In under two weeks, the Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade International Conference will be taking place at Michigan State University. The conference is taking place from March 8-9, 2019 in the RCAH Theatre, Snyder Hall, Terrace Level, 362 Bogue St., East Lansing, MI 48825
More than 50 scholars from around the globe will be in attendance at the Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade. A truly international event, the Enslaved conference brings together scholars based in the United States, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Benin, the Bahamas, and the Netherlands. The conference encourages collaboration among scholars utilizing databases to document and reconstruct the lives of individuals who were part of historic slave trades. This conference will focus primarily on the enslavement and trade of people of African descent before the twentieth century, but other presentations discuss enslaved indigenous peoples in the Americas. The conference has a broad geographic focus, including presentations on slavery in parts of the U.S., the Caribbean, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch parts of the Americas, several different regions of Africa, and Europe. The conference will take place from roughly 8:30am-6:00pm on both Friday, March 8, and Saturday March 9. A more detailed schedule can be found here. The conference is open to the public.
With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Enslaved project is building a digital hub for students, researchers, and the general public to search over numerous databases to reconstruct the lives of individuals who were part of the historic slave trade. Current digital projects fail to merge the data across the datasets, resulting in isolated projects and databases that do little to aid scholars in analyzing these sources. The Enslaved conference will provide opportunities for researchers across the globe to gain important knowledge about the construction of databases for public consumption, and encourages collaboration between scholars to best make public accurate and easily accessed information about slavery and the slave trade.
If you’d like to register, please email enslavedconference@gmail.com. There is no fee.
Quick Links:
- See the Preliminary Schedule
- View the original Call for Proposals
- Review expectations and guidelines for presenters
- Learn about traveling to and around the Michigan State University campus
- Consider different options for lodging/accommodations in the area
- Take advantage of nearby attractions and resources
