The "Enslaved People in the African American National Biography, 1508-1865" dataset builds on the complete print and online collection of the African American National Biography (AANB), edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. The full collection contains over 6,000 biographical entries of named historical individuals, including 1,304 for subjects born before 1865 and the abolition of slavery in the United States. In making a subset of biographical entries from the multivolume work, the goal was to extract life details from those biographies into an easy-to-view database form that details whether a subject was enslaved for some or all of their lives and to provide the main biographical details of each subject for contextual analysis and comparison. 52 fields covering location data; gender; names, alternate names and suffixes; dates and places of birth and death; and up to 8 occupations were included. We also added 13 unique fields that provide biographical details on each subject: Free born in North America; Free before 13th Amendment; Ever Enslaved; How was freedom attained; Other/uncertain status; African born; Parent information; Runaways and rebels; Education/literacy; Religion; Slave narrative or memoir author; Notes; and Images.

This study uses historical records from 36 archives in the United States to analyze 8,437 enslaved people's sale and/or appraisal prices from 1797 to 1865.

The Dutch-speaking Runaway Slaves dataset includes information 483 Dutch-speaking slaves and three black indentured servants who were reported fleeing their condition of bondage in the American colonies and early United States. The data comes primarily from newspaper advertisements digitized and made available through newspapers.com and ReadEx’s Early American Newspaper Database. This current database is the first to gather and organize data specifically concerning runaway slaves who spoke Dutch. The compilation of this data was primarily intended research on the language and economics of slavery in Dutch New York. The database includes 486 rows of entries, with eleven columns of data about Dutch-speaking runaway slaves. These eleven columns of data are as follows: Year, Name, Age, Sex, Language, Speaks, Owner, County, State, City, and Source.

This study uses historical records from 36 archives in the United States to analyze 8,437 enslaved people’s sale and/or appraisal prices from 1797 to 1865. Demographic information, including name, year, age/age group, gender, state, and trade/skill notations were recorded when applicable. By calculating average appraisal and sale values across cross-sections of gender (male or female) and age group (0-10 years old, 11-22 years old, 23-39 years old, and 40+ years old), a total of sixteen major comparative prices were analyzed (app/male/0-10; app/female/0-10; sale/male/0-10; sale/female/0-10; app/male/11-22; app/female/11-22; sale/male/11-22; sale/female/11-22; app/male/23-39; app/female/23-39; sale/male/23-39; sale/female/23-39; app/male/40+; app/female/40+; sale/male/40+; sale/female/40+). Scholars have the opportunity to use this data set to understand how enslaved people were valued and appraised. The demographic data included will be useful to those who want to explore various aspects of the history of slavery and enslaved people.

A “runaway slave record,” or as it is officially titled, “Runaway and Escaped Slaves Records, 1794, 1806-1863,” include accounts, correspondence, receipts, and reports concerning expenses incurred by localities related to the capture of enslaved people attempting to escape bondage to pursue freedom. The collection also includes records with information related to enslaved people from multiple localities who escaped to United States military forces during the Civil War. While many independent businesses bought and sold human beings, local and state governments such as the state of Virginia also participated in and profited from human trafficking. Localities were reimbursed for the expenses of confining, feeding, and selling of self-emancipated people, and likewise, the state established procedures to compensate enslavers for their financial loss when enslaved people ran away or were imprisoned or executed. If a person was captured and their enslaver could not be identified, they became the property of the state and were sold. The proceeds from these sales went to the state treasury, and often, records of those sales can be found in the Public Claims records from the Auditor of Public Accounts. The net proceeds were deposited into the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Literary Fund for the public education of poor white children.

The data in this collection is drawn directly from the historical documents and may contain language that is now deemed offensive.

