African American Genealogy: Records of Enslavement

Purchase Documents: Bills of sale for enslaved people can include: Which plantation the person was sold to, the identification of the seller, and sometimes additional information such as the name of the ship that carried the enslaved person. Similar information might also be found in deeds of property, trust or gifts.

Wills  / Estates / Probate Documents: Documentation of enslaved people were often noted in the estate documents of the slave holder. The distribution of property for those who died without a will (intestate) often went through probate court. If the estate and number of heirs were large enough there might be many records, such as probate record books and minutes, that include the names and ages of enslaved people as well as who they were passed on to. Enslaved people were also distributed among heirs through wills, although the information regarding the individuals may vary. There are also documents that accompany wills such as appraisals and inventories. 

Business Records: Larger plantations most likely kept detailed records documenting enslaved people, including purchase details, births, deaths, relationships and other information. Other documentation might include bills of sale and insurance records.

If an enslaved person was freed prior to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment they would be provided with manumission papers, which documented their freedom. These documents were often recorded in the town or county records and some can be found in state and local archives and historical societies. Examples of manumission documents at the library include:

•  Manumission book of Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1791-1844
•  Manumission book of the towns of Huntington & Babylon, Long Island, New York : with some earlier manumissions and index, 1800-1824
• [Cases] adjudged in the Supreme Court of New-Jersey, relative to the manumission of Negroes and others holden in bondage

• Florida plantation records from the papers of George Noble Jones, edited by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips and James David Glunt.
• Index to Records of ante-bellum Southern plantations : locations, plantations, surnames and collections 
• Nautilus Insurance Company Slavery Era Ledgers, 1845-2002, 1845-1888:  " The Nautilus Insurance Company slavery era ledgers consist of a total of eight volumes: four policy registers; a death claim book; a volume listing losses for death benefits paid; as well as two indices containing names of all insurance applicants. The policy registers contain names of persons, including slaves, who were insured between 1845 and 1848. There are also lists prepared in 2001 and 2002, one of which is a printout from a database developed by the California Department of Insurance entitled "Slavery Era Insurance Policies Registry," that contains information from documents submitted by the New York Life Insurance company as well as other insurance companies that had insured slaves."

There are well known slave narratives such as, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs, Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: and Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. In addition to these famous narratives, there are thousands of autobiographical narratives written by former enslaved people in existence. Below are a few examples available at the library.

Although the Congress outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, intrastate transportation was still legal. According to the National Archives, vessels over 40 tons in coastwise trade were required to provide a manifest of slave cargo to the collector of customs....Manifests created under the 1807 law include 'name and sex of each person, their age and stature [height], . . . whether negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with the name and place of residence of every owner or shipper of the same….'" Many of these manifests can be found at the National Archives.

• Slaves -- Emancipation -- New York.
• Slaves -- United States -- Registers.
• Slaveholders -- United States -- Registers.
• Slave records -- United States.
• Slave narratives.