Showing posts with label Slavery. Show all posts

16 June 2017

Sometimes it takes awhile …

Sometimes it takes awhile …

After almost 200 years (well, 183 years to be precise), a slave who unwittingly changed law via a NC Supreme Court case, is now honored with a historical marker.

You can read about this bit of history via Slave who killed white overseer in 1834 honored with NC marker (Josh Shaffer, News and Observer)

Details on the case, the location of the marker and the text on it can be accessed here.

It was Gaston’s conclusion that the law must treat slaves as any other human in such a case. He stated, "If the passions of the slave be excited into unlawful violence by the inhumanity of a master . . . is it a conclusion of law that such passion must spring from diabolical malice?" The decision was praised by abolitionists, covered by newspapers around the country, and cited as precedent in other legal cases. Will’s bold act of resistance served to humanize slaves in the eyes of the law.

The Virginia Law Review has an article on it (FREE via JSTOR), The State of North Carolina v. Negro Will, a Slave of James S. Battle; A Cause Celebre of Ante-Bellum Times, and Columbia’s Law school has transcribed the verdict.

More on the case is available via Reports of Cases at Law, Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of North Carolina: From December Term 1834 to December Term 1839, Volume 1 By North Carolina. Supreme Court, Thomas Pollock Devereux, William Horn Battle.

It is never too late to recognize the contributions our ancestors made!

Have your ancestors been honored via markers, plaques, etc., for historical contributions to their community or state?

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24 March 2017

The Beyond Kin Project

The Beyond Kin Project

We are all part of one big puzzle! All families hold a piece or pieces to that puzzle. The best way to successfully research family histories is to link up with others doing the same.

And, always think of the FAN Club, as coined by Elizabeth Shown Mills – Friends, Associates and Neighbors.

Additionally, recognize that there are always two sides to every transaction. For example, the Freedmen’s Bureau was created to address the needs of freedmen, and, many many non-freedmen are documented. If they are not getting rations alongside freedmen, they are on the other side of an employment contract, they are supervising the building of schools and short-term relief buildings, they are in court for assault & battery against freedmen or their neighbors, they are hospitalized ex-soldiers, and much more.

Records viewed as traditionally important to African-American ancestral research are also important to the research of the plantation owners and vice versa. The records of one person and/or family always include the records of others in a community. Think of all the business transacted in a community. Think of store, physician, blacksmith and other business ledgers. These ledgers often mention slaves doing business on behalf of their masters or being treated for an illness. Think of family bibles that document everyone on the farm – whether biological family members, in-laws or those enslaved. Thinks of church records where mentions of slaves and free persons of color can often be found.

Essentially, many records created on a farm/plantation, mention those living on the farm/plantation, including those enslaved.

This is part of the impetus of The Beyond Kin Project. How those descended from slaveholding families can facilitate the documenting of enslaved persons …

Genealogists who descend from slaveholders (SHs) are uniquely positioned to revolutionize genealogy for their African American colleagues. You undoubtedly feel sympathy for the genealogical challenges facing the descendants of the enslaved persons (EPs) who once gave your ancestors wealth, comfort, and social status. But what if you start seeing their challenge as your own?

Because it is.

The challenge of documenting an ancestors’ enslaved persons (EPs) logically falls to you for many reasons:

· The answers for antebellum African American family trees lie predominantly in the records of the white families who claimed ownership of them.
(See “The records of slaveholders.”)

· The puzzles of enslaved identities can best be solved by studying them as groups, working outward from the SH’s records.
(See “The group approach to slave identification.”)

· You will neither know nor understand your ancestors until you fill in the fuller picture of those who were integral to their most intimate daily lives.
(See “The rest of the family picture.”)

· If you’ve read this far, you might be ready for the genealogical challenge and enlightenment opportunity of a lifetime. This will be it.
(See “The challenge of a lifetime.”)

If your family were slaveholders, consider taking on the challenge of unraveling the puzzles of the identities of those enslaved.

Were your ancestors slaveholders? Does paperwork survive from their farm/plantation? Is that documentation readily available to researchers?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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07 February 2017

Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks … Petitions to Courts, 1775-1867 – a Finding Aid NOT to be Missed!

Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks … Petitions to Courts, 1775-1867 – a Finding Aid NOT to be Missed!

This is a resource that has been around for quite a while and yet I find that many don’t take advantage of it!

Essentially, finding aids can provide you with tremendous data. A detailed finding aid gives you insight into the existence of documents that have relevance to your research. You can then take the next step and access any referenced material.

