Voyages

The Institute of African Studies is very pleased to have been an organizer of a landmark international conference at Emory University, on December 5-6, 2009. Voyages marked the bicentennial of the ending of the US Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, and the launch of the Voyages Slave Trade Database. The conference also marked a wonderful collaborative effort by scholars and administrators from across Emory University. The organizing committee was made up of Cheryl Treacy-Lenda, Program Coordinator of the Institute of African Studies; Pamela Scully, Associate Professor of African Studies and Women's Studies; Leslie Harris, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies; David Eltis, Robert W Woodruff Professor of History, and leader of the Slave Trade Database project; VA Shadron, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School; Martin Halbert, Director of Library Systems; and Ginger Cain, University Archivist.

On Friday December 5, Dean Bobby Paul of Emory College opened the conference. Kristin Mann, chair of History, gave the introductory remarks to two panels in which graduate students of Professor David Eltis presented their work. Students Daniel Domingues da Silva and Alex Borocki, as well as Philip Misevich (all of Emory) and Nick Radburn of Victoria University in New Zealand, gave presentations on research relating to the database. Senior scholars including Susan Socolow of Emory, Walter Hawthorne of Michigan State University, Sandra Greene of Cornell and Richard Benjamin of the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool presented comments.

Emory was honored to have David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor Emeritus of history at Yale, deliver the key note address marking the ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the United States. At 5:00pm, a huge audience packed The Jones Room in the Library to hear his talk on "Comparing the Paths to American and British Slave Trade abolition." Rick Luce, Director of the Libraries then opened the Voyages Slave Trade Database, and David Eltis provided an introduction and commentary to navigating the database. A reception followed in the Schatten Gallery, which also hosted an exhibition of how the Voyages database. Computer stations were also available for visitors to search the database.

Saturday December 6, was devoted to a series of panels discussing how the data base could be used in a variety of settings from histories of the Atlantic, in universities and schools, and in the public sphere of museums. Some 70 people attended. Alondra Nelson of Yale, gave a wonderful lunch time talk on "Genetic Genealogy Testing and the Pursuit of African Ancestry." Randall Burkett, an original founder of the database project, and now Curator of African American collections for the Emory Libraries, concluded the conference with a moving talk highlighting the personal tragedies endured and courage shown by people who were enslaved on the ships that took them from Africa to the Americas.

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