Welcome to the Stolen Relations Explore page!

Two quick words of caution:

  1. Archival documents often contain terms, phrases, and biases that reduce, minimize, or alter Native identities and views of the world.
  2. This project is not “complete” — numbers shown represent only what has been entered into this database, not the total number of Natives who were enslaved or unfree in any given area.

Contributions to the Database

Contributions to the Database

One advanced option for incorporating Stolen Relations into your class is to build research and data entry into a syllabus or class. Students research and find records of enslavement online or in local (to them) archives for inclusion into the database.

Sample Syllabi

Here are two examples of what this might look like:

Captive Voices: Atlantic Slavery in a Digital World, Linford Fisher
Note that this course’s final project is entirely organized around contributing to the Stolen Relations database in some form.

First Nations: The Peoples and Cultures of Native North America, Linford Fisher
Note that this syllabus contains two ways of engaging the Stolen Relations project: 1) Writing a story; 2) Contributing to the database.

Basic Overview

If students choose to contribute directly to the database, this will require some coordination with the Stolen Relations team, so please contact us if you are thinking of doing this. Students will have to spend a few hours going through training for database entry, which mostly consists of reading some articles and watching some training videos. We have found that finding documentation for ten additional enslaved Indigenous peoples is a reasonable number for a final project for undergraduates.

There are other options for content projects, however, if done well. This might include a short essay analyzing numerical tabulations; an ARC GIS storymap; visualization in some form; a short essay on a place, history, or person related to this history; etc. While we welcome such submissions, we cannot guarantee that they will ultimately be used on the website.