The Race & Slavery Petitions Project has had detailed finding aids online via Proquest and LexisNexis for quite a while and then subsequently a website (housed at UNC Greensboro) was created to house the information. Interestingly, because of how the information was coded, it is sometimes easier to use the Proquest PDF documents, than the website, depending on what you seek. Additionally, the finding aid entries and the database entries are not identical.

First, a bit of history …

Established in 1991, the Race and Slavery Petitions Project was designed to locate, collect, organize, and publish all extant legislative petitions relevant to slavery, and a selected group of county court petitions from the fifteen former slaveholding states and the District of Columbia, during the period from the American Revolution through the Civil War.

… the Project has collected 17,487 petitions (legislative and county court) representing about half of the counties (606 of 1,127 in 1860) in the fifteen southern states. The following table gives the number of legislative and county court petitions in each state.

Let’s look a bit more into both of these resources …

For the online version, if I search on Wake (as in Wake County NC) having selected North Carolina and the entire time period, only 3 petitions reveal themselves – 1822 (Janet Corn), 1840 (Ephraim Conyers), and 1862 (Sally Scott). Now, I happen to know that Simon Turner had a petition in 1790 and if I search on his name, that petition shows up. This was all using the basic “Search the Petitions.”

Now, there is the “Search By Name” option, meaning the names of slaves, where you can limit our search to a particular county within a state. If I just search on Wake County, I get 10 pages of results! If I check “Show only slave owners” and enter Wake and select North Carolina, then I get just over 1 page of entries, including Simon Turner. So, when searching on slave forenames for a county, the basic “Search By Name” option works best, and when searching for a slave owner, selecting “Show only slave owners” is important.

Now, the online finding aids via Proquest are nice easily searchable PDFs where you can easily search on any term.

· (via LexisNexi) Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks: Series I, Petitions to Southern Legislatures, 1777–1867

· (via Proquest) Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks, Series II, Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1775–1867, Part D: North Carolina (1775–1867) and South Carolina (1784–1867)

The above is NOT a complete list of the collection and you can find a list of the books and guides (aka finding aids) here (UNC Greensboro).

In some ways, I like the PDF documents (when available) as you can more quickly see the overall context of the petitions – who, what, when and where, which is an at least two-step process on the website.

Just a reminder that different formats for finding aids/databases each have their strengths as far as usage.

Regardless of which (or both) of these you access, any data found will probably be a gem you’ll want to add to your genealogical collection!

Which entry caught your eye as possibly having relevant to your research?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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28 October 2016

Opinions Regarding Slavery: Slave Narratives. 1822-1865 [FREE Access]

Opinions Regarding Slavery: Slave Narratives. 1822-1865 [FREE Access]

Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Archives and Manuscripts Department (Baton Rouge, LA) – John B. Cade Library has a collection, Opinions Regarding Slavery: Slave Narratives, 1822-1865, available online. These are organized geographically by state/territory.

The collecting of interviews did not start with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as many believed. The first study, at Southern University, was directed and compiled by John B. Cade during the years of 1929-1930 whose interest in the utilization of the accounts of ex-slaves was initially aroused by the controversy over the nature of the slave regime and, in particular by remarks reportedly made by Dr. U.B. Phillip; who reportedly stated that "Negroes for the most part did not mind slavery." The 1929 set of narratives which were compiled at Southern University were destroyed. A preliminary study conducted at Southern during the years 1929-1930 was expanded during the early years of the depression under Cade's direction, and the results of those interviews were later summarized in Cade's article "Out of the Mouths of Ex-Slaves." The Journal of Negro History. Volume 20, Number 3 (July, 1935), pp. 294-337…

The 1935 Prairie View Slave narrative collection contains 17 states including the Indian Territory and Canada. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indian Territory, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma Territory, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Canada.

You can access the full finding aid. Each narrative can be accessed as a PDF.

Other sources for slave narratives are:

· North American Slave Narratives (Documenting the American South)

· Library of Congress – Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938

· WPA Slave Narratives (PBS, Slavery and the Making of America)

What other collections of slave narratives are you aware of?

Editor's Note: Angela Proctor, University Archivist at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana provided me with a corrected URL [12 December 2016]

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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24 October 2016

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law (HeinOnline) -- FREE Access

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law (HeinOnline) -- FREE Access

Our friend The Legal Genealogist, Judy G. Russell, in her post, Shining a light, introduces us to this HeinOnline database.

