Historical Primary Sources: Africa: Western Africa

This digital library contains archival and research materials that explore Islamic practices in the West African countries of Senegal and Ghana.

A digitized collection of resources gathered by a doctoral student that "trace amongst other things, the migrants and labourers in and around the plantation island of Fernando Pó, moving along the intersections of the Spanish, British and French empires and through numerous societies in Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon and Gabon for most of the twentieth century."

Selected documents from a number of collections, including: early Gold Coast records from the archives of the USPG; the papers of Thomas Perronet Thompson, the first Governor of the Colony of Sierra Leone; An account of two missionary voyages by Rev. Thomas Thompson; the letters of Rev. Philip Quaque, etc.

An open access digital database containing over 2,900 archival documents, newspaper articles, Islamic publications of various kinds, and photographs on Islam and Muslims in Burkina Faso since the 1960s.

Records from the archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,

Includes more than 100 volumes of official correspondence and letters outgoing from Ghana to Basel from 1828 to 1914. The microfilm can be requested from CRL by the Library's Interlibrary Borrowing Service.

A collection of research materials on Liberia gathered by Univ. of Chicago Professor Frederick Starr. Digitized items are linked from the finding aid.

A Liberian Journey offers a look into the lives and landscapes transformed by the arrival of Firestone Plantations Company in Liberia and includes exhibits, photographs, films, oral histories, and documents.

Two collections of letters written by former slaves who settled in Liberia during the mid-19th century.

Tubman was Liberia's longest serving President and this collection includes papers from the years of his presidency, his personal correspondence and memorabilia from Tubman’s family.

This online collection contains over 30 digitized manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, both located in Timbuktu, Mali.

Digitized versions of approximately 200 19th-century manuscripts (in Arabic) relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu. These provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies.