HIS300 American Beginnings Research Guide

In order to understand what the slave trade and slave ships were like during the time that our sample slave ship had sailed, we will look for information sources that will help us do so

Click on the Reference link to see a select list of resources in which you can search

Sample searches:

Credo Reference

• Place searches for: 
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
  • "slave trade"
  • "transatlantic passage"
• Sample information sources:
  • Middle passage. (2007). In Slavery in the United States: A social, political, and historical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  • Middle passage. (2008). In Africa and the Americas: Culture, politics, and history. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  • European contact and the Atlantic slave trade. (2003). In Nigeria's diverse peoples: A reference sourcebook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  • Slavery: Atlantic trade: Transatlantic passage. (2005). In Encyclopedia of African history. New York, NY: Fitzroy Dearborn.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

• Place a search for: 
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
• Sample information source:
  • Middle passage. (2003). In S. I. Kutler, Dictionary of American history (3rd ed., Vol. 5, pp. 362-365). New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Click on the Primary Sources links to see a select list of resources in which you can start searching

Sample searches:

CLICsearch

• Place searches for: 
  • "slave trade" AND sources
  • "middle passage" AND sources
• Sample information source:
  • Donnan, E. (Ed.). (1930-1935). Documents illustrative of the history of the slave trade to America. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Click on the Reference link to access the resources in which you can search

Sample search:

Credo Reference

• Place a search for: 
  • (trade OR shipping) AND atlantic AND history
• Sample information source:
  • Atlantic trade. (2005). In Encyclopedia of world trade from ancient times to the present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Oxford Reference Online

• Place a search for:
  • "maritime history"
• Sample information source:
  • Oxford encyclopedia of maritime history. (2007). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Click on the Books & eBooks link to access the resources in which you can search

Sample search:

CLICsearch

• Place a search for: 
  • (maritime OR shipping OR navigation OR trade OR commerce) AND atlantic
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  For example:
  • International trade--History
  • Shipping--History
  • Atlantic Ocean Region--History
  • Navigation--History
  • Transatlantic voyages
  • Trade routes
  • [Country name]--Commerce--History
• Sample information sources:
  • Loades, D. M. (2000). England's maritime empire: Seapower, commerce, and policy, 1490-1690. New York, NY: Longman.
  • Roland, A. (2008). The way of the ship: America's maritime history reenvisioned, 1600-2000. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Click on the Articles link to see a select list of resources in which you can search

Sample searches:

JSTOR

• Place a search for:
  • (maritime OR shipping OR trade) AND atlantic AND ("17th century" OR "seventeenth century")
• Sample information sources:
  • Davis, R. (1956). Merchant shipping in the economy of the last seventeenth century. The Economic History Review, 9(1), 59-73.
  • Farnie, D. A. (1962). The commercial empire of the Atlantic, 1607-1783. The Economic History Review, 15(2), 205-218.

Humanities Source

• Place a search for:
  • (maritime OR shipping OR navigation OR trade) AND atlantic AND (history OR "17th century" OR "seventeenth century")
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  For example:
  • International trade--History--17th century
  • Shipping (Water transportation)--History
  • Atlantic Ocean Region--History
  • Maritime history
  • Transatlantic voyages
  • Trade routes
  • [Country name]--Commerce--History
• Sample information sources:
  • Sluiter, E. (1942). Dutch maritime power and the colonial status quo, 1585-1641. Pacific Historical Review, 11, 29-41.
  • Gobel, E. (2011). Danish shipping along the triangular route, 1671-1802: Voyages and conditions on board. Scandinavian Journal of History, 36(2), 135-155).

Click on the Books & eBooks link to access the resources in which you can search

Sample searches:

CLICsearch

• Place searches for: 
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
  • "slave trade" AND "west africa"
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  For example:
  • Slave trade--Africa--History
  • Slave trade--Africa, West--History
  • Slave trade--History
• Sample information sources:
  • Heuman, G., Burnard, T. (Eds.). (2011). The Routledge history of slavery. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Inkori, J. E., & Engerman, S. L. (Eds.). (1992). The Atlantic slave trade: Effects on economies, societies, and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  • Rediker, M. B. (2007). The slave ship: A human history. New York: NY: Viking.
  • Thomas, H. (1997). The slave trade: The story of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440-1870. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

WorldCat

• Place searches for: 
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
  • "slave trade" AND "west africa"
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  For example:
  • Slave trade--Africa--History
  • Slave trade--Africa, West--History
  • Slave trade--History
• Sample information source:
  • Palmer, C. A. (1998). Passageways: An interpretive history of Black America, Volume I: 1619-1863.  Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

Click on the Articles link to see a select list of resources in which you can search

Sample searches:

JSTOR

• Click on "Advanced Search"
• Place searches for: 
  • "slave trade" AND "west* africa*"
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
• Narrow your search by: 
  • Item Type: Articles
  • Language: English
  • Discipline: African Studies, History
• Sample information sources:
  • Law, R., & Mann, K. (1999). West Africa in the Atlantic community: The case of the Slave Coast. William and Mary Quarterly (Third Series), 56(2), 307-334.
  • Lovejoy, P. E., & Richardson, D. (2001). The business of slaving: Pawnship in Western Africa, c. 1600-1810. Journal of African History, 42, 67-89.

Humanities Source

• Place searches for: 
  • "slave trade" AND west* AND africa* AND history
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
• Limit your results by: 
  • Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  For example:
  • Africa, West--History
  • Slave trade--Africa, West--History
  • Slavery--Africa--History
  • Middle passage (Slave trade)
• Sample information sources:
  • Monroe, J. C. (2007). Continuity, revolution or evolution on the Slave Coast of West Africa? Royal architecture and political order in precolonial Dahomey. Journal of African History, 48, 349-373.
  • Kelly, K. G. (1997). The archaeology of African-European interaction: Investigating the social roles of trade, traders, and the use of space in the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Heuda kingdom, Republic of Benin. World Archaeology, 28, 351-369.

Project MUSE

• Click on "Advanced Search"
• Limit your search to:
  • Content Type: Articles
  • Research Area: History > African
• Place searches for: 
  • benin
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
• Sample information source:
  • Law, R. (2005). Ethnicities of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora: On the meanings of "Mina" (Again). History of Africa, 32, 247-267.

Click on the Reference or Primary Sources links to see select lists of resources in which you can search

Sample searches:

In Motion: the African-American Migration Experience

• Click on the "The Transatlantic Slave Trade" link
• Under "Read About", click on "The Middle Passage"

Click on the Media link to see a select list of resources in which you can search

Sample search:

CLICsearch

• Use the Advanced Search
• Place a search for:
  • "middle passage" AND slave*
• Limit search by Material Type:  Video
• Sample information sources:
  • Dark Passages
  • The Black Atlantic (1500-1800): The African Americans--Many Rivers to Cross