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.

The Natchez Database of Free People of Color (NDFPC) contains data about Natchez, Mississippi’s free Black community during the Spanish era (1779-1795) and after the United States acquired it in 1796 until 1865. It records the name of every free black individual who surfaced in the author’s research; diligent attention was paid to entering values like gender, age, race, property ownership, occupation, literacy, experiences of violence, among many others (53 in total) in the dataset. The companion to the NDFPC is the Natchez Index of Free Individuals and Families of Color, which is an approximately 500-page text document that archives transcriptions of records on the 1,018 free Black individuals who lived or stayed in Natchez during those years. It is organized alphabetically by surname when known or by first name. Digitization of the dataset and index will facilitate research by descendants engaged in genealogical research and other scholars of enslaved and free people of color.

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.

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.

During the antebellum period, the same enslavers who flocked to New Orleans to participate in North America’s largest slave market also filtered in and out of the Crescent City’s courtrooms, where they contested sales, claimed warranties, and endeavored to exploit their investments in the people they enslaved. Court records from these disputes at the local level are not always easy to locate. The dataset included here, “Redhibition Suits and Enslaved People in the Orleans Parish Court, 1813–1846,” aims to address this issue; it includes an entry for each of the 295 slave-centered warranty suits tried before the Orleans Parish Court, lawsuits that centered on the past and present of a total of 347 specific enslaved individuals. The dataset includes detailed information about the dispute itself and stands to help scholars of slavery and genealogists learn more about the lives of specific enslaved individuals and the circumstances of their enslavement in the antebellum United States.

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.

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

This collection contains five modified data sets with mortality, population, and other demographic information for five American cities (Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York City (Manhattan only), New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) from the early 19th century to the early 20th century. Mortality was represented by an annual crude death rate (deaths per 1000 population per year). The population was linearly interpolated from U.S. Census data and state census data (for Boston and New York City). All data sets include variables for year, total deaths, census populations, estimated annual linearly interpolated populations, and crude death rate. The Baltimore data set (DS0001) also provides birth and death rate variables based on race and slave status demographics, as well as a variable for stillbirths. The Philadelphia data set (DS0005) also includes variables for total births, total infant deaths, crude birth rate, and infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Petition: Slave trade Original: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:13909053 Date of creation: 17500000 Top signatures:William Bollan Total signatures: 1 Legal voter signatures (males not identified as non-legal): 1 Identifications of signatories: agent for his Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay Prayer format was printed vs. manuscript: Manuscript Additional archivist notes: Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, rum, molasses, Guinea, Newfoundland, southern part of North America, furs, skins, Indian trade, vessels, trade at sea, mackarel, smaller fish, West Indies, cod fishery, whale fishery, gulf and river of St. Lawrence, shipping, bread corn, pork, refuse fish, British bankers, European sale, gold, England, slaves, sugar, bills of exchange, Guadeloupe, Martinico, Martinique, late war, English plantations, English distillery, St. Eustatius, northern colonies, French islands, acts of navigation, Canadian war, parliament, husbandmen, manufacturers, duty, duties, taxes, import, export [with separate list of reasons offered] Acknowledgements: Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-5105612), Massachusetts Archives of the Commonwealth, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, Institutional Development Initiative at Harvard University, and Harvard University Library.