West Africa, c1000 CE to the present: Full Text Journals, Databases, Dissertations, & Archives

Full Text Journals

  • Selected Journals & Journal Archives in African Studies at Columbia
    (via "Basic Guide to Research on Africa" at Columbia)
  • Full Text Databases -- Historical Documents and Images

  • African Bluebooks, 1821-1953. British Online Archives. (Selections from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office)

  • Annual Departmental Reports Relating to The Gambia, 1881-1966 ; Ghana and Togo, 1843-1957; Nigeria and The British Cameroons, 1887-1962; and, Sierra Leone, 1893-1961. British Online Archives. (Selections from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, National Archives, UK)

  • Colonial Caribbean : Colonial Office files from the National Archives, UK. (1624-1870)
    "This extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords."

  • Colonial Law in Africa: African Government Gazettes, 1808-1919 ; 1920-1945 ; 1946-1966
    British Online Archives. (Selections from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office)

  • Confidential Print, Africa 1834-1966 (Selected CO & FO records in UK National Archives)
     
  • eHRAF World Cultures: ethnographic collections (e-books)
     
  • Gallica: la bibliothèque numérique sur l'Afrique (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

  • Germany. Kolonialbibliothek in der Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt, Germany)
    An extensive selection of digitized documents and images from the German colonial era, including 50,000-70,000 historical photographs from the German colonial empire in Africa and Oceania.
    --See especially: Koloniales Bildarchiv

  • Google Arts & Culture: The Digital Archive of "The Timbuktu Manuscripts" (USA)
    Explore 69 digitized books on this site. "Over 40,000 ancient manuscripts (pages) from private collections and libraries in Timbuktu have been digitized, curated, and made publicly available."
    --See also: "Mali Magic": Exploring Mali’s culture: manuscripts, music, monuments, and modern art (2022)

  • Harvard University: Liberated Africans (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
    Selected trial proceedings, registers, labor contracts, anti-slavery legislation, correspondence, images, and photographs

  • Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient : Islam West Africa Collection (Berlin, Germany)
    "...a collaborative, open-access digital database that currently contains over 5,000 archival documents, newspaper articles, Islamic publications of various kinds, audio and video recordings, and photographs on Islam and Muslims in Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire.

  • Nineteenth Century Collections--Europe & Africa (Selections from UK National Archives)

  • RAI--Royal Anthropological Institute Archive. Wiley Digital Archives. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018-)

  • Royal Geographical Society. Wiley Digital Archives. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2020-)

  • Slave Voyages--The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Rice University, Houston, Texas; Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia)

  • Slavery, abolition & social justice. (Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Adam Matthew Publications)
    "...documents...slavery in the early Americas; African coast; the Middle Passage; slave testimony; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement and the slavery debate; freedmen and free black settlements; education; slavery and the Islamic world; slavery today and the legacy of slavery."

  • Slavery and anti-slavery: a transnational archive (Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009-)

  • Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu. (The Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois)
    A digital library of 206 original Arabic language manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali.

  • Slavery: supporters and abolitionists, 1675-1865. (East Ardsley, Wakefield : Microform Academic Publishers, 2016) British Online Archives (Selections from The Bodleian Library, The British Library, and other institutions)
    A digitized collection of ledgers, letters, and official reports, with a primary focus on Jamaica and the West Indies, as well as parts of West Africa.

  • University of Virginia and Virginia Humanities: Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora. (Charlottesville, Virginia)

  • University of Wisconsin: On-Line Data Archive--Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Madison, Wisconsin)

  • Vanderbilt University: Slave Societies Digital Archive (Nashville, Tennessee)
    Selected records from Catholic Church archives, especially for the history of Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Spanish Florida, Ouidah (Benin), and Luanda (Angola).
  • Dissertations

  • African Theses and Dissertations -- on the Internet (Karen Fung, Africa South of the Sahara--Selected Internet Resources, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California)
     
  • The Center for Research Libraries: Dissertations Catalog (Chicago, Illinois)
     
  • Cyberthèses: publication et diffusion en ligne des thèses (Lyons, France ; Montréal, Canada)
     
  • Proquest Digital Dissertations. (Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest University Microfilms International, 1980-)
     
  • Ghana: University of Ghana Digital Collections: Theses (Legon, Accra, Ghana)

  • Mémoire Online Memoireonline.com (France)
    Masters' thesis repository
     
  • Nigeria: Ahmadu Bello University, Open Access Institutional Repository: Theses and Dissertations (Zaria, Nigeria)

  • Senegal: Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar--Bibliothèque Numérique: Theses. (Dakar, Sénégal)

  • Catalogue SUDOC: Rechercher par "Note de thèse" (ABES--Agence bibliographique de l'enseignement supérieur, Montpellier, France)
     
  • Thèses.fr de 1985 au présent (ABES--Agence bibliographique de l'enseignement supérieur, Montpelier, France)
  • Archives at Columbia

  • Columbia University -- Archival Collections Portal

  • Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research includes records of:
    Amnesty International USA ; Human Rights Watch ; Committee for Health in Southern Africa ; Gay McDougall Papers (Namibia & South Africa) ; Human Rights Web Archive Project
     
  • The Carnegie Collections at Columbia University
     
  • Missionary Research Library at Union Theological Seminary (Burke Library)