Slave Voyages, a preeminent resource for the study of slavery and a digital memorial, recently launched a cooperative consortium with six other institutions to ensure its sustainability. The consortium includes Emory, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture at William & Mary, Rice University, and three campuses at the University of California that will assume a joint membership: UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC Berkeley. Slave Voyages contains the records of tens of thousands of trans-Atlantic and inter-American slaving voyages, and users can submit new records as they are encountered.

The database grew out of the archival research of Dr. David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus in the Emory History Department. Dr. Allen E. Tullos, Professor of History and Director of the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, has worked on an extensive update and expansion of the project since 2018. He serves on the project’s steering committee, along with Emory History Department graduate alumni Dr. Alex Borucki (University of California, Irvine) and Dr. Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (Rice University). Read more about launch of the consortium through a quote from Eltis below along with articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and from the Emory News Center.

“‘The launch of the SlaveVoyages.org consortium is an innovation not just for scholars of slavery, but for all soft money digital humanities projects,’ says David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History and co-director of the SlaveVoyages project. ‘At long last, this consortium opens up a route to sustainability.‘