The Georgetown Slavery Archive offers a unique lens in studying the emotional, mercantile, and political environment in regards to slavery of 19th century Georgetown University and the Maryland Jesuits. The site documents a plethora of written resources to illustrate how perspectives on slavery varied during that era in a college environment.
In essence, the Georgetown Slavery Archive would not be made possible if it weren’t for its large repository of primary sources. The archive has numerous journal articles and newspaper blurbs on the sales of slaves, letters and personal anecdotes documenting the students’ perspectives on slavery on campus, and even photographs and maps from the era. In the process of building this site, the developers analyzed and cataloged the many primary sources into their particular and appropriate exhibits. For instance, sources like photographs of dairies, people, and maps have been sorted into its gallery exhibit while sources like journals, lists of slaves that were sold, and auction sales of slaves have been chronologically marked on a large catalog. They even geographically pinpointed where many of the sources have been either published or written. As for the presentation, the archive largely utilizes a format of a gallery or catalog that showcases a repository of many sources. In addition, they present their geographic data by utilizing Google maps.
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The goal of the project is to present information of Georgetown University’s daily interactions with slavery. The archive, showcasing the different perspectives of the students to those of larger mercantile town to even those of the college’s administration, contributes largely to the academic field of American social history. The many different components of the site, from its map menu pinpointing the publication location of some of the sources, gallery of photos, to even a page dedicated to finding out if one is related to the Georgetown slaves, gives the archive an interactive appeal that makes it distinct from typical catalogs.
