Caribbean Chattel Slavery

At the core of the project is a database containing, first, the identity of all slave-owners in the British colonies at the time slavery ended and, second, all the estates in the British Caribbean colonies. As the two earlier phases of work unfolded, we amassed, analysed and incorporated information about the activities, affiliations and legacies of all the British slave-owners on the database, building this Encyclopedia of British Slave-Owners.

The Early Caribbean Digital Archive is an open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world.

The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) facilitates the digitisation of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. Thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable foundation that works to preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge, we have provided grants to almost 500 projects in over ninety countries worldwide, in more than a hundred languages and scripts.

Since 2018, Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (Enslaved.org) has been serving the needs of scholars, genealogists, students, and members of the public interested in the people of the historical slave trade. Enslaved.org is a discovery hub that helps users to search and find information from a large and growing number of datasets and digital projects.

In 1807 The Abolition of Slave Trade Act came into force. The act made the trade in slaves from Africa to the British colonies illegal. To combat illicit transportation following this act many of the British Colonies began keeping registers of black slaves who had been so-called “lawfully enslaved”. In 1819 the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves was established in London and copies of the slave registers kept by the colonies were sent to this office. Registration generally occurred once every three years. The registers continue through to 1834 when slavery was officially abolished.

British manumissions: manumissions for slaves from Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica; correspondence with David Barclay; manumissions for David Barclay's slaves Indentures: Masters names, A - Perrot

Sixty-seven miscellaneous slave documents listing individual slaves, their physical characteristics, and ownership. Most of the slaves belonged to smaller households in the northeast part of the island, and many were young children.

See narrative accounts from missionaries combine with colonial statistics to create a picture of these former colonies' development. Learn how owners of an Antiguan sugar plantation adapted to emancipation, and witness the nature of missionaries' roles in the slave trade. Together, these collections reveal how governments, slave owners and missionaries shaped the development of these countries over three centuries.

ShipIndex.org simplifies vessel research. Whether you’re a genealogist, a maritime historian, a researcher, or just curious, we can help you learn more about the ships that interest you. We tell you which maritime resources, such as books, journals, magazines, newspapers, CD-ROMs, websites, and online databases mention the ships that interest you. We enhance these references by noting which ones include illustrations or crew and passenger lists, and where you can find or purchase the resource.

The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.

The Slave Societies Digital Archive (formerly Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies) preserves the most extensive serial records for the history of Africans in the Atlantic World and includes valuable information about the indigenous, European, and Asian populations who lived alongside them. SSDA holdings include more than 700,000 digital images dating from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries that document the lives of an estimated four to six million individuals. SSDA teams digitized most of these records, but generous scholars have also donated smaller personal collections to our archive.

SSDA’s primary goal is to identify, catalogue, and preserve endangered records for the study of slave societies, but our teams have also produced transcriptions of these unique documents linked to the original images. This site also features related resources to assist scholars in their research. We welcome feedback and encourage researchers to share any work that they develop using the Slave Societies Digital Archive.

Follow the slave trade from Africa and America to Britain through these records. See who traded in slaves, read accounts of their transportation and learn about the plantations where they were forced to work. Then uncover the philosophies that endorsed or fought against the existence of this trade in people.

This database has been compiled from the returns of people who received compensation following the 1833 emancipation act which freed slaves in the British colonies in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, Mauritius and Cape Colony (South Africa).

Find out about Bristol’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. Who was involved, what was bought and sold, who stopped it, and what is the effect of the trade today?

The Digital Library of the Caribbean is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean & circum-Caribbean.

The Early Caribbean Digital Archive is an open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world.

History Hub is a research support community for everyone, including genealogists, historians, and citizen archivists.

This is a virtual genealogy library for those researching family history for Jamaica, West Indies, especially for people born before 1920. The site contains transcriptions from various documents including nineteenth century Jamaica Almanacs (which list property owners and civil and military officials), Jamaica Directories for 1878, 1891 and 1910, extractions from Jamaican Church records, Civil Registration, Wills, Jewish records, and excerpts from newspapers, books, and other documents. There is information on immigration and on slavery.

What was the transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans? Who benefitted from it? What was Bristol’s involvement and what are its legacies today?

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery aims to identify, digitize, transcribe, and publish ads placed in newspapers across the United States (and beyond) by formerly enslaved people searching for family members and loved ones after emancipation. These newspaper ads began appearing in the 1830s (our earliest ad appeared in The Liberator in 1832) and greatly increased in frequency in the years immediately following emancipation (1865) and continued well into the 20th century. (The collection includes an ad that appeared in The Richmond Planet in 1922.) These ads not only document the extensive separation of Black families through the domestic slave trade but also attest to the persistent efforts thousands of people made to reunite with those from whom they had been separated. In the ads, mothers search for children separated through sale, daughters and sons seek parents, men and women inquire about partners and spouses, and siblings search for one another—they include names, describe events, and recall last seen locations. All this information, crucial to genealogists and scholars alike, is published in this open-access collection.

