Slavery-Response - Essay Example

The National Park Service (NPS), a federal agency working under the United s Department of the Interior, has developed ethnography program to highlight the historic role of African-Americans in cultural development of the United States. Along with other information sources, the NPS also owns a website to provide a comprehensive overview on cultural heritage, history and resources. The national parks and preserves are of great historic importance in several ways as they represent historical events and are also connected to African American communities.

The website offers several pages containing information on national parks associated with the African American communities from an ethnographic point of view. It investigates the European nations that trafficked in slaves. It also emphasizes on brief origin and history of African enslavement. However, the embarkation area map of the West and West Central Africa is unable to provide with a closer insight. Additionally, it seems that the data on most of the African American history has been compiled from few sources i.e. most are from Eltis et al 2001, lacking a well researched recent literature review.

The web site incorporates few links in the right side of the page for distant learning. These are well designed according to format of a report with an introduction, discussion pages and links to resources. There is also a well interpreted history of cultural norms and traditions under the heading “Laws that Bound”. Apart from some minor issues, the website is a great source of information for people interested in exploring their ethnographic and cultural background. The service is doing a good job at maintaining the national preserves and assisting the general public in visiting such cultural sites keeping the history alive.

Further improvements in defining the diversity and cultural interdependence will also help the minority ethnographic communities and groups to draw benefits from knowledge of mutual cultural heritage. References National Park Service. African American Heritage & Ethnography. Accessed: 26 June 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histContextsD.htm