Reported by Sydney Brown, Class of 2026 & Yuruo Zhang, Class of 2027
On Thursday, October 24th, “Exploring the Digital Archives of the English East India Company” event was held by Archives and History Initiative. Nineteen students and faculties, including Prof. Titas Chakraborty, Prof. Jan Hua-Henning, Prof. Kolleen Guy, Prof. Joseph Giacomelli, Prof. Jay Winters, and Prof. Ryder Kouba, attended this event. In cooperation with Professor Guy and the HIST201 class, this is the second gathering organized by the Archives and History Initiative since its establishment. Professor Chakraborty, the main speaker, first talked about the way to get access to the British Library website, where archives of the English East India Company are newly digitalised and stored, by using the DKU library website. Then, after generally introducing the website, she thoroughly showed how to use it to search for the primary historical archives as needed. Detailed advice, instructions, and warnings are also provided for using.
To get to the British Library website with English East India Company archives, DKU students should first of all click “Duke Research Databases” in the middle of the DKU library website page. A title named “East India Company” can be searched among all the 1163 databases. Eventually, the digital English East India Company archive website, which is a neat but delicate page, can be reached after clicking the title and login with NetID.
By clicking “Introduction” on the top of the page, students can see more information about this website such as official overview and guide. If planning to review documents by timeline, clicking “chronology” can be a good choice since all the primary materials from 1600-1950 are all listed under chronology.
After introducing the website, Professor Chakraborty went through the different methods through which the archival materials can be accessed. She pointed out the user guide provided on the site, but also recommended to search by class if someone has little knowledge or idea of what research they would like to conduct. Keywords are able to be typed into the search engine and relevant time periods and collections will appear. When searching within collections, students were also directed towards the volume of contents for each collection and the headings of each document. It was pointed out that even if a document is listed on the digital archive, the actual document might not be digitized yet.
Due to there not being a standard writing practice before 1750, a warning was given about not using the handwriting software on the website when searching for keywords in documents before this time. Regardless, even if the handwriting software does identify a key term, the results one gets can be wrong. The software can misinterpret a word within a document for the word that was searched, and modern day terminology might not exist and appear during the time period being researched. Professor Chakraborty suggested that students look for related topics and documents that address the term or topic being studied. Professor Kolleen Guy encouraged students to not be scared of these struggles, stating that it is through handwriting and reading that historians interact with archival materials.
To finish her demonstration, Professor Chakraborty explained how students can develop research questions based off of the documents they encounter in the archive. First, students have to figure out what kind of document they’re looking at and try to read it from the very top. The questions that develop during this process can lead to the next search and further interactions with more documents. What research is pursued depends on what archival materials are actually available to answer these questions.
The support for this event from Professor Guy’s HIST201 course and from other students and faculty within the Arts and Humanities reflect interest and intrigue in archival research. Throughout the event, Professor Chakraborty explained how students not only use the digital archive, but also read and interpret historical documents. Student questions highlighted the importance of handwritten documents, and ways to work around gaps in terminology or documentation.
Professor Joseph Giacomelli asked Professor Chakraborty what was the most exciting or interesting document she encountered within the English East India Company’s archive. For her, the answer was documents that revealed the depth of how local slave trade were being taxed. The documents suggested that the English East India company made direct profits from the slave trade even in the midst of British parliament’s bid for abolition of slavery. Her final point of interest and recommendation was for students to look into the factory records for China and the Middle East.
