Ethics

This digital publication is framed around inclusive and reparative scholarship about historical slavery and related themes in a global perspective. According to the United Nations, slavery is a crime against humanity and has resulted in transgenerational traumas that shaped modern society resulting in racism, discrimination, persecution, physical injury, and death. This digital resource is committed to preserving the stories of enslaved people from Africa and their forced migrations in a respectful, humane, and ethical framework.

As the UN Decade for People of African Descent approaches its milestone in 2024, the strategy for this website follows UNESCO’s goals to combat racism, prejudice, xenophobia, and related intolerance to inform policies of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Using historical and computational methods, the strategy is to curate the historical experiences of vulnerable people in facing oppression and survival in a digital medium. This resource strives to read against the grain of dehumanizing biases found within colonial documentation.

Historical materials about slavery and colonialism often render enslaved people nameless and silenced. The abolition and suppression of the African slave trade did the opposite because through involuntary indentures or conscriptions, hundreds of thousands of enslaved people had detailed biographical information documented. Although these primary sources identify the victims, sometimes by name, the primary sources still reflect skewed perspectives stemming from systemic discrimination embedded within legal precedents and other systems of power imbalances.

Transparency in research activities is paramount. International grants and institutional funding support faculty and student salaries, technological logistics, and primary resource acquisitions. Digital training and skills development are integral components to this initiative. This research project monitors and credits individual contributions, especially among students and emerging scholars. Whenever possible, members of this team collaborate with descendent communities, archives, libraries, and other experts.

The presentation of materials in this website follows guidelines of the Digital Accessibility Programs as per the Americans with Disabilities Act. For elsewhere in the world, this project strives to develop low-weight HTML, responsive versions for increased accessibility and usability, especially in countries with low broadband connectivity.

Land Acknowledgement

Acknowledging that we reside and work on the homelands of indigenous peoples recognizes the history of the original stewards of these lands. To recognize the land is an expression of gratitude and appreciation of the history of indigenous populations. We honor these lands through a profound dedication to learning and a commitment to truth and reconciliation. We pledge to leverage our many privileges to make society a more affirming and equitable place for all indigenous peoples around the world. The Digital Slavery Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder is on the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Pueblo and Shoshone Nations. Further, there are 48 contemporary first nations historically tied to the lands that comprise what is now called Colorado. Walk With Web Inc. is on the ancestral territories of the Huron-Wendat, Seneca, and Mississaugas of the Credit River and Turtle Island, and which is now known as Toronto, Ontario.

Copyright

This digital publication operates under the terms and conditions of national granting agencies, which follow “fair use” doctrines of copyright laws and are intended for public consumption and education. All digitized materials displayed and available for download through this website derive from primary sources compiled before 1920 and were obtained from other digital archives with open access content that are by-and-large considered to be in the public domain. Digitized primary sources and historical imagery hosted on this website follow copyright policies of different archives, libraries, and museums, which vary on a case-by-case basis. The Digital Slavery Research Lab compiled all data, which is made available through a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International license (CCBY-NC 4.0). This license allows for the reproduction and modification of these data, provided it is cited and acknowledged. All software and associated documentation is protected under the MIT License. Please contact the Project Team if materials are posted without appropriate permissions.

If there are any questions, concerns, and recommendations to improve our ethical principles, to donate materials, or make corrections, please contact the Project Team.