The Pedagogical Innovations and Ethical Challenges of Integrating an Online Version of the Registers of the Liberation of Senegal (1857-1903) into the Teaching of History in the Senegalese Middle Cycle Public Schooling

This article analyzes the possibility of a pedagogical renewal in the teaching of the history of the slave trade and slavery in middle cycle (four years of study that can begin at the age of twelve) public school classrooms in Senegal. It does so by proposing that aspects of middle cycle curricula be built around an open-source, online version of the Senegal Registers of Liberation (1857-1903) in order to achieve the National Education Orientation Law of 1991 and the Consolidated History Program of 2006. In this article, we identify the current limits of teaching about the slave trade and slavery and propose new approaches, taking into account innovative pedagogical perspectives that are essential to the training of students congruent with the evolution of historical methodologies in the digital humanities. Beyond this, the article shows the importance of addressing ethical questions around the public use of names of enslaved people which appear in the Senegal Registers of Liberation. In sum, the article explores and proposes revisions in the teaching of the slave trade and slavery in Senegal using digital resources.