This HeinOnline collection brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Our cases go into the 20th century, because long after slavery was ended, there were still court cases based on issues emanating from slavery. To give one example, as late as 1901 Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had to decide if a man, both of whose parents had been slaves, could be the legitimate heir of his father, because under southern law, slaves could never be legally married.

I suggest you read her post and follow the instructions as given. Doing that, I was able to successfully register for and receive database access.

A neat feature is that for any found article, you can get the full citation (click the Cite box in the upper left near Show table of Contents) in MLA, APA, Chicago or Bluebook formats.

Since I’ve spent the last hour just looking around in this database, I’m just going to post this so that y’all can get yourselves signed up and do the same!

If you discovered some element of slave law that you were unfamiliar with previously, please tell us about it.

If an ancestor of yours is explicitly mentioned, share the context.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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02 March 2015

The Book of Negroes

BET broadcast in February (16^th-18^th) The Book of Negroes. This show raised incredible interest in the basis for this show, the actual Inspection Roll of Negroes, commonly referred to as the Book of Negroes. The BET website has a number of video clips that can be accessed.

If you live in Canada, the show was broadcast on CBC and it appears that you can access the program episodes there (Sorry and those living in the

and elsewhere cannot access these!)

This Boston Glob article, ‘Book of Negroes’ reveals little-known chapter in history will fill you in a bit more on the mini-series.

The NARA website has a blog post about the document that forms the basis of the program.

The Book of Negroes is actually a set of two ledgers that lists the names, ages, and descriptive information of about 3,000 enslaved African Americans, indentured servants, and freedmen that were evacuated from the United States along with British soldiers at the conclusion of the American Revolution. Over the extent of about 200 pages, this record captures what is now invaluable genealogical information such as where a person was held in slavery, their owner’s name, and when and how the person obtained freedom.

If you caught it on BET or CBC, please let us know your reaction and thoughts!

Image source information:

National Archives Identifier: 5890797

Creator(s): Congress of the Confederation. (03/02/1781 - 03/04/1789) (Most Recent)

From: Series : Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, compiled 1774 - 1789

HMS Entry Number(s): UD 2

Record Group 360: Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1765 - 1821

You can access via this link, http://research.archives.gov/description/5890797

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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14 March 2014

Upfront Mini Bytes – Row Houses, Lawyers in London, TV News, Norwegian Ancestors, Youth Bibliography, Slavery Map, and Irish Research

Welcome to our newest edition of our bi-weekly feature Upfront Mini Bytes. In Upfront Mini Bytes we provide eight tasty bits of genealogy news that will help give you a deeper byte into your family history research. Each item is short and sweet. We encourage you to check out the links to articles, blog posts, resources, and anything genealogical!

We hope you found the past editions helpful. Use your favorite search engine with “Upfront with NGS” “Mini Bytes” or use this Google search link.

Do you have questions, suggestions for future posts, or comments? Please post a comment or send an e-mail to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org.

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A bit of whimsy and history all rolled into one package. Enjoy The Lonely Row Houses of Baltimore.

Did an ancestor practice law in London between 1505 and 1845? If so, he might have been a member of what is now called the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. Some of its records, Calendars of Inner Temple Records, 1505-1845 are available online.

Did you know that cartographers used to think that California was an Island? This reminds us to be cautious about what we take as “fact” as we do our research. Check out this neat collection of these maps.

It’s not always archival institutions that had the forethought to preserve history. Sometimes it’s individuals like you and me who amass an archive of material that then gets a long-term home in an archive. Read about such a situation in The Incredible Story of Marion Stokes, Who Single-Handedly Taped 35 Years of TV News. From 1977 to 2012, she recorded 140,000 VHS tapes worth of history that the Internet Archives plans to make public and searchable. On a related note, read here about the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.

Have Norwegian ancestors? Check out the online presence of The National Archives of Norway. You can access digitized parish registers, probate records, court records, and much more!

We often discuss getting more youth involved in the fascinating discovery of one’s roots! A Bibliography for Young People and Families created by New England Historic Genealogical Society (aka American Ancestors) might help get the ball rolling.

To better appreciate the extent of Slavery in the U.S. at the time of the Civil War (based on the 1860 census), check out A Map of American Slavery.

The Irish Genealogical Research Society’s annual journal, The Irish Genealogist, has been published since 1937. It has included information from newspapers, parish registers, family Bibles, genealogies, voters lists, pedigrees, membership rolls, deