Blog week 2 – Reverse Engineering a DH projects

I choose to reverse engineer The Forced Migration of Enslaved People in the United States, which documents the number of both in and out migration within counties in the United States between 1810 to 1860.

Sources: The site mentions that they received their information from the Minnesota Population Center (National Historical Geographic Information System), as well as taking the state boundaries from the Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. 

Services: This website estimates the number of both in and out migration of enslaved people in the American South, due to the census not containing the actual number of enslaved people. The in and out migration is in majority due to slave trading, which forcibly uprooted these people from their families and homes. They estimated the migration patterns by multiplying the population at the beginning of a certain decade by the estimated natural growth rate, and then finding the difference between the actual population a decade later, which would provide a reasonable estimate of the amount of in or out migration. The site also mentions that they are not accounting for enslaved people who escape because these numbers are relatively low in relation to the much higher numbers of enslaved people who are forced to migrate to other locations. 

Presentations: This site has an interactive map that focuses on the American South, that provides county level data about in and out migration of enslaved people throughout different decades. The user can explore decades, states/counties, and population density. Several narratives from multiple decades throughout the 1800s that are firsthand accounts of the slave trade are also provided. 

Relation to other academic fields: I think this project had a big connection to history because it not only goes through several decades in the 1800s, but also depicts historical events. More specifically, I think the project is closely tied to American studies/American history because it focuses on the history of the forced migration of enslaved people in the American South. 

Goal of the project: I think that this project was created to inform people about the history of forced migration of enslaved people, but also the scale of it. I think that many people overlook the extent to how enslaved people were forcibly removed from their homes, and families. This project also clearly shows how more and more enslaved people were forced to migrate to the deep South, which corresponds to the locations with greater cotton and sugar production, further showing that these enslaved people were not seen as people at this time, but rather economic tools. This project also reveals personal narratives about the slave trade to further illuminate the horrors of this era.

Question: A question that I had while looking at this site was what it means for certain areas of the map to be overlayed with cotton and sugar production. I wondered how much sugar/cotton had to be produced in a certain area for it to be overlaid, and I didn’t see this in their methods section.