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The transatlantic trade in enslaved people in the early modern period and the routes of the ships that once carried them across the Atlantic are common themes of the international research and digitisation projects "Slave Voyages" and "Prize Papers". The databases of the two projects, which make historical documents available to researchers and the public, will be linked in the future. The aim is to gain an overview of the extent and role of subsidised prize-taking and privateering in the system of slavery. Previously unknown documents on the transatlantic slave trade will also be made available on the linked platforms.
The transatlantic trade in enslaved people in the early modern period and the routes of the ships that once transported the people across the Atlantic are common themes of the international research and digitisation projects "Slave Voyages" and "Prize Papers". The databases of both projects, which make historical documents accessible to researchers and the public, will be linked in future. This was agreed by researchers from the projects during a collaborative workshop at the University of Oldenburg, home of the Academies' project Prize Papers, which works with The National Archives, UK, as partner.
"We are thus expanding the circle of our international partners to include one of the most renowned research and database projects in the world today," said Oldenburg historian Dr Lucas Haasis, research coordinator in the Prize Papers team. "The aim is to obtain a more complete picture of the historical background to the slave trade and an overview of the role that prize-taking and privateering played in the system of slavery as part of the warfare of the time."
Behind the digital database slavevoyages.org currently hosted at Rice University in Houston, Texas (USA), is an initiative bringing together various U.S. and UK institutions in compiling documents and objects about the transatlantic slave trade and making them publicly accessible. The database can be searched to find out more about the origins and forced deportation of more than twelve million African people who were shipped across the Atlantic in slave ships as well as hundreds of thousands who were abducted within the Americas.
In addition to Rice University, the University of California, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, Harvard University and the National Museum of African American History and Culture are among the partners involved. A delegation from the "Slave Voyages" project travelled to the workshop in Oldenburg, as well as “Prize Papers” project partners from Göttingen. Project members from London, where the prize papers are stored in the National Archives, participated online.
The capture of enemy ships, known as prize-taking, was once a legitimate means of warfare. Since 2018, the prize papers database has been cataloguing and digitising all prize papers that have been preserved from court cases concerning captures by the English or British navy between 1652 and 1815. The project, which is based at the University of Oldenburg and The National Archives, UK, is being funded by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony within the Academies Programme through funds from the Federal Government and the State of Lower Saxony. The project is working closely with the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and the IT experts at the Göttingen Network Centre of the Common Library Network (VZG).
In total, the prize papers collection in London includes documents from 14 naval wars in which the Crown was involved and which led to more than 35,000 captures. The open access portal is expected to provide around 3.5 million digitised documents in various languages by 2037. Many of the ships recorded in the portal were involved in the transatlantic trade in enslaved people. And if the Crown’s admiralty jurisdiction deemed a capture to be lawful, the enslaved people on board were sold at auctions as supposedly enemy property.
"The prise system thus facilitated the enslavement and transport of many thousands of African people, although the exact extent of these activities is still unknown," says Haasis. The aim of the cooperation between "Slave Voyages" and "Prize Papers" is therefore to obtain more precise figures and gain an overview of the extent and role of privateers in the system of slavery and to provide research and the public with detailed records about the Transatlantic Slave Trade previously unknown and in open access on the linked platforms.
Dr. Lucas Haasis
lucas.haasis@uol.de
https://prizepapers.de Project website "Prize Papers"
https://www.slavevoyages.org Project website "Slave Voyages"
https://uol.de/en/news/prizepapers News feature on the prize papers project
This paper from the French ship Abraham of Nantes was used to track the 304 enslaved people its crew ...
Prize Papers Project, The National Archives, ref. HCA 32/97/1. Images reproduced by permission of The National Archives, UK
Researchers from two projects met in Oldenburg (from left): Frank Dührkohp (VZG Göttingen), Jan Vond ...
Universität Oldenburg / Daniel Schmidt
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This paper from the French ship Abraham of Nantes was used to track the 304 enslaved people its crew ...
Prize Papers Project, The National Archives, ref. HCA 32/97/1. Images reproduced by permission of The National Archives, UK
Researchers from two projects met in Oldenburg (from left): Frank Dührkohp (VZG Göttingen), Jan Vond ...
Universität Oldenburg / Daniel Schmidt
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