Mellon Forum // Smallpox and Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic World: A Digital History
Elise Mitchell, Department of History; Maria Taylor, PIIRS
February 8, 2023 · 12:00 pm—1:15 pm · School of Architecture
Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities
Mellon Forum on the Urban Environment
Spring 2023 || SPATIAL STORYTELLING
Smallpox and Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic World: A Digital History is a digital history project consisting of a searchable database, an embedded timelapse map, and historical vignettes about enslaved people who survived smallpox outbreaks in the Atlantic World. It is based on Mitchell’s qualitative research database of over 500 smallpox outbreaks that affected enslaved Africans and free people of African descent in the Atlantic World, with a focus on the Caribbean and West and West Central Africa, between the 1500s and 1830s. The goal of the project is to offer historians the opportunity to examine the histories of outbreaks and epidemics across several regions, empires, and cultural contexts over 300 years, without losing sight of the millions of people who endured the brutality of the slave trade and slavery.
The Spring 2023 Mellon Forum on the Urban Environment is kindly sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and the Princeton University Humanities Council, Program in Latin American Studies, Center for Collaborative History, Departments of Art & Archaeology and English, HMEI, PIIRS, SPIA, and the School of Architecture.
