This guide highlights primary sources about the transatlantic slave trade and prioritises teaching tools that facilitate a deeper understanding of the experiences and perspectives of the enslaved individuals. Centring their voices through any firsthand accounts, narratives, and testimonies that our team can pull out, the guide aims to illuminate the complexities of their lives and resistance.
Educational resources include essays, chronologies and video interviews that encourage critical engagement with primary sources. Please be aware that distressing content can be found throughout the documents and contextual essays in this resource, including graphic descriptions and first-hand accounts of physical or sexual abuse.
Records from multiple archives, from as early as 1490, give close attention to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Slavery is present throughout this collection, which contains records from the National Archives of the UK, 1606-1822: it arguably permeates every aspect of these documents as it was intrinsically linked to European activities within the region.
Colonial Caribbean covers the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870. The economics of plantation systems and the impact of slavery are central themes.
This resource includes letters, diaries and first-hand accounts from people involved in the Atlantic slave trade, as well as abolition in the United States.
This resource contains records of English participation in the slave trade from as early as 1622: from this point until 1772 the Company directly carried out or planned to carry out seventy slave voyages in the Indian Ocean world.
Slavery is a key theme in this resource: there are documents from enslavers' perspectives, such as letters and journals with instructions for the purchase and disposal of the enslaved, together with lists of goods to be exchanged for enslaved people. There are also multiple pamphlets from both the pro- and anti-abolitionist causes.
Documents about Cuba cover the trade in enslaved people to support Cuba's sugar cane industry, which boomed after the Haitian Revolution; while documents on Brazil examine one of the largest trades in enslaved peoples in the Americas.
Slavery and apprenticeship are common themes in the British government papers in this resource: it covers the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica, as well as arguments for and against the abolition of slavery in the West Indies.
Sources on key worldwide commodities give direct insights into the economic drivers behind the transatlantic slave trade. By examining records relating to sugar, cotton and tobacco researchers can trace the flow of goods and the human cost associated with their production.
The journals in this resource are largely British but also include four Jamaican titles, which offer fascinating insights into daily life in Britain's colonies. The high number of advertisements for runaways evidences the importance of enslaved people to plantation owners. British journals reveal metropolitan attitudes to slavery, abolitionist movements and legislative changes.
Correspondence and treaty notes can reveal the complex relationships between Indigenous communities and European settlers, including how these were influenced by the institution of slavery.
European colonisation, as described in these sources, was often accompanied by the enslavement of Indigenous peoples, with attempts to transform cultural or religious practices into ones acceptable to Europeans. Narratives and correspondence show the creation of slaving stations and forts, and give details of trade in enslaved Africans.
Slavery is a thematic area in this collection and is commonplace in many of these children's books, with both abolitionist and pro-slavery views being represented.
For much of the period covered by this resource the Anglo-American world was heavily involved in the trade of enslaved people from Africa to the Caribbean and America. Documents include lists of slave ships taken by Royal Navy anti-slavery patrols after the abolition of the slave trade; these include watercolour pictures and eyewitness accounts of the inside of slave ships.
This collection has been designed for teaching and research across all aspects of enslavement and the slave trade, with records dating back to 1490. Viewed through a largely colonial lens, there is extensive coverage of the African coast, the Middle Passage, varieties of enslaved experience (urban, domestic, 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.
Over the past 30 years, AM has built strong relationships with archives and libraries around the world. We acknowledge that hegemonic perspectives and voices have often survived at the expense of marginalised communities, and understand that by digitising primary sources, we contribute to the continued preservation and discovery of these materials. Find out more about our work with archival partners. We seek feedback from the academic community and collaborate with a dedicated board of consultants for each product, aiming to ensure the inclusion of scholars and curatorial experts who can speak to the experiences of underrepresented communities.
We continue to increase our efforts to commission essays and features which contextualise problematic terminology, highlight archival silences, discuss some of the complexities of historic archival practice and shed light on tools that students can use to overcome these challenges. Find out more about AM’s approach to diversity in our content.
Every care and attention has been paid to preserve the historic authenticity of these documents. Any terminology that may be deemed discriminatory or offensive by present-day principles may have been preserved for the historic accuracy and relevance to that particular document.