Beginning in the 16th century, European traders began to buy or capture people in the African continent to enslave and sell for profit. This trade began with Portugal and Spain, but it later expanded to include France, England, the Netherlands and other European countries. By the time the trading of enslaved people was finally put to an end in the 19th century, Europeans had abducted an estimated 12.5 million African people from their homelands, forced them onto ships, trafficked them to the Americas, and sold them on the auction block. Almost two million people died during transport; most of the rest were forced into labor camps, also called plantations. This extensive and gruesome human trafficking is commonly referred to as the transatlantic slave trade. The Portuguese began human trafficking in Africa by trading manufactured goods or money for Africans who had been captured during local wars. Later, some Europeans captured Africans themselves or paid other local Africans to do it for them. Europeans traded for or kidnapped Africans from many points on Africa’s coast, including Angola, Senegambia and Mozambique. Most of the people who were enslaved by the Europeans came from West and Central Africa.The most brutal segment of the route was the Middle Passage, which transported chained African people across the Atlantic Ocean as they were packed tightly below the decks of purpose-built ships in unsanitary conditions. This trip could last weeks or even months depending on conditions, and the trafficked people were subjected to abuse, dangerously high heat, inadequate food and water, and low-oxygen environments. Olaudah Equiano, a young boy who was forced into the Middle Passage after being captured in his home country of Nigeria, later described the foul conditions as “intolerably loathsome” and detailed how people died from sickness and lack of air. Approximately 1.8 million African people are thought to have died during the passage, accounting for about 15–25 percent of those who were taken from Africa.For many enslaved Africans trafficked across the Atlantic, the port at which their ship landed was not their final destination. Enslaved people were often transported by ship between two points in the Americas, particularly from Portuguese, Dutch and British colonies to Spanish ones. This was the intra-American slave trade. No matter where they landed, enslaved Africans faced brutal living conditions and high mortality rates. Moreover, any children born to enslaved persons were also born into slavery, usually with no hope of ever gaining freedom.This data set is the culmination of decades of archival research compiled by the SlaveVoyages Consortium. This data represents the trafficking of enslaved Africans from 1514 to 1866. All mapmakers must make choices when presenting data. This map layer represents individuals who experts can definitively place at a given location on one of at least 36,000 transatlantic and at least 10,000 intra-American human trafficking routes. However, this means the enslaved people for whom records cannot place their departure or arrival with certainty do not appear on this map (approximately 170,985 people). This map, therefore, is part of the story and not a complete accounting. You can learn more about the methodology of this data collection here.

The Louisiana Runaway Slave Advertisements Database (LRSAD) contains information about 861 individuals who appeared in 691 advertisements placed in Louisiana (predominantly New Orleans) newspapers between 1801 and 1820. These advertisements were mostly placed by enslavers wishing to capture someone who they claimed to enslave but had escaped or by sheriffs and jailers alerting the public that a person who was African or of African descent had been jailed on suspicion of being a runaway slave. These advertisements are somewhat unique in North America in that they often include information on individuals’ places of origin and language skills.

"North American Slave Narratives" collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significant fictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920.

SLP (Slavery, Law, and Power) is a project dedicated to bringing the many disparate sources that help to explain the long history of slavery and its connection to struggles over power in early America, particularly in the colonies that would become the United States. Going back to the early English Empire, this project traces the rise of the slave trade along with the parallel struggles between monarchical power and early democratic institutions and ideals. We are creating a curated set of documents that help researchers and students to understand the background to the fierce struggles over both slavery and power during the American Revolution, when questions of monarchical power, consent to government, and hereditary slavery were all fiercely debated. After America separated from Britain, the United States was still deeply influenced by this long history, especially up to the Civil War. The colonial legacies of these debates continued to affect the course of politics, law, and justice in American society as a whole.

This dataset covers transcriptions from our 2022-2023 document selection on various curated documents related to slavery, law, and power. The purpose of this set it too make these transcriptions accessible for future scholars as well as store these transcriptions in long term digital storage.