Maroon Country is a multimedia educational resource focused on the history of maroons, the independent and resistant black communities of the slavery-era Caribbean. The resource will focus on maroon history and culture in Dominica and the Eastern Caribbean, including the French West Indies. The web resource will include manuscripts and archival material for scholars’ further research, exhibits and analysis for use by teachers and students of high school and college. The site, built on the Omeka platform, will also include for younger audiences a game app featuring historically accurate maroon characters, events and artifacts, and a children’s short story for web, e-book and print formats.

M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark tells the story of Denmark as one of the world's leading maritime nations in an evocative and dramatic way.

You can visit the digital image archive here where more than 60.000 photos are digitalized (in Danish).

The Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Britain project has created a searchable database of well over eight hundred newspaper advertisements placed by masters and owners seeking the capture and return of enslaved and bound people who had escaped. Many were of African descent, though a small number were from the Indian sub-continent and a few were Indigenous Americans. To the enslaved flight represented one of the greatest acts of self-determination, and some historians have argued that runaways challenged the slave system from within and contributed to their own and others' eventual emancipation. While some were not enslaved, many were described by their masters as slaves and property. And while they were vulnerable to transport back to colonies where their status would be, at best, uncertain, few could enjoy complete freedom in Great Britain.

History of two estates that were established for colonists on St. Croix island. Includes some history of the Christmas and Moorhead families.

Index of enslaved people in Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles who were emancipated in 1863.

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds. Of the thirteen defining migrations that formed and transformed African America, only the transatlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trades were coerced, the eleven others were voluntary movements of resourceful and creative men and women, risk-takers in an exploitative and hostile environment. Their survival skills, efficient networks, and dynamic culture enabled them to thrive and spread, and to be at the very core of the settlement and development of the Americas. Their hopeful journeys changed not only their world and the fabric of the African Diaspora but also the Western Hemisphere.

The ACTe Memorial “Caribbean Center of Expression and Memory of Human Trafficking and Slavery” is located on the coast of Guadeloupe Island, in the space where the old Darboussier sugar factory operated. This was the largest sugar factory in the Antilles during the slave period.

Supporting the preservation of our African Heritage and the memory of our African Ancestors who were enslaved in Antigua and Barbuda.

10 Million Names is a collaborative project dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated 10 million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between the 1500s and 1865.

The project seeks to amplify the voices of people who have been telling their family stories for centuries, connect researchers and data partners with people seeking answers to family history questions, and expand access to data, resources, and information about enslaved African Americans.

The Association of Former British Colonies (AFBC) examines the legacies of British colonisation through educational content and social dialogue.

This research centre aims to focus attention on slavery and its legacies in Scotland and globally, through academic research, public events, and engagement with ongoing anti-racist activism and reparative justice.

The date of this centre's launch is significant. The name was chosen for the centre because Beniba was a woman, a mother, who was held in slavery by Robert Cunningham Graham, former Rector of the University of Glasgow (1785-1787). Very little is known about the life of Beniba, but her name indicates that she was born on a Tuesday and was perhaps, of Akan origin. For that reason, the centre was launched on a Tuesday - to give respect and remembrance to the innumerable lives of ancestral Africans and their contributions throughout the slavery era.

The Black Consciousness Festival is a global platform that connects people of African descent with each other by sharing and encouraging exchange, through information, traditions, histories, intentions, traumas, celebrations, legacies, and stories connecting to pride, power and practice.

The festival builds awareness around how each of us can take the necessary steps for restitution (healing) and reparation (repair).

Welcome to the Center for Family History, a groundbreaking research center dedicated to assisting individuals, like you, reconnect with their family history and ancestors. Whether you are an experienced genealogist or just getting started on your journey, we’re here to help you find connections to your ancestors and discover more of your story.

The Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS) supports and shares leading research about human enslavement and its legacies. Founded in May 2006 and based in Liverpool, a major slaving port with ships and merchants dominating the transatlantic slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. As well as being one of Europe’s hubs of international trade and migration for centuries. The Centre is in a unique position to develop an international and interdisciplinary understanding of the global impact of slavery.

Association mémorielle agissant pour honorer les victimes de l’esclavage colonial.

The Coming to the Table vision for the United States is of a just and truthful society that acknowledges and seeks to heal from the racial wounds of the past—from slavery and the many forms of racism it spawned.

Coming to the Table provides leadership, resources, and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that is rooted in the United States’ history of slavery.

