Historian Linford Fisher is working on a major digital project to enhance scholarly and public understanding of the historical enslavement of Native Americans. Working with a team of researchers, Fisher is bringing to light the often untold story of the 2.5 to 5 million Native Americans who were enslaved in the Americas between 1492 and 1900. These processes of enslavement at the hands of every major European power often involved massive individual and collective displacement and forced migration around the Caribbean basin and throughout the Americas. Through the Database of Indigenous Slavery in the Americas, Fisher is working to document biographical information for all known instances of Natives forced into slavery. By centralizing this data related to enslaved indigenous people and making it publicly available online, he hopes to allow historians, researchers, students, tribal members, and families to reconstruct histories, chart networks and demographic shifts, and make connections in ways that have never before been possible. Read more about Fisher’s research on Native American slavery here.
Research Project