Conclusion

Summary

The book is an attempt to rewrite Atlantic history by reassessing the story of the slave trade. As already noted, it is based on the digital humanities project www.slavevoyages.org, which at the time of writing is fourteen years old. If we include its CD-ROM predecessor published by Cambridge University Press in 1999, the data it provides have been in the public domain for a quarter-century. In that time many millions of visitors, whether scholars, students, the media, or interested members of the public have drawn on it in ways that its compilers and editors could never have imagined. Many more again have passed through exhibitions around the Atlantic world, including the permanent display of Washington, DC’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Nantes Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery that have incorporated its offerings. Few discussions of the slave trade fail to cite this resource. It is often described as a model of what the social sciences should be trying to achieve – presenting reliable, accessible, and renewable data to the interested public along with some basic interpretations. Consistent with this assessment, it has received financial support from a range of countries that almost matches the reach of the slave trade itself. In what many will see as appropriate, the only continent that has not contributed funding to its development is Africa. Public and private financial support over the years amounts to several million US dollars.