Step into the vibrant world of the recently reopened Museo Tula. As the island’s pioneering community museum, we present a Museum without Walls, featuring diverse artworks both within and around our space. Explore exhibits honoring ancestors, revealing their history and resilience. Museo Tula delves into themes of resistance, resilience, and emancipation, offering insights into slave revolts, escape, language preservation, and leadership. Join us to discover and celebrate the spirit of our community.

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition is part of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. Since its founding in 1998, the Gilder Lehrman Center has been dedicated to the investigation and dissemination of knowledge concerning slavery and its legacies across all borders and all time, from the distant past through the present day. The Center fosters improved understandings of the role of slavery, anti-slavery, and the lasting harms of slavery in the functioning of the modern world. Through fellowships, workshops, public programs, and digital resources, the Gilder Lehrman Center supports scholarship, public history, and public education.

We are a small group of British people who have researched their family histories, and learned that their ancestors made significant wealth from, or helped organise, more than two centuries of industrialised enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Our ancestors were plantation owners, slave traders, merchants, bankers, investors, soldiers, lawyers and lawmakers. We want to lend our voices and our influence, such as it is, in support of campaigns to tackle the ongoing consequences of the transatlantic slavery era.

The International Slavery Museum increases the understanding of transatlantic, chattel and other forms of enslavement. Through our collections, public engagement and research, we explore their impact and legacies.

We are a campaigning museum that actively engages with contemporary human rights issues. We address ignorance and challenge intolerance, building partnerships with museums, communities and organisations that share our vision.

Mapping Slavery is een publieksgeschiedenis project. We geven aandacht aan het Nederlandse slavernijverleden en het erfgoed hieraan verbonden. We stellen de volgende onderzoeksvragen:

• Wie profiteerde van slavernij in Nederland en haar koloniën?

• Waar woonden deze mensen en waar maakten ze beslissingen over slavernij en slavenhandel?

• Welke sporen van slavernij vinden we terug in Nederland? In de straten, musea, archieven en het cultureel archief?

• Waar vinden we Afrikaanse en Aziatische aanwezigheid in Nederland door de eeuwen heen?

The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) is a non-profit tax-exempt organization established in 2011 to honor the two million captive Africans who perished during the transatlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage and the ten million who survived to build the Americas.

Like many plantations in Barbados, Morgan Lewis inherited its name from its first owner – Morgan Lewis. The name first appears in Barbados’ historical record in 1674 and has been retained until the present. In 1721 Morgan Lewis is sold to the John Hannis who owns the plantation for a brief period until he sells it to the Gibbons family in 1736. Morgan Lewis plantation remained in the Gibbons family until the nineteenth century.

Museum Kurá Hulanda is an anthropological museum that focuses on the predominant cultures of Curaçao. It offers a world-class chronicle of the Origin of Man, the African slave trade, West African Empires, Mesopotamian artifacts and Antillean art. The museum exhibits the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in its entirety, from slavery capture in Africa through the Middle Passage and the relocation to the New World. With a vast collection of artifacts from continental Africa, this museum demonstrates the dynamic vitality and great empires of West Africa and how the African and diverse cultural heritage has influenced Curaçao and Caribbean societies until today.

Within the next few years, the Nationaal Slavernijmuseum, a new national museum of slavery, should open its doors to the public. Documenting the history of transatlantic slavery and slavery in the Dutch colonies in the Indian Ocean will be the museum’s guiding principle. The museum’s content will target a broad audience, with a focus on education, art, information and research. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science supports the initiative.

Savonet museum is established in the former plantation house (Landhuis) of the Savonet Plantation, one of the largest and oldest plantations of Curaçao, located in the heart of Christoffelpark. The museum provides visitors with a glimpse into the lives of the former inhabitants of the area. From the earliest Arawak Indians who arrived at the island almost 4000 years ago to modern times. The Savonet museum tells the story from the first inhabitants of Bandabou to the present day by using historical artifacts. The slogan of Savonet ‘where culture meets nature’ is honored with the exhibition ‘nos naturalesa (our nature)’, which shows an overview of our rich nature.

The Saint Lucia National Reparations Committee (NRC) was established in Nov. 2013, following the decision earlier that year by CARICOM member-states to establish a regional commission to pursue reparations for slavery from Britain and Europe.

Sites of Memory Foundation (SoM) organizes activities around the hidden and under-represented stories of our shared cultural heritage of the Netherlands and the former colonies.It is founded by Jennifer Tosch (cultural historian and founder of the Black Heritage Tours) and Katy Streek (theatre maker and programmer).

Since 2016 they create site specific performances about the 'hidden' stories about the history of slavery and colonialism.