The Dutch-speaking Runaway Slaves dataset includes information 483 Dutch-speaking slaves and three black indentured servants who were reported fleeing their condition of bondage in the American colonies and early United States. The data comes primarily from newspaper advertisements digitized and made available through newspapers.com and ReadEx’s Early American Newspaper Database. This current database is the first to gather and organize data specifically concerning runaway slaves who spoke Dutch. The compilation of this data was primarily intended research on the language and economics of slavery in Dutch New York. The database includes 486 rows of entries, with eleven columns of data about Dutch-speaking runaway slaves. These eleven columns of data are as follows: Year, Name, Age, Sex, Language, Speaks, Owner, County, State, City, and Source.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an index of a historical collection that contains words and phrases that may be offensive or harmful to individuals investigating these records. In order to preserve the objectivity and historical accuracy of the index, State Archives staff took what would today be considered archaic and offensive descriptions concerning race, ethnicity, and gender directly from the original court papers. For more information on appropriate description, please consult the Diversity Style Guide and Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist Description Resources.

The Litchfield County Court African Americans and Native Americans Collection is an artificial collection consisting of photocopies of cases involving persons of African descent and indigenous people from the Files and Papers by Subject series of Litchfield County Court records. This collection was created in order to highlight the lives and experiences of underrepresented groups in early America, and make them more easily accessible to researchers.

Collection Overview

The collection consists of records of 188 court cases involving either African Americans or Native Americans. A careful search of the Files for the Litchfield County Court discovered 165 on African Americans and 23 on Native Americans, about one third of the total that was found in Files for the New London County Court for the period up to the American Revolution. A couple of reasons exist for this vast difference in numbers. First, Litchfield County was organized much later than New London, one of Connecticut's four original counties. New London was the home of four of seven recognized tribes, was a trading center, and an area of much greater wealth. Second, minority population in the New London County region has been tracked and tabulated by Barbara Brown and James Rose in Black Roots of Southeastern Connecticut.¹ Although this valuable work does not include all of Negro or Indian background, it provides a wonderful starting point and it has proven to be of some assistance in tracking down minorities in Litchfield County. In most instances, however, identification is based upon language in the documents and knowledge of surnames or first names.² Neither surname nor first name provides an invariably reliable guide so it is possible that some minorities have been missed and some persons included that are erroneous.

In thirteen of 188 court cases, the person of African or Native American background cannot be identified even by first name. He or she is noted as "my Negro," a slave girl, or an Indian. In twenty-three lawsuits, a person with a first name is identified as a Negro, as an Indian in two other cases, and Mulatto in one. In the remaining 151 cases, a least one African American or Native American is identified by complete name.³ Thirteen surnames recur in three or more cases.⁴ A total of seventy surnames, some with more than one spelling, are represented in the records.

The Jacklin surname appears most frequently represented in the records. Seven different Jacklins are found in eighteen cases, two for debt and the remaining sixteen for more serious crimes like assault, breach of peace, keeping a bawdy house, and trespass.⁵ Ten cases concern Cuff Kingsbury of Canaan between 1808 and 1812, all involving debts against Kingsbury and the attempts of plaintiffs to secure writs of execution against him. Cyrus, Daniel, Ebenezer, Jude, Luke, Martin, Nathaniel, Pomp, Titus, and William Freeman are found in nine cases, some for debt, others for theft, and one concerning a petition to appoint a guardian for aged and incompetent Titus Freeman.⁶ Six persons with the surname Caesar are found in seven court cases.

