The ESSSS project, directed by Jane Landers and administered at Vanderbilt University, digitally preserves endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to Africans and Afro-descended peoples in the Americas. This website provides information about the project and its history and tools that allow researchers to search the ESSSS database containing nearly 300,000 documents from three countries and several archives. While most of the documents contained here belong to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there are also some Cuban documents from the sixteenth century and Brazilian documents from the seventeenth.

On this website you will find areas dedicated to each country -- Brazil, Colombia and Cuba -- and additional resources to assist in your research. We welcome feedback and encourage researchers to share the research and transcripts that they develop based on the ESSSS website and database.