African Origins

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The African Origins project is a database run by researchers at Emory University, Georgia, United States, which aims to document all the known facts about the African diaspora, including all documentary material pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade. It is a sister project to Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery</span> Ownership of people as property

Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labor. Slavery typically involves compulsory work with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic slave trade</span> Slave trade – 16th to 19th centuries

The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa who had been sold by West African slave traders to mainly Portuguese, British, Spanish, Dutch, and French slave traders. while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids; European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African diaspora</span> People descending from indigenous Africans living outside Africa

The globalAfrican diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from Native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in the United States, Brazil, and Haiti. However, the term can also be used to refer to non native African descendants from North Africa who immigrated to other parts of the world. Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of this migration out of Africa. The phrase African diaspora gradually entered common usage at the turn of the 21st century. The term "diaspora" originates from the Greek διασπορά which gained popularity in English in reference to the Jewish diaspora before being more broadly applied to other populations.

Spirituals is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs," work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres emerged from the spirituals songcraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the colonial history of the United States</span> Slavery in colonies that became the United States

Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery as it existed in the European colonies which eventually became part of the United States. In these colonies, slavery developed due to a combination of multiple factors, the primary one being labour demands among white colonists, which resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were victims of enslavement by white colonizers during the era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the United States</span>

The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, during early colonial days, it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation, sharecropping, and convict leasing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triangular trade</span> Trade among three ports or regions

Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset trade imbalances between different regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Clarkson</span> English abolitionist (1760–1846)

Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended British trade in slaves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elmina Castle</span> Fort and former trading post in Elmina, Ghana

Elmina Castle was erected by the Portuguese in 1482 as Castelo de São Jorge da Mina, also known as Castelo da Mina or simply Mina, in present-day Elmina, Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast. It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, and the oldest European building in existence south of the Sahara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bunce Island</span> Port Loko, Sierra Leone

Bunce Island is an island in the Sierra Leone River. It is situated in Freetown Harbour, the estuary of the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek, about 20 miles upriver from Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown. The island measures about 1,650 feet by 350 feet and houses a castle that was built by the Royal Africa Company in c.1670. Tens of thousands of Africans were shipped from here to the North American colonies of South Carolina and Georgia to be forced into slavery, and are the ancestors of many African Americans of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Africa Squadron</span> Military unit

The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 and based out of Portsmouth, England, it remained an independent command until 1856 and then again from 1866 to 1867.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery</span>

The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Africa</span> Historical slavery in Africa

Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practiced despite it being illegal.

Slavery in Britain Slavery in Great Britain

Slavery in Britain existed before the Roman occupation and until the 11th century, when the Norman conquest of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery into serfdom, and all slaves were no longer recognised separately in English law or custom. By the middle of the 12th century, the institution of slavery as it had existed prior to the Norman conquest had fully disappeared, but other forms of unfree servitude continued for some centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Opala</span> American historian

Joseph A. Opala, OR is an American historian noted for establishing the "Gullah Connection," the historical links between the indigenous people of the West African nation of Sierra Leone and the Gullah people of the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia in the United States.

Yoruba Americans are Americans of Yoruba descent. The Yoruba people are a West African ethnic group that predominantly inhabits southwestern Nigeria, with smaller indigenous communities in Benin and Togo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery</span> Research centre at University College, London

The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, formerly the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, is a research centre of University College, London (UCL) that focuses on revealing the impact of British slavery and, in particular, the implications of the Slave Compensation Act 1837. The Centre's work is freely available online to the public through the Legacies of British Slavery database.

Isaac Hobhouse was an English slave trader, merchant, and member of the Society of Merchant Venturers. Based in Bristol, he was at the centre of money, trade, and credit and acquired much of his fortune through the trade and exploitation of African slaves in the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database</span> Database at Emory University

Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is a database hosted at Rice University that aims to present all documentary material pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade. It is a sister project to African Origins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trans-Saharan slave trade</span> Slave trade

The Trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction. Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab world range from 6-10 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century when it was abolished. The Arabs managed and operated the trans-Saharan slave trade, although Berbers were also actively involved.

References

  1. "New Website to Trace Origins of Enslaved Africans". Emory University. April 25, 2011. Archived from the original on January 5, 2020. Retrieved April 12, 2019.