Sixty-one of 188 cases concern debt.⁷ Litchfield County minorities were plaintiffs in only about ten of these lawsuits, half debt by book and half debt by note. The largest single category of court proceedings concern cases of crimes against person or property. They include assault (32 cases), theft (30), breach of peace (5), and breaking out of jail (1). In cases of assault, the Negro or Indian was the perpetrator in about two thirds of the cases and victim in one third. In State v. Alexander Kelson, the defendant was accused of assaulting Eunice Mawwee.⁸ Minority defendants in assault cases included Daniel K. Boham, William Cable, Prince Comyns, Adonijah Coxel, Homer Dolphin, Jack Jacklin, Pompey Lepean, John Mawwee, Zack Negro, and Jarvis Phillips. One breach of peace case, State v. Frederic Way, the defendant, "a transient Indian man," was accused of breach of the peace for threatening Jonathan Rossetter and the family of Samuel Wilson of Harwinton.⁹

In cases of theft, African Americans appeared as defendants in 27 of 30 cases, the only exceptions being two instances in which Negroes were illegally seized by whites and the case of State v. William Pratt of Salisbury. The State charged Pratt with stealing $35 from the house of George Ceasor.¹⁰ More typical, however, are such cases as State v. Prince Cummins for the theft of a dining room table and State v. Nathaniel Freeman for the theft of clothes.¹¹

Another major category of lawsuits revolves around the subject of slaves as property. The number and percentage of such cases is much lower than that for New London County due to the fact that the county was only organized one generation before the American Revolution and the weaker grip the institution of slavery had in that county. The cases may be characterized as conversion to own use (4), fraudulent contract (3), fraudulent sale (3), runaways (3), illegal enslavement (2), and trespass (2).¹² The Litchfield County Court in April 1765 heard George Catling v. Moses Willcocks, a case in which Willcocks was accused of converting a slave girl and household goods to his own use.¹³ In the 1774 fraudulent contract case of Josiah Willoughby v. Elisha Bigelow, the plaintiff accused Bigelow of lying about York Negro's age and condition. Willoughby stated that York Negro was twenty years older that he was reputed to be, was blind in one eye, and "very intemperate in the use of Speretuous Lickor." He sued to recover the purchase price of £45, the court agreed, and the defendant appealed.¹⁴ Cash Africa sued Deborah Marsh of Litchfield in 1777 for illegal enslavement. He claimed that he was unlawfully seized with force and arms and compelled to labor for the defendant for three years.¹⁵ In another case, David Buckingham v. Jonathan Prindle, the defendant was accused of persuading Jack Adolphus to run away from his master. The plaintiff claimed that Adolphus was about twenty years old and bound to service until age twenty-five, when he would be freed under terms of Connecticut's gradual emancipation law.¹⁶

Other subjects found in Litchfield County Minorities include defamation, gambling, keeping a bawdy house, and lascivious carriage. The defamation cases all included the charge of sexual intercourse with an Indian or Negro. In one such case, Henry S. Atwood v. Norman Atwood, both of Watertown, the defendant defamed and slandered the plaintiff by charging that he was "guilty of the crime of fornication or adultery with [a] Black or Negro woman," the wife of Peter Deming.¹⁷ Three cases, two from 1814 and one from 1821, accuse several Negroes accuse Harry Fitch, Polly Gorley, Violet Jacklin, Betsy Mead, and Jack Peck alias Jacklin, of running houses of ill repute.¹⁸

The records on African Americans and Native Americans from Litchfield County are relatively sparse, but they do provide some indication of the difficulties encountered by minorities in white society. They also provide some useful genealogical data on a handful of families in northwestern Connecticut.

