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Press Releases Interactive map forms centrepiece for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Abolition website

Category: New Media
Date: 23.03.2007
Printable version

The portal bbc.co.uk/abolition, is a hub of information about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Abolition Season.

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The content is produced by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Where I Live sites across the UK.

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History, News, Current Affairs, Religion, 1Xtra, ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and Video Nation can all be accessed from this website.

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´óÏó´«Ã½ History: Abolition

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´óÏó´«Ã½ History online has put together a comprehensive website for the Commemoration of the passing of the Abolition Slave Trade Act in 1807. The site examines:

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• The workings of the trade and the trafficking of millions;
  
  
• The abolition campaign and its heroes – saluting the contributions of black writers, women boycotters, parliamentarians and Quakers;
  
  
• The impact of the trade – how the proceeds benefited Britain and helped kickstart the Industrial Revolution;
  
  
• Your history – how to investigate your local slave trade history, or your African Caribbean family history;
  
  
• A key information map showing local programmes and events on the slave trade in the English Regions.

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Interactive map: Trade, Abolition and Resistance

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The centrepiece of the site is an interactive map about the history of the slave trade and abolition, showing the extent of the trafficking and how events across the world contributed to the passing of the 1807 Abolition of Slave Trade Act.

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For this reason, the Google Maps API was chosen as the technical backbone of the map.

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Google Maps allows the user to "fly" around the world while following events, so they can see the very spot where Pitt the Younger persuaded William Wilberforce to take up the abolition cause; the street where Olaudah Equiano lived when he published his autobiography; and the exact layout and location of Bance Island.

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The map features five trails:

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• How the slave trade worked;
  
  
• Abolition and resistance;
  
  
• Return to Sierra Leone;
  
  
• Olaudah Equiano's adventures;
  
  
• Facts and figures.

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The map contains:

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• More than 100 fact files, written by Adam Hochshild, author of Bury the Chains;
  
  
• More than 100 images relating to the slave trade and abolition, sourced from archives across the world – artefacts, paintings, documents and illustrations;
  
  
• Audio clips

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What else is on bbc.co.uk/abolition?

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The site also features a series of articles and galleries by prominent writers, including:

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• Hakim Adi on how the slave trade impacted upon Africa;
  
  
• Richard Reddie on the role of religion in slavery;
  
  
• Mike Kaye on the campaign tools used by the abolitionists, and how their techniques are still used today;
  
  
• Robin Blackburn on how the slave trade provided the capital that financed Britain's industrial revolution;
  
  
• James Walvin on some of the British institutions that were founded with slave trade and plantation money;
  
  
• Adam Hochschild on the unsung heroes of the abolition movement;
  
  
• Guy Grannam on how to research your African family history.

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For more information, please visit bbc.co.uk/abolition.

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TP

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