LibGuides: Primary Resources Guide: Africa

Africa Related Primary Resource Databases

Africa Development Indicators
Detailed online collection of data on Africa, including social, economic, financial and environmental indicators.
Off Campus Access: This resource is open access and does not require authentication.

Subject Areas: Economics, Political Science, International Studies

Africa Development Indicators is the most detailed collection of data on Africa, containing over 1,600 indicators, covering 53 African countries and spanning the period 1961 to the present.

Data include social, economic, financial, natural resources, infrastructure, governance, partnership, and environmental indicators.

Format: Statistical Resources
Coverage: 1960-Present
Database Producer: The World Bank
African History and Culture, 1540-1921
This online archive covers the history of Africa and its peoples over 400 years, from 1540-1921.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subjects: History, Sociology/Anthropology

This resource includes books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides, and ephemera describing the history of Africa and its diverse people during the time period 1540-1921.

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1540-1921
Update Schedule: Archive, complete
Database Distributor: Readex
Collection: Part of "America's Historical Imprints"
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject: History, Sociology, Anthropology, Black Studies, Political Science

This collection belongs to AM Explorer.

Date Range: 1851-2015
Format: Archival Resources including maps, text, photographs.
Database Producer: AM (Adam Matthew Digital)
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Africa provides scholars with unprecedented electronic access to the United Kingdom's Colonial, Dominion and Foreign Offices' confidential correspondence relating to Africa between 1834 and 1966.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject: Anthropology/Sociology, Black Studies, Global Commerce, History, International Studies, Political Science

This collection belongs to AM Explorer.

Date range: 1851 and 2015
Format: Archival Resources, including text, map
Database Distributor: AM (Adam Matthew Digital)
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: French Colonialism in Africa: From Algeria to Madagascar, 1910-1930
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1910-1929
Database Producer: Gale
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: German Colonies to League of Nations Mandates in Africa 1910-1929
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1910-1929
Database Producer: Gale
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: Italian Colonies in North Africa and Aggression in East Africa, 1930-1939
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1930-1939
Database Producer: Gale
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: Political and Economic Consolidation of Portuguese Colonies in Africa, 1910-1933
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities from 1910-1933.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1910-1933
Database Producer: Gale
Evangelism in Africa: correspondence of the Board of Foreign Missions, 1835-1910
Provides valuable information on social conditions in developing nations and on efforts to spread the gospel during the nineteenth century. keywords: christianity
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Religion

The records of the Board of Foreign Missions (BFM) of the Presbyterian Church provide valuable information on social conditions in developing nations and on efforts to spread the gospel during the nineteenth century. Among the missions responsibilities was the establishment of indigenous churches, educational facilities, hospitals, orphanages, and seminaries.

The majority of the material in this collection consists of incoming correspondence from the mission field and outgoing correspondence from the Board headquarters. Other primary sources include diary accounts, sermon manuscripts, receipts of sale, and field accounts.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration & Cultural Exchange, ca. 1515-2012
Contains material associated with the economic, social and political history of commodities.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, economics

Global commodities contains material associated with the economic, social and political history of commodities. The resource provides access to a wide range of rare printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera and objects associated with the history of 15 commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, oil, opium, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, wine and spirits. The material also covers other commodities including beef, cheese, coal, corn, fish, fruits, machinery, rice, silk and wool.

The commodities included in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years, helping transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.

Format: Archival Materials
Dates of Coverage: 1500-present
Database Producer: AM (Adam Matthew Digital)
Global missions and theology
Documents the broad range of Nineteenth Century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States. Keywords: christianity, religion
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: Religion, History

This collection documents the broad range of Nineteenth Century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States by reproducing pivotal personal narratives, organizational records, and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries, and churches.

This collection includes materials on missionary activities among Native Americans and African Americans, both slaves and freedmen. In addition, it highlights activities in far-flung regions and countries, such as Africa, Fiji and Sandwich Islands, India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Hawaii. Contains 23,869 images from the Lost Cause Press.

Format: Full Text
Date range: 1800-1899
Database Producer: Archives Unbound, Gale.
Liberation movement in Africa and African America
Contains FBI files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science, International Studies, Black Studies

Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issue of Pan-Africanism, and the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles.

Includes 11,513 images reproduced from the originals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation HQ Library.

Format: Archival Resources
Dates of Coverage: 1970-1985
Database Producer: Gale Publishing
Liberia and the U.S.: Nation-Building in Africa, 1864-1918
This series consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by the United States’ diplomatic post in Liberia.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Political Science

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1864-1918
Database Producer: Gale
Rand Daily Mail
20-century daily newspaper published in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: History, Narrative Journalism, Sociology/Anthropology

The Rand Daily Mail, published daily in Johannesburg, is a critically important title that pioneered popular journalism in South Africa. It is renowned today for being the first newspaper to openly oppose apartheid and contribute to its downfall.

Format: Full Text
Dates of Coverage: 1902-1985
Update Schedule: Complete Archive
Database Distributor: Readex
Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa
Provides access to text and images documenting colonial rule, dispersion of exiles, international intervention, and the worldwide networks that supported successive generations of resistance within Southern Africa.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: African Studies, Black Studies, History, International Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, Women's Studies

The resource consists of 76 different collections of more than 20,000 objects and 190,000 pages of documents and images, including periodicals, nationalist publications, records of colonial government commissions, local newspaper reports, personal papers, correspondence, UN documents, out-of-print and other particularly relevant books, pamphlets, speeches, and interviews with those who participated in the struggles.

This database is formerly known as Akula, which now split into two databases, "Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa" and "World Heritage Sites: Africa" .

Format: Archival Resources, Full Text, images
Database Producer: JSTOR
World Heritage Sites: Africa
Provides access to visual, contextual, and spatial documentation of African heritage sites.
Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: African Studies, Black Studies, History, International Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, Women's Studies

The materials in World Heritage Sites: Africa serve researchers in African studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, Diaspora studies, folklore and literature, geography, and history, as well as those focused on geomatics, advanced visual and spatial technologies, historic preservation, and urban planning.

This database is formerly known as Akula, which now split into two databases, "World Heritage Sites: Africa" and "Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa" .

Format: Archival Resources, Full Text, images, spacial data (3D models and GIS data)
Database Producer: JSTOR