African History: Primary Sources
Featured Collection
A poster from the African National Congress protesting the death of activist Steve Biko and many other primary sources about South African can be found at DISA.
East Africa
- The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960Photographs depicting life, primarily in East Africa, between about 1860 and 1960.
- Global Music ArchiveGlobal Music Archive is a multi-media reference archive and resource center for traditional and popular song, music, and dance of Africa and the Americas, with a collection of recordings from East Africa.
West Africa
- Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record1200 images depicting the slave trade in Africa and the Americas
- Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade DatabaseInformation on more than 30,000 voyages with enslaved people
Southern Africa
- African Activist Archive ProjectRecords and memories of activism in the United States to support struggles of people against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice in the 1950s and 1960s.
- African National CongressHistoric documents, speeches, and other materials can be found under the "Documents" drop-down.
- African PostersA selection of posters published in Africa, available from Northwestern University Libraries.
- South African Truth and Reconciliation CommissionDocuments from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
- DISAAn online scholarly resource focusing on the socio-political history of South Africa, particularly the struggle for freedom during the period from 1950 to the first democratic elections in 1994.
- South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962–1989A contemporary record of changing U.S. responses to historical events in South Africa from 1962 to 1989.
Africa: Major Collections
- 16th- Early 20th Century Maps of AfricaDigital copies of 113 antique maps of Africa and accompanying text dating from the mid 16th Century to the early 20th Century.
- Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a ContinentThousands of images and audio files from 45 countries in Africa.
- African Newspapers, Series 1 This link opens in a new window
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A search collection of historic newspapers from Africa, with an emphasis on late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
- African Online Digital LibraryMultimedia collections about Africa
- AfriterraOver a thousand digitized maps of Africa.
- Global Commodities This link opens in a new window
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History and development of 15 major commodities through manuscripts, printed and visual primary source materials.
- Empire OnlineDocuments and materials relating to Empire Studies, with an emphasis on the British Empire but coverage of the Spanish Empire as well.
- Images of EmpireOver a million still images and 400 hours of film footage, dating from circa 1860 to the present day, focusing on the British Empire & Commonwealth and a variety of topics across a diverse range of countries.
- Images of ColonialismImages from late 19th to early 20th century trade cards and European newspapers
North Africa
- Giza Archives ProjectOver 30,000 photos, archaeologist notes, and other materials on the Giza Pyramids site.
- Memoire du Canal de SuezFull-text historical Jewish newspapers published in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa.
- The Middle East in Early Prints and PhotographsSeveral thousand prints and photographs contained in works from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century held by the New York Public Library.
- Oriental Institute Museum Photographic ArchivesA sampling of images, as well as a search database of records for photos from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
- Sudan ArchiveFinding aids for the Sudan Archive, which includes papers, photographic images, and other materials relating to Sudanese history.
- Travelers in the Middle East ArchiveA digital archive that focuses on Western interactions with the Middle East, particularly travels to Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an ExcavationDigitized records of Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun.