History of Africa and the African Diaspora

AODL is an open access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world.

A digital repository for millions of books and periodicals in the public domain, this collection includes multiple texts about and from the African continent in multiple languages (e.g., Swahili, etc.).

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Includes texts from around the world, including from across the African continent.

Search over 16 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 5.1 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.

The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. The website includes:
---growing online archive of historical materials - pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and video recordings
---personal remembrances and interviews with activists
---an international directory of collections deposited in libraries and archives

Freely accessible educational resource that is the product of the collaborative efforts of more than fifty scholars, technicians, collectors and institutions around the world. Includes topical essays as well as thousands of digital facsimiles of ephemera, photographs, and more.

Includes over 7,000 images showing life in Africa between 1860 - 1960, including European colonization, development of railroads, and urbanization. Focused on East Africa.

Established in 2010, the James J. Ross Archive of African Images (RAAI) contains approximately 5000 images of figurative African art published before 1921. RAAI is the result of an eight-year collaboration between James J. Ross and Susan Vogel, the project's co-directors. The Archive aspires to include all figurative African objects in books, periodicals, catalogues, and other publications appearing prior to 1921 - the oldest dates to 1591.

Includes select digitization of material objects and art brought by white British sailors and businessmen from West Africa to England during the 19th and 20th centuries. The curated collection includes some beautiful pieces from what is now Nigeria, Ghana, and other locations. Collections good for browsing not searching.

The objects in this collection, from the crescent-shaped manilla to the colorful banknotes, formed part of West Africa’s vibrant and varied monetary system in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Kenya Open Data is a portal that makes public Government datasets accessible for free to the public in easy reusable formats. Strongest 1990 to the present.

The World Bank Group's (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) open access documents and reports cover the 1920s to the present with a focus on Subsaharan African development.

Collection of international statistics from the World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI) and Global Development Finance (GDF) , International Monetary Fund (IMF) , UNESCO and other organizations. A total of 438 series and 274 countries.

This public history site focuses on history of Lagos, one map at a time. Start with the story of the SHORELINE, then dig deeper to ALAKORO ISLAND. Or did you know we had a TRAIN along the Marina? Or that the British Navy BOMBED LAGOS in 1851?

A community-driven web initiative which is aiming to promote interdisciplinary research and activities related to digital cultural practices. UNESCO, in the context of this project, particularly attaches an important regional focus and are working towards building relations between role players in various development hubs (such as Kenya, Senegal and South Africa), so as to contribute to the possible development of an integrated digital arts programme, reflecting the specificities of cultural practises in Africa.

Interface and content in English (and other languages).
Access to AI's more recent country and research reports beginning in 1961 and moving to the present.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English (and other languages).
HRW's reports from 1987 forward. Can search by country, year, keyword, and topic.
Open Access.

Includes key OECD publications such as: Financial Market Trends, Higher Education Management and Policy, Nuclear Law Bulletin, OECD Economic Outlook, OECD Economic Studies, OECD Economic Surveys, OECD Journal of Competition Law & Policy, and OECD Papers. Cover from 1990s onward.

ODS is the UN's Official Document System. You can search for UN documents by keywords, then narrow your search.

Historical documents groped by century, major collection, subject, author and title. Out of Yale Law School.

This "Endangered Archive" (BL) aims to "Digitise and preserve the early years of the Hausa language newspaper Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, the first newspaper entirely in Hausa, from 1939-1960."
Open Access.

"This collection consists of 628 loose pages of Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo housed at the offices of New Nigerian Newspapers. They are likely to be duplicates of the Arewa House Collection. ..."
Open Access.

Includes over 100,000 items of correspondence (more than three quarters of the papers), speeches, articles, newspaper columns, nonfiction books, research materials, book reviews, pamphlets and leaflets, petitions, novels, essays, forewords, student papers, manuscripts of pageants, plays, short stories and fables, poetry, photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, videotapes, audiotapes, and miscellaneous materials. The bulk 1877-1963.

"Africa Focus brings together, in digital form, two categories of primary and secondary resources: research and teaching materials collected by University of Wisconsin faculty and staff; and unique or valuable items related to these fields held by the University of Wisconsin Libraries. This collection contains more than 3000 slides, 500 photograph…"
Open Access.

"Explore incredible photographs spanning over 100 years of African history, from the 1860s onwards, taken from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office photographic collection (CO 1069). The full collection can be seen on Flickr, where you can add comments and tags." Collection divided by country, with dozens of image per state.
Open Access.

"The historical images in the [IMPA] come from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections held at a number of centers in Britain, Europe, and North America. The photographs record missionary endeavors and reflect the missionaries’ experience of communities and environments abroad." Focuses on the late 19th and 20th centuries (ca.1860-ca.1960). Includes The Moravian Church; The Leipzig Mission; The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, Inc.; and more.

"Presenting approximately 5000 pictures of African art published before 1921...The Archive aspires to include all the figurative African objects in books, periodicals, catalogues, newspapers, and other publications appearing in 1920 and earlier - the oldest dates to 1591. The Archive does not include postcards or pamphlets of limited distribution, and focuses exclusively on figurative art."
Open Access.

"The Photograph Project aims to repackage the highly detailed information contained in the current typescript catalogues to comply with international archiving standards. Conforming to international standards will improve access to the [Society's photographs] by ensuring that descriptions are consistent and appropriate for the needs of researchers. It will also facilitate the exchange of information with other collections and archives."
Open Access. Intermittently inaccessible.

