Abstract:

Any imperial power requires a bureaucratic machine to help rule its possessions. Traces of such machinery can be found in archives around the world. Although previously restricted, access to these archives' collections has widened thanks in part to the Digital Revolution. This article examines the digitization of imperial sources through analysis of a research project aimed at building a database of slave and freed Africans from Portuguese Mozambique in the nineteenth century. It looks at the selection of the sources, its digitization, and transcription into a database. The database is freely available to the public through a website, so the article also discusses its creation as well as the development of the supporting textual and visual materials. Collaboration was vital for the project's success, challenging traditional research methods, practices, and forms of evaluation. Such endeavors, however, will only prosper when collaborative research receives greater consideration.

摘要：

任何帝国权力都需要一个官僚机器来帮助统治它的财产。这种机械的痕迹可以在世界各地的档案中找到。尽管以前受到限制，但由于数字革命，对这些档案馆藏的访问范围有所扩大。本文通过分析一个旨在建立 19 世纪葡萄牙莫桑比克的奴隶和被解放的非洲人数据库的研究项目，研究帝国资料的数字化。它着眼于来源的选择、数字化和转录到数据库中。该数据库可通过网站免费向公众开放，因此本文还讨论了它的创建以及支持文本和视觉材料的开发。合作对于项目的成功至关重要，挑战传统的研究方法、实践和评估形式。然而，只有当合作研究得到更多考虑时，这种努力才会取得成功。