves Data Network (ASDN) project will provide an international collaborative research platform for scholars of African slaves in the Atlantic World to upload, preserve, and provide public access to datasets about individual slaves. Digital tools will be made available to perform calculations and visualize the data, enabling investigation of patterns within large-scale datasets from diverse regions and types of historical sources. The digital repository also will allow uploading of digital files of original source materials. The ASDN will be an innovative and valuable resource for scholars and students, African-Americans searching for their roots, and the public interested in humanities research centered on African slaves and their descendants in North America, South America, Europe and Africa itself. The ASDN will also contribute to addressing challenges humanists face in analyzing vast quantities of data that can now be accessed digitally.