Literature and music from the great African empires of the Middle Ages to the cultural dynamism of West Africa today

Interface in English; Collections in French and/or English.
Includes court minutes, tribunal records, correspondence, and more. "The original material is located at the Archives Nationales du Bénin [National Archives of Benin], Porto-Novo, Republic of Benin."
Open Access.

Interface in English; Content in French and/or English.
"The aim of this project is to digitise all the court records relating to slavery in the Beninese national archives...resulting in 71,224 images that cover a time span of 1900 - 1960. The collection contains 58 series, within these series, 487 files were digitised."
Open Access.

BL's "Endangered Archive" program: "Jacques Toussele commissioned portraits of people from Mbouda, West Cameroon. Many of the photos are of individuals for Identity Cards and other administrative purposes but also recreational, family groups etc. The archives represent a record of life in this area in the 1970s and 1980s"
Open Access.

Digital images of records in Bamun (script) created by Nji Musa during his exile in western Cameroon. The records consist of correspondence, decrees, stories, histories, communal savings organizations, and notes on medicine and Islam, and date from 1933-1956.

A selection of 15 collections of photographs (majority), manuscripts, and personal papers in Bamun, Arabic, French, and English from the late 19th through the 20th centuries (collection dependent).

This project will preserve and digitise vulnerable documents held at Korle We (the shrine to the Goddess of the Lagoon), Nai We (the shrine to the Goddess of the Sea) and Sakumo Tsoshishi (the shrine to the God of War) - the three paramount religious shrines in Accra, Ghana. Most of the activities at these places of worship are conducted orally, but there are a significant number of records and visual materials held in the offices of the shrine complexes, including photos, paintings, legal documents, correspondence, and most importantly, ledgers containing the transcripts of witchcraft trials.

UGSpace is the institutional repository of the University of Ghana. UGSpace is an open access electronic archive for the collection, preservation and distribution of digital materials. UGSpace was established to facilitate the deposit of digital content of a scholarly or heritage nature to ultimately share, preserve and promote the intellectual output of the University in a managed environment.

Collection of more than 60 documents (e.g., books, photographs, maps) from/about West Africa (including Liberia and Ghana) from the American Colonization Society in the 19th century.

Black and white photographs, most taken by Arthur London of scenes in and around Kumasi from 1909-1920. There also are photographs of the voyages to and from Africa, as well as Arthur, his wife Edith, son Arthur James Godfrey, daughter Joy, his mother, and what appear to be other family and friends in England.

A collection of some 90,000 black and white photographs of Ghana taken between the years 1958 – 1980 by Willis E. Bell.

Photographs from 1962 show people and places in Ghana. Includes views of Accra; school girls playing a game; children dressed in Young Pioneer(?) uniforms; flight attendents posed by an airplane; men traveling by canoe; strip mining along the Upper Volta; village elder with others; barristers(?) in court gowns and wigs; people traveling by car ferry.

Presents a vibrant mix of traditional and popular music recorded at a broad range of locations and events in Ghana during the 1970s by ethnomusicologist James Koetting. Students and researchers can hear online the complete archive of Koetting's field tapes — 142 audio reel tapes — of musical performances from arts festivals, traditional ceremonies and events, stage concerts, church services, and less formal gatherings and sessions throughout Ghana.

Photographs of Kumasi Central Market (Ghana), one of the largest marketplaces in West Africa. A 1979 survey found its traders were 70% women and 70% from the locally dominant Asante ethnic group. The images show retail and wholesale areas, street scenes, special events, portraits of traders and their home life in this and other related trading sites in Kumasi and throughout Ghana. Black and white photos by Gracia Clark during ethnographic fieldwork 1978-80.

More than 200 artworks (mostly from photographer Paul Strand) from 20th century Ghana.

Through exhibits, featuring photographs, films, oral histories, and documents, an interactive map, and an archive filled with materials from a 1926 Harvard expedition, visitors are invited to interact with, reflect upon, and share their own stories about the people and places affected by this historic moment of change in Liberia.

"William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman (1895-1971) was Liberia’s longest-serving president, in office from 1944 to 1971. During his presidency Tubman travelled extensively, visiting many African countries both pre- and post-independence, Haiti and Trinidad as well as other Caribbean countries, the United States and many European countries...contains over 5,500 photographs, most documenting official functions such as trips, inspection tours, formal receptions and inaugurations. Tubman family member appear in many of the photographs in an official capacity, but the collection also includes family photographs."
Open Access.

Includes several collections with more than 35,000 items, mostly 20th century photographs and manuscripts (mostly in Arabic) from the 17th century onward.

A selection of Mexican state statistical abstracts (1994-2000) and a selection of Nigerian commodity price statistics volumes (1977-2000) from the Yale University Library’s Economic Growth Center Library Collection.

"Documents and transcripts. Colonial reports, correspondences, and memos as well as ethnographic reports, photos, and speeches covering the period 1900-1959."
Open Access.

"This collection consists of 628 loose pages of Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo housed at the offices of New Nigerian Newspapers. They are likely to be duplicates of the Arewa House Collection. ..."
Open Access.

BL Ref: EAP535/2/5
"The material consists of official correspondence exchanged within 1913 and 1921 between the office of the British High Commissioner for the Northern Provinces and other colonial officers in various parts of Northern Nigeria. The material deals with diverse ..."
Open Access.