[Partially re-blogged from the History Faculty Library blog]

We are delighted to announce that Oxford researchers now have access to Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World.

This collection provides access to a wide range of materials to help understand the inception of slavery in Africa and its rise as perpetuated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, with particular focus on the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

It covers a wide spectrum of subjects related to the history of slavery: legal issues; economics; the Caribbean; children and women under slavery; modes of resistance; and much more, from 1490 to 1896.

This collection will be of interest to those studying the broader institution of slavery. Individual source collections of particular interest to US historians are:

• Correspondence to the US Secretary of the Navy from the Officers of the Africa Squadron, a US-British manned squadron which patrolled the West African Coast to intercept and search slave trading ships.
• Legal documents, including backgrounds, proceedings and prior rulings related to The Amistad slave rebellion, which became an important rallying point for the abolitionist cause.
• Manuscript collections related to enslaved and free people of colour in New Orleans, such as deeds and estate appraisals, bank and tax files, military rosters, bills of lading, and many other municipal materials.
• US Customs Service Records for New Orleans, documenting the transfer of incoming and outgoing enslaved persons from the port. These important records include key details such as names, destinations, enslavers and shippers.
• The papers of Oliver Pollock, a former commercial agent of New Orleans and Virginia, who was a major financier of the American Revolutionary War, primarily through his role in the slave trade.
• Collections from the British Library, such as the letter books of the Virginia Colony (1634-41) and manuscript collections from the Egerton Collection of official papers relating to the English settlements in America, 1627-1699.

You can search across the above collections and other Gale databases via Gale Primary Sources. Please note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access these resources.