HIS 602: The Pre-Colonial Period in Africa

This guide provides a collection of library resources, databases, archival materials, and digital sources on the pre-colonial period in African history. 

Sources for Writing History Papers

• A Brief Guide to Writing History Papers
• Resources on History Writing
• Tips and Examples of Writing a Thesis Statement

General Citation Sources

• Chicago Manual of Style Online
• EndNote
• Mendeley
• RefWorks
• Zotero

Crummell, Alexander, and Charles L Reason. The Man: The Hero: The Christian!. Egbert, Hovey & King, Printers, 1847.

Bill of Brigantine "Reynard", Captain Peter Dordin, Master from Africa, 1763.

Scott, A., Gray, J., Orr, N., Howland, A., Scott, H. Roy, & Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge, publisher. Day Dawn in Africa; Or, Progress of the Prot. Epis. Mission at Cape Palmas, West Africa. New York: Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge.1858.

Dumont, P., Quesné, J., & Phillips, R. Narrative of Thirty-Four years' Slavery and Travels in Africa ([Phillips, Sir Richard. New voyages and travels. London, 1819.

Park, Mungo, and John Whishaw. The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805. Second edition, revised and corr. / with additions. ed., 1815.

Cameron, Verney Lovett, et al. Across Africa. Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1877.

Historical Abstracts
Historical Abstracts indexes and abstracts journal articles and dissertations on world history from 1450 to present excluding the United States and Canada.

ProQuest Research Library
ProQuest Research Library provides in-depth coverage of the top 150 core academic subject, including 5,060 titles -over 3,600 in full text- from 1971 forward.

Slavery & Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
Contains more than 7,000 books and pamphlets, 80 newspaper and periodical titles, and a dozen major manuscript collections.

JSTOR
JSTOR provides digital versions of the backfiles of major scholarly journals. Primarily an archival collection, JSTOR does not provide access to the most recent 3-5 years of content for most titles.

Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450
Encyclopedia traces many facets of colonial growth and imperialism, including Europe's overseas expansion into the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, beginning in the 15th century; the collapse of empires; race relations in decolonized regions.
 
Project MUSE - Premium Collection
Project Muse provides access to the full-text of over 40 of the Johns Hopkins University Press's scholarly journals. Dates of coverage vary. In general, Literary Theory & American Studies journals begin with the 1995 volume, while most others start with 1996.

Rönnbäck, Klas, and Ebooks Corporation. Labour and Living Standards in Pre-Colonial West Africa: The Case of the Gold Coast. Routledge, 2015.

Austin, Gareth. Markets with, without, and in Spite of States: West Africa in the Pre-Colonial Nineteenth Century. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2004.

Rijpma, Sjoerd. David Livingstone and the Myth of African Poverty and Disease. BRILL, 2015.

Pouwels, Randall Lee, and Nehemia Levtzion. History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press; James Currey Ltd; David Philip Pub., 2000.

Fields-Black, Edda L. Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Indiana University Press, 2008.

• Africana Collection by the Library of Congress:  Includes primary documents, facsimiles, and secondary sources in a variety of languages and formats that describe African peoples’ encounters with others.
• Islamic Manuscripts from Mali: Features 32 manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, both in Timbuktu, Mali.
• Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Digital memorial documenting the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
• Internet African History Sourcebook: Includes primary texts derived from three major online sourcebooks dealing with the various regions of Africa, the impact of Islam and Christianity, as well as, the history of slavery in the region.
• Northwestern University Library: Includes photographs, maps, posters, videos, books in African languages, archival materials, and manuscripts, as well as art objects, ephemeral materials, and other artifacts.
• Stanford Library Historical Photographs: Includes photographs from pre-colonial Africa to the present.  
• Colonial Film Database: Features moving images of the British Empire with over 6000 films.