SlaveVoyages: 'New Research & Uncharted Waters' Conference

Program

Thursday, April 3rd, 2025 | The Hutchins Center, 104 Mt. Auburn Street, Floor 2R, Cambridge MA

4:30pm | Panel | Genetic Impacts of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

• Insights into the Genetic Landscape of the US and the Americas | Kasia Bryc, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
• Genomic Insights into African Origins and Demographic History in Latin America | Cesar Fortes-Lima, Johns Hopkins University
• The Cuban Genome: Maternal and Paternal Lineages of African Origin in Dialogue with History | Beatriz Marcheco Teruel, National Center of Medical Genetics of Cuba
• The Genetic Legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace | David Reich, Harvard University
• Chair: Evelynn M. Hammonds, Harvard University

Friday, April 4th, 2025 | Askwith Hall, Longfellow Building, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge MA

8:30am | Breakfast (Eliot Lyman Room)

9:00am | Panel | African Origins and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Public Engagement and New Research Developments

• Linking the South Sea Company Papers to SlaveVoyages.org: A Report from the Frontlines | Taylin Nelson, Rice University
• SlaveVoyages.org: Engaging the Digital in Education, Museums, and Cultural Institutions | Nafees M. Khan, Ralph Appelbaum Associates
• AI and the Future of SlaveVoyages |  Jorge Felipe-Gonzalez, The University of Texas at San Antonio
• Chair: David Eltis, Emory and British Columbia Universities

10:30am | Break

11:00am | Panel | The Slave Trade Before Modernity and Beyond the Atlantic: Mediterranean, African, Indian Ocean, and Ottoman

• Slave Trading to and from Medieval Yemen  | Magdalena Moorthy Kloss, Leibniz-Zentrum moderner Orient & Austrian Academy of Sciences
• The Early Modern Ottoman Slave Trade  | Veruschka Wagner, University of Bonn
• Chair: Richard B. Allen, Ohio University Press

12:00pm | Lunch Break

1:00pm | Roundtable | Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & David Eltis: A Conversation

2:00pm | Break

2:30pm | Panel | Middle Passages of the Indian Ocean and Asian Slave Trades, 1500-1920

• Interconnectivity in the European Indian Ocean and Asian Slave Trades | Richard B. Allen, Ohio University Press
• The Slave Trade from Mozambique: José Capela’s “Repertório” as a Source of Information for SlaveVoyages’ Indian Ocean and Asia Slave Trade Database  | Gabriel de Souza Miguel, Rice University
• Murdering the Translators: Comparative Perspectives on Indian Ocean Shipboard Uprisings  | Jane Hooper, George Mason University
• Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World, 1808-1897  | Matthew S. Hopper, California Polytechnic State University
• Chair: Nafees M. Khan, Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Saturday, April 5th, 2025 | Askwith Hall, Longfellow Building, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge MA

8:30am | Breakfast (Eliot Lyman Room)

9:00am | Panel | Slaving Voyages within the Americas: Brazil, Texas, and the Atlantic World in Perspective

• The Brazilian Slave Trade to Rio de Janeiro, 1831-1887: Size, Evolution, and Geographic Distribution  | Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
• The Internal Slave Trade to and from Maranhão, 1831-1887: An Analysis of the Port Records of São Luís  | Gabriel Seghetto, Rice University
• Charles Morgan and the Coastwise Slave Trade to Texas in the Nineteenth Century  | Victoria Zabarte, Yale University
• Chair: Gregory E. O’Malley, University of California, Santa Cruz

10:30am | Break

10:45am | Roundtable | Trayectorias Afro: The Movement of Enslaved and Free Africans and their Descendants in New Spain (Spanish North America)

• Jorge E. Delgadillo Núñez, Pennsylvania State University
• Tatiana Seijas, Rutgers University
• Sabrina Smith, University of California, Merced
• Chair: Alex Borucki, University of California, Irvine

12:00pm |  Lunch

1:15pm | Panel | SlaveVoyages Redesigned

• Redesigning SlaveVoyages.org: From Project 1619 to Project 2025  | Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, Rice University
• Building the Blog: Documenting Art, History, Research, and Recognition in the Redesign  | Dionne Babineaux, Rice University
• SlaveVoyages Docs: Enabling Primary Source Openness and Discoverability across Institutions and Platforms |  John C. Mulligan, LMI Group International
• Chair: Jane Hooper, George Mason University

2:30pm | Break

3:00pm | Panel | People Trading in the South West Pacific: A Database of Voyages, Names, and Cultural Artifacts

• Mapping Labor Exploitation in Colonial Oceania  | Emma Thomas, University of New South Wales
• The Old “Guinea Trade” and New Guinea: The Beginnings of the Pacific People Trade Database  | Emma Christopher, University of New South Wales
• Connections between Australia and the Solomon Islands: Routes and Roots | Francis Bobongie-Harris, Queensland University of Technology
• Chair: Jorge Felipe-Gonzalez, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Since 2008, SlaveVoyages.org has provided the public with free access to numerous digital resources that have revolutionized our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade. More recently, the site has expanded to map the traffic within the Americas and will soon cover the Indian Ocean and Asia. Join researchers associated with the project, as well as scholars who have been inspired by it, for a three-day conference to explore the latest developments in the field and to chart new directions for research.