1. Barbara W. Brown and James M. Rose, joint authors, Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut, 1650-1900 (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1980).
2. The court cases often identify minorities by the words Negro, mulatto, colored, or Indian.
3. Two or more African Americans or Native Americans are found in 27 lawsuits, but a maximum of two people are included in the Litchfield County Minorities database.
4. Surnames with spelling variations: Boston (3), Botsford (4), Caesar (7), Coxel (3), Freedom (3), Freeman (9), Gauson (5), Jacklin (17), Kingsbury (10), Leopen (4), Mawwee (5), Quomenor (4), and Smith (3).
5. George, Harvey, Isaac, Jack, Philip, Violet, and William Jacklin. Also included is Jack Peck, alias Jack Jacklin.
6. For the last case, see Conservators and Guardians, Box 2, folder 42.
7. Fifty-seven suits for debt, the vast majority of which a minority was plaintiff or defendant, and four concerning writs of execution to recover debt owed.
8. Dec. 1836, Box 3, folder 16.
9. Sep. 1796, Box 3, folder 6.
10. David King v. Stephen Walton, Mar. 1791, Box 1, folder 17;Simon Mitchel v. Edward Hinman, Dec. 1793, Box 1, folder 18; State v. William Pratt, Oct. 1848, Box 2, folder 37.
11. Apr. 1828, Box 2, folder 23; Oct. 1837, Box 2, folder 29.
12. Three additional conversion cases concern livestock and hay.
13. Apr. 1765, Box 1, folder 5.
14. Dec. 1774, Box 1, folder 9.
15. Sep. 1777, Box 1, folder 9.
16. Dec. 1813, Box 1, folder 49.
17. Dec. 1814, Box 2, folder 2.
18. Sep. 1814, Box 2, folder 3, Sep. 1814, Box 2, folder 4; Sep. 1821, Box 2, folder 15.

If a record of interest is found, and a reproduction of the original record is desired, you may submit a request via <a

SLP (Slavery, Law, and Power) is a project dedicated to bringing the many disparate sources that help to explain the long history of slavery and its connection to struggles over power in early America, particularly in the colonies that would become the United States. Going back to the early English Empire, this project traces the rise of the slave trade along with the parallel struggles between monarchical power and early democratic institutions and ideals. We are creating a curated set of documents that help researchers and students to understand the background to the fierce struggles over both slavery and power during the American Revolution, when questions of monarchical power, consent to government, and hereditary slavery were all fiercely debated. After America separated from Britain, the United States was still deeply influenced by this long history, especially up to the Civil War. The colonial legacies of these debates continued to affect the course of politics, law, and justice in American society as a whole.

This dataset covers transcriptions from our 2021 document selection on various curated documents related to slavery, law, and power. The purpose of this set it too make these transcriptions accessible for future scholars as well as store these transcriptions in long term digital storage.

Abstract: The Kwango River has long been viewed as the limit of the transatlantic traders' access to the main sources of slaves in the interior of Angola, the principal region of slave embarkation to the Americas. However, no estimates of the size and distribution of this huge migration exist. This article examines records of liberated Africans from Cuba and Sierra Leone available on the African Origins Portal to estimate how many slaves came from that particular region in the nineteenth century as well as their ethnolinguistic distribution. It shows that about 21 percent of the slaves leaving Angola in that period came from beyond the Kwango, with the majority coming from among the Luba, Kanyok, and Swahili speaking peoples. The article also analyzes the causes of this migration, which helped shape the African Diaspora to the Americas, especially to Brazil and Cuba.

In the 1930s, students at Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College, under the direction of the college’s registrar and Arts and Sciences director, John Brother Cade, participated in a project to interview 229 formerly enslaved individuals from 17 states in the United States, as well as Indian Territory and Canada. Nearly early 70 years since the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, many of these individuals experienced the tail end of slavery as an institution in America, and this project aimed to capture their voices, experiences, and the hardships that they faced in the early years of their lives. Students sought out information regarding food, clothing, housing facilities, quality of life, epistemology, family, and treatment, to capture the perspective of formerly enslaved individuals and the institution of slavery. This dataset, whose fields were extracted from the documents in this archival collection housed at Southern University, compiles key pieces of information these ex-slaves shared with Prairie View students.

This data collection contains information about the population of each county, town, and city of the United States in 1850 and 1860. Specific variables include tabulations of white, black, and slave males and females, and aggregate population for each town. Foreign-born population, total population of each county, and centroid latitudes and longitudes of each county and state were also compiled. (Source: downloaded from ICPSR 7/13/10)

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at ICPSR -- https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09424.v2. We highly recommend using the ICPSR version as they made this dataset available in multiple data formats.