This project has been constructed as a memorial, as a site of mourning and grieving, as a gesture of gratitude and appreciation, and as a catalyst for the ongoing recognition, exploration, and presentation of the enslaved persons of African descent at Rose Hall. This space is a dedicated space of remembrance for all those named and unnamed who heretofore have not been publicly acknowledged or memorialized. It was also conceived in recognition of, and resistance to, what continues to be silenced about them and the institution of slavery today. We hope this website will encourage others to carve out spaces, virtual and otherwise, for the necessary and continuous remembrance of enslaved Africans and their descendants throughout the African diaspora.

Donna Cox Baker and Frazine K. Taylor conceived the Beyond Kin Project in 2016 as a way to encourage and facilitate the documentation of enslaved populations, particularly by recruiting the resources and efforts of the descendants of slaveholders.

Donise Smith Lei contacted Your DNA Guide for some coaching. She was putting the finishing touches on her new book, Delving into My Bitterroots: How I Resurrected My Enslaved Ancestor, Granvill, and So Can You. Before going to press, she wanted an expert review of the way she’d applied DNA testing results to identifying her 3X great-grandfather, Granvill, who was enslaved.

With her permission, we share the following tips that came out of her coaching session with Diahan Southard. We hope these tips will help others who are searching for the identities of enslaved ancestors, because we recognize that this can be so challenging.

Grenadian surnames are not purely baggage from our enslaved ancestors. Slavery is the reason for the lack of surnames in the first place, but the ones we have bear the names of our ancestors, much as surnames are supposed to. As such, these surnames may lead to Grenadians today finding their enslaved ancestors on Slave Registers and other lists if aware of the village (and thus plantation) where your family originated.

Researching enslaved ancestors in the former British Empire is not as hopeless as it may initially seem. With well kept records and archives now available online, researching enslaved ancestors is possible. Here we share some strategies to aid in your research.

Tracing the African roots of the Afro-Diaspora is also about reaffirming the lost identities of ancestors who were caught up in the most dehumanizing circumstances of slavery. I personally strongly believe that in order to truly honour your many dozens or even hundreds of African born forefathers and foremothers (see “Fictional Family Tree incl. African Born Ancestors“) taking a critical stance regarding the claims of DNA testing is a must. Naively taking your results at face value and just going for quick and easy answers could very well lead to gravely misidentifying the main lineages of your African ancestry, which would be tragic indeed inspite of all good intentions.

Conversations in Atlantic Theory is a podcast dedicated to books and ideas generated from and about the Atlantic world. In collaboration with the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, these conversations explore the cultural, political, and philosophical traditions of the Atlantic world, ranging from European critical theory to the black Atlantic to sites of indigenous resistance and self-articulation, as well as the complex geography of thinking between traditions, inside traditions, and from positions of insurgency, critique, and counternarrative.

This is a podcast about Caribbean History and a good resource for individuals researching their family history.

Exploring the true story of British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and how it touches every part of the nation. Hosted by Moya Lothian-McLean, a journalist and descendent of both Black African Slaves and White slave owners or overseers.

Tianna Mobley is a Ph.D. student of History at Yale University and a Fellow at Humanity in Action. "Untold Histories of the Atlantic World" discusses a range of transatlantic topics such as the Black and Jewish diasporas, indigenous histories, and European colonization. This podcast invites academics, literary scholars, activists, and even interested listeners as guests.

This group is for sharing resources and assisting with research relating to Caribbean ancestry and history.

Welcome to the Caribbean Research Community! This group was created to give people researching the region a place to ask questions, collaborate, and share research with one another.

The purpose of this Group is to bring back into Public Memory those who lived in Ireland or had a connection with Ireland and who were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade and/or the enslavement of men, women & children in the former British Empire.

This group was established to allow for robust discussion of Liverpool's role in slavery and the slave trade. Although there are a number of Liverpool history groups many of them either do not welcome discussion of this particular subject, or when they do, debate declines into abusive argument. The objective of this forum is therefore to allow for the sharing of knowledge on this emotive subject whilst encouraging respectful discourse.

St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance is fighting to protect a historic burial ground in St. Eustatius, and respectful treatment of the remains of individuals of Afrikan descent that were discovered.

The renewed global call for reparations is about more than money. Amanda travels to Barbados, London and Paris to find out how the movement is making connections to the climate crisis.

Learn how to trace your Afro-Caribbean ancestors from the West Indies, including Barbados, Jamaica, and other places. Presented by Sharon Wilkins, President of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society - New York.

The Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) is a lineage society for descendants of individuals enslaved in English colonial America and the United States of America from 1619-1865. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of freed and enslaved ancestors. This program will explain what is the SDUSMP, how to apply for membership in it, how to find enslaved ancestors, and why it is important to remember them.