David Eltis, Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History, was recently cited in a Nature article on research tracing the origins of the enslaved on St. Helena Island. Led by University of Copenhagen researchers Marcela Sandoval-Velasco and Hannes Schroeder, the study analyzed the DNA of 20 individuals from St. Helena and concluded that they were likely taken from West-Central Africa, or present-day Gabon and Angola. The piece quotes numerous scholars who see promise in genomic analysis for reconstructing the geographic origins of the enslaved.

Eltis co-founded Slave Voyages, the Emory-based digital memorial and database that collects nearly 36,000 transatlantic slaving voyages. This past summer Slave Voyages was re-launched in expanded and updated form. The Emory News Center featured the new edition here: “Documenting Slave Voyages: Led by Emory, a massive digital memorial shines new light on one of the most harrowing chapters of human history.”

Read the excerpt from the Nature piece that features Eltis below along with the full article: “Genomes trace origins of enslaved people who died on remote island.”

“David Eltis, a historian at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia who co-founded a database that collects information on 36,000 slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866, notes that most people captured in the transatlantic slave trade originated from south of the equator — where a paucity of genome data from modern inhabitants makes it difficult to trace the origins of enslaved individuals with any accuracy.”