Colonial Sources, a collaboration between the State Archives and the AfricaMuseum, aims to develop a digital platform as a gateway to archives and knowledge about the Belgian, Burundian, Congolese and Rwandan colonial past. The platform will also integrate the biographical tools of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences.
With the Colonial Sources portal, the State Archives and the AfricaMuseum want to bring together, for the first time, already existing but still fragmented collections and information relating to the Belgian colonial period. The online portal will allow visitors to search for archive sources, collections and context information on the colonial history of Belgium, Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda. The portal will also direct users towards digitised sources, inventories or datasets.
As point of departure, Colonial Sources starts from the (digitised) collections and research tools of the State Archives, the AfricaMuseum and the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences. For context information on key historical actors, the platform draws on RAOS's biographical collections: the Belgian Colonial Biography / Belgian Overseas Biography (published between 1948-1958 / 1968-2015) and the Biographical Dictionary of Overseas Belgians (published from 2011).
Next to this, Colonial Sources also has an educational component. Based on frequently asked questions about Belgian colonialism, it wants to offer online pedagogical dossiers for teachers and pupils in secondary education. Primary sources are central to this educational toolbox. Doing so, archive institutions can showcase their colonial collections for a broad and young audience.