My project plots slave voyage data from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Specifically, it compares the top five origin ports of the trade in terms of frequency of voyages embarking from these ports across a period ranging from the 17th century to the 19th century. By plotting such distinct trends of Trans-Atlantic slave voyage data side-by-side, my project seeks to demonstrate how this comparative historical approach may confirm and/or complicate overall historical trends within the slave trade, and to visualize how these trends developped over time. I extracted data from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database - the most comprehensive databse of slave voyage and trade data in existence - and input it into Colaboratory. I then created a separate data frame for origin points under the category, “Voyage itinerary imputed port where began (ptdepimp) place”, using the value_count function to isolate the top five ports, Liverpool, London, Rio de Janeiro, Bristol, and Nantes. After, I created separate dataframes for each port, and used the groupby function, in conjunction with the categories “Date vessel’s voyage began” and “Voyage ID”, to graph the frequency of voyages from each port over time. I then conjoined each individual graph into a singular graph, allowing me to compare each port side-by-side.
Moses Abrahamson, UG '25:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/moses-abrahamson-8657a71b0/