Hopefully a lot more people will be able to find their ancestors, thanks to Michigan State University’s online slavery database.
via BallerAlert:
“The university will receive a $1.47 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will oversee the project, “Enslaved: The People of the Historic Slave Trade.”
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The database is an online hub that will provide links to data collections from other universities on slavery and enslaved people.
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MSU Today writes: “By linking data collections from multiple universities, the website will allow people to search millions of pieces of slave data to identify enslaved individuals and their descendants from a central source. Users can also run analyses of enslaved populations and create maps, charts, and graphics.”
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“‘Enslaved’ brings new digital tools and analytical approaches to the study of African slavery and the Atlantic slave trade,” said project co-investigator Walter Hawthorne, a professor, and chair of MSU’s department of history. “By linking data compiled by some of the world’s foremost historians, it will allow scholars and the public to learn about individuals’ lives and to draw new, broad conclusions about processes that had an indelible impact on the world.”
