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African Studies Primary Source Guide: Slavery and the Slave Trade (16th-19th centuries)

This page focuses on resources held in the Manuscripts & Archives Department in Sterling Memorial Library but also includes material held in other Yale collections.

Resources on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Specific enslaved persons' narratives, in print, electronic, and other formats, can be discovered in Orbis by using the name of the enslaved person as an author and as a subject heading.

Additional resources can be discovered in Orbis using subject headings such as the following:

  • Abolitionists--[name of a country or U.S. state]
  • African American abolitionists
  • African Americans--[name of a U.S. state]
  • Antislavery movements--[name of a U.S. state]
  • Fugitive slaves--[name of a country or U.S. state]
  • Plantation life--[name of a country or U.S. state]
  • Slavery--[name of a country or U.S. state]
  • Slaves--Biography
  • Slaves--[name of a country or U.S. state]--Biography
  • Slaves' writings
  • Underground Railroad