SUNY Empire Library Webpages & Guides: Primary Sources: African/African Diaspora/African American Primary Sources

North American Slave (and Liberation) Narratives

Chronological List of Slave and Ex-Slave Narratives (in North America)
Documenting the American South - North American Slave Narratives
Library of Congress - Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project 1936-1938
Over 2300 oral histories of people born in slavery who were still alive in the 1930s.
Project Gutenberg - Books by Douglas, Frederick
Wrote two autobiographies, which are slave narratives.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written By Himself.
From Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg Ebook of Slave Narratives
A collection of public domain slave narratives transcribed by the Federal Writer's Project and put online by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself
by Harriet Anne Jacobs

Primary Sources relating to African Americans and African American history, culture, and issues

Africana and Black History Collection of the New York Public Library's Digital Collections
Digital primary sources focusing on African American life in New York City, to support their project called the African American Migration Experience.
African American Mosaic
From the Library of Congress. Covers four topics: Colonization, Abolition, Migration, and the Federal Works Progress Administration.
African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century
From the Digital Schomburg project of the New York Public Library.
Beyond the Veil: Documenting African American Life in Jim Crow South
From Duke University Libraries' Digital Collections. Collection of 410 oral history interviews, taken in the 1990s, of the segregated American South from the 1890s to the 1950s.
Documenting the American South
Vast collection of digital primary sources relating to the history of the U.S. South, including slavery and slave rebellions and resistance. Includes materials relating to slavery and African diasporic history and culture in the Caribbean and Central and South America as well.
In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
This site focuses on sources related to and information about the movements of the African Diaspora other than the transport of slaves - in other words, actual migration and the movements of freedmen and self-liberating slaves. Strong focus on the movement of Afro-Caribbean populations into North America and how their culture contributed to the culture of North America.
Books by Delany, Martin Robinson
From Project Gutenberg. Includes his novel, Blake, or The Huts of America, and his non-fictional book The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.
Walker's Appeal, With A Brief Sketch of His Life
By ex-slave, David Walker. From Project Gutenberg.

Primary Sources relating to Africa and African history, culture, and issues

African Studies Centre, Leiden - African Constitutions
Internet Archive - African Americans -- Colonization Africa
Primary sources relating to the colonization of Liberia with U.S. freed slaves and free Blacks.
Genocide Archive Rwanda
National Security Archive - U.S. and Genocide in Rwanda: Evidence of Inaction
Analysis and primary source documents mainly from the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense.
The Description of Africa, by Leo Africanus
A contemporary English translation of the 16th century Berber-Andalusi ethnographer of Africa, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, whose pen name in translation was Leo Africanus. His book describes not only North Africa (particularly Egypt) but the sub-Saharan empire of Songhai and its university city of Timbuktu.
African National Congress
The organization's website contains primary sources including its constitution and charter, and multiple reports.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa: Report
Published in 2003. Part of South Africa's recovery from apartheid.
African Activist Archive Project
Records and papers of the U.S. movements to support African liberation movements.
African Oral Narratives
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIV, Africa
From the U.S. Department of State.
Africa Online Digital Library

Primary Sources relating to Afro-Caribbeans and their history, culture, and issues

Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
Multi-country, multi-lingual repository of text, image, and audio-video content from institutes in and around the Caribbean. Includes news, archival and manuscript materials, maps, art, and ephemera. Topics range from the era of colonization and slavery to the present. Sources relating to Caribbean Judaica, Voudou, and LGBTQ issues are available.
Documenting the American South
Vast collection of digital primary sources relating to the history of the U.S. South, including slavery and slave rebellions and resistance. Includes materials relating to slavery and African diasporic history and culture in the Caribbean and Central and South America as well.
In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
This site focuses on sources related to and information about the movements of the African Diaspora other than the transport of slaves - in other words, actual migration and the movements of freedmen and self-liberating slaves. Strong focus on the movement of Afro-Caribbean populations into North America and how their culture contributed to the culture of North America.
Latin American Travelogues from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University
Full-text travelogues (travel memoirs) from the 16th-19th centuries, written by travellers in Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, including Baja California.
National Library of Jamaica Digital Collections
Includes collections on slavery and on riots and rebellions, as well as biographies and images.
University of Miami Libraries > Cuban Heritage Collection

Primary Sources relating to the worldwide African Disaspora and its history, culture, and experiences

Black British History on Record
Documentation of Afro-British history in the British National Archives.
Slave Societies Digital Archive
(Formerly, Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies.) Directed by Jane Landers and hosted at Vanderbilt University. Scanned images and documents, organized strictly by geographical area.

Recommendations?

If you know of a digital repository of African/African American/African Diaspora worldwide content that is not included here but should be, please recommend it to librarian@sunyempire.edu.

We are not interested in:

Web sites that merely link to other web sites (like this one)
Secondary or tertiary resources; only original primary source content
Anything that has ads, or requires a login or payment
And of course anything false, harrassing, or bigoted