In 1995, the Government of Canada decreed February "Black History Month." During the month, activities take place to raise awareness of the cultural, social, economic, historical and political contributions of Blacks and to celebrate the 166th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies.
Where did Africans who were forced into slavery come from? Where did they go? Can descendants of enslaved Africans trace their ancestry? What impact has this legacy had on the modern world?
York University's Nigerian Hinterland Project is addressing these issues through international collaboration and networking. Affiliated with the UNESCO "Slave Route Project," the York project coordinates a worldwide team of 28 scholars in 25 countries, and dozens of students who are busy constructing a biographical database of enslaved Africans, designing an historical atlas of slavery, and preserving and disseminating primary source materials.
The project explores the historical impact of Africa on world history and the extent to which enslaved Africans and their descendants contributed to the making of both the Atlantic world and the Islamic world, said Paul Lovejoy, project director and Distinguished Research Professor of History at York University.
"Of the 12 million people forced into trans-Atlantic slavery, it is now known that about 40 per cent came from the region that today comprises Nigeria and neighbouring countries," Lovejoy said.
"The Nigerian Hinterland Project examines the effects of this forced relocation on historical developments in both Africa and the Americas."
The history of blacks in Canada is part of the ambitious research plan.
While very few Africans came directly to Canada, the Jamaican Maroons and Black Loyalist who settled in Nova Scotia and the fugitives following the Underground Railway from the US who settled in Upper Canada included many people who traced their origins to the Nigerian region.
"As in virtually every part of the African diaspora it is possible to uncover the connection with the Nigerian region," Lovejoy said.
Additional research in the Caribbean, Brazil and elsewhere will help researchers understand the demographic and cultural impact of the African presence in the Americas and in specific places like Canada.
The project is funded under the Major Collaborative Research Initiative program of SSHRC, and supported by a number of institutions throughout the world, including the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library), Rutgers University, the University of the West Indies, the William Wilberforce Institute (University of Hull, UK), Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria), Universidade Nationale da Bahia (Brazil), and Universidad de Costa Rica.
Information on 27,000 slaving voyages is available on CD-Rom -- The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database from Cambridge University Press.