Ife Williams

The project goal is to enhance a beta version of a digital humanities project on slave revolts in Africa and the African Diaspora from the onset of enslavement up to the early 1900s. The map is based on extensive research on scholarship regarding resistance to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. Utilizing a Google map, the approximate geographic locations of each revolt were plotted, and the markers were populated with multiple media modalities, including text, audio, images, and video, to give information on each uprising. The existing interactive map has received over 200,000 views since it was launched on the African Heritage Studies Association site last year, making evident its historical relevancy and the broad interest in the topic. The Mellon/ACLS fellowship will support migration from Google to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and elicit professional technical support to create graphics, audio, animation, and video to make it more aesthetic and improve its interactive capabilities. All products designed during the fellowship will remain publicly accessible and be disseminated to colleagues across the nation through various methods.