This project has been built using the Zooniverse Project Builder but is not yet an official Zooniverse project. Queries and issues relating to this project directed at the Zooniverse Team may not receive any response.
The Fugitive Caribbean Project focuses on fugitive slave ads from the Barbados Mercury (1762-1848). Transcriptions and creative responses submitted through this site contribute to the ongoing efforts of the Early Caribbean Digital Archive to develop a database of Early Caribbean fugitivity.
Learn moreIf you are interested in contributing to this project, choose the "Transcribe" tab. Once you have selected this tab, follow the instructions on the respective pages to add your contribution.
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Message from the researcher
"Perhaps resistance to the violence of slavery is survival, the will to survive, the sound of someone wanting to live or wanting to die. But the struggle against dehumanization is in the wanting. And sometimes, we can hear it." - Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive
The Fugitive CaribbeanAbout The Fugitive Caribbean
Recently, the Barbados Mercury and Gazette was digitized with the help of the Endangered Archives Grant, forming a partnership between the British Library, Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLoC) and the Barbados National Archive. The Barbados National Archive then partnered with University of West Indies Cave Hill and the Early Caribbean Digital Archive (ECDA) to develop a workflow for working with the numerous fugitive slave ads within the newspaper. The newspaper was combed through for fugitive slave ads. Once these ads were located, they were captured and then transcribed. ln collaboration with teams in Barbados and in London at the New College of the Humanities, we have begun to think of ways that we might ask participants to respond, creatively, to the ads.
Creative responses and transcription submissions throught this site help the ECDA to develop a database of fugitivity in the Early Caribbean. Fugitivity in this time period could mean many different things to different people and so this project begins by focusing on the concept of "escape" and how we might expand conversations around fugitivity in the Early Caribbean to include the ways it manifests in newspaper printings.
Instructors are also encouraged to use this project in their classrooms. For help setting up modules, please contact the Project Manager from the ECDA team.