The Transatlantic Slave Trade

A guide to primary and secondary sources organized by topic, covering the slave trade in Africa, the Americas, and the U.S.

Featured Resource

Slave Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Widely considered the most important resource on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Comprises 36,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866. Users can look for particular voyages of documented slaving expeditions, create listings, tables, and maps that draw on the database, examine estimates of the slave trade, and locate the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of individuals. Website includes 3 databases: the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Intro-American Slave Trade, and the African Names database. Special features include introductory essays, maps, timelines of estimates of captives embarked and disembarked, an image gallery, and more.

Primary Sources: Original Manuscripts, Pamphlets, Books, Images, and Maps

Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice (Adam Matthew)
A compilation of primary sources that includes thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings and maps pertaining to slavery. Viewed through a largely colonial lens, topics include the African coast; the Middle Passage; the varieties of enslaved experience (urban, domestic, industrial, farm, ranch and plantation); spiritualism and religion; resistance and uprisings; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement; legislation; education; the legacies of slavery, and slavery in the twentieth century. Additional resources including scholarly essays, a chronology, bibliography, and a list of popular searches provide background and avenues for further research. Covers 1490-2007.
Colonial Caribbean Module I: Settlement, Slavery, and Empire, 1624-1832 (Adam Matthew)
Digital primary sources from the Colonial Office cover British governance of 25 islands in the Caribbean over the course of three centuries. Traces the rise and decline of the slave trade, from the regular trade and shipping of enslaved peoples, to the rise of the abolition movement and its impact on the government of the islands. Topics include estate ownership, plantation governance and labor, finance and economy, mutiny and piracy, uprisings and revolts, and more. Covers 1624-1832.

Primary Source Databases: Legal Materials & Government Documents

Hein Online: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
Includes all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, as well as materials on free African-Americans in the colonies and the U.S. before 1870. Search the entire database or browse by slavery statutes (state and federal), judicial cases, scholarly articles, e-books, bibliography, and external links.
LLMC Digital
Extensive collection of digitized historical legal material and government documents. Includes publications of state, federal, and territorial governments of the U.S, as well as foreign and international legal and government materials and indigenous law. All documents are available full text in PDF. Date range: 14th-21st centuries.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers - 19th Century (ProQuest)
British government documents from the 19th century. Includes Bills and Acts, Command Papers, House of Commons papers and Hansard parliamentary debates. Primary source documents for British history as well as British Colonies in India, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.
ProQuest Congressional
Comprehensive full image coverage of U.S. Congressional publications 1789-present, Updated daily. Hearings (1824-present); Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS) (1916-present); House and Senate Documents/Reports (1817-present); Legislative Histories (1969-current); Bills & Laws (1776-present); Vote Reports (1987-present); Historical Maps & Images (1789-2007); Congressional Record (daily and bound versions) (1789-present); Regulations; Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations; Presidential Executive Orders.
Member profiles, committee assignments, financial disclosure statements and voting records.
HeritageQuest Online (ProQuest)
Provides a collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture. Includes full-text documents from more than 25,000 works of local and family histories, as well as the full-text documents and indexes from the U.S. Federal Census, 1790-1940, and U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989. Includes the 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedules and the U.S., Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874.

Primary Sources: Historical Newspapers

Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
Search the full-text/full-image of several major U.S. and two major British newspapers: New York Times (1851-2019), Washington Post (1877-2006), Wall Street Journal (1889-2011), Christian Science Monitor (1908-2009), Los Angeles Times (1881-1999), Chicago Tribune (1849-1998), Austin American Statesman (1871-1980), Guardian (1821-2003) Observer (1791-2003), New York Amsterdam News (1922-2010), and the Chicago Defender (1909-2010), El Paso Times (1881-2009), El Paso Herald (1896-1996). Coverage begins with the first issue of each title.
NewspaperArchive: Texas Collection
Searchable full image access to many historical newspapers from all across Texas, including the San Antonio Light (1882 -1977) and the San Antonio Express News (1865-1974). (Some years are incomplete.) Database covers 1813-2022.
African American Newspapers (Readex)
A large collection of full-text / full-image African American newspapers from all around the country. Covers the 19th and 20th centuries.
19th Century U.S. Newspapers (Gale)
Provides full-text access to newspapers from urban to rural regions, large cities to small towns across the U.S. Includes newspapers published by African Americans, Native Americans, women's rights groups, labor groups, the Confederacy, and others. Coverage: 1800-1899.
Latin American Newspapers (Readex)
A collection of 19th and early 20th century digitized newspapers from Latin America. Includes titles published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese from more than 20 countries in the region, from Argentina to Venezuela. Coverage: 1805-1922.

African American Newspapers from Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
Currently includes 43 African American newspapers published around the United States from 1836-1922. The number of available issues per paper varies. Includes the Dallas Express.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Search and view more than a million digitized newspaper pages. Coverage is from 1756-1963. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

Primary Sources: Historical Periodicals

African American Historical Serials Collection (EBSCO)
This collection of primary sources related to African American life and culture features 173 periodicals spanning from 1816 through 1922. It comprises newspapers and magazines, in addition to reports and annuals from various African American organizations, including churches and educational and service institutions.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection
Digital collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912 covering advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more.
American Periodicals Series Online, 1741-1940 (ProQuest)
A primary source collection of general interest magazines, trade publications, and professional journals published in America between 1741 and 1940. The collection covers three broad periods: America's transition from colonial times to independence; the early 19th century "golden age of American periodicals" including general interest magazines, children's publications, and journals for women; and Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction America.
British Periodicals 1 & 2 (ProQuest)
Includes over 587 journals that comprise the microfilm collection Early British Periodicals Series I and II. Covers topics in literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, and the social sciences.
Early American Imprints, Series 1: Evans, 1639-1800 (NewsBank)
Based on Evans' American Bibliography, this database contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in the American Colonies or United States from 1639 through 1800. Includes an additional 1,100 titles from Bristol's Supplement to Evans.
Early American Imprints Series 2: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1800-1819 (NewsBank)
Provides full text access to virtually every known book, pamphlet, and broadside published in the U.S. from the years 1800 through 1819. Also contains state papers and government materials; presidential letters and messages; and congressional, state and territorial resolutions. Based on the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Parts 1 & 2 (Gale)
Based on The English Short Title Catalogue, a historical bibliography of works printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, ECCO provides more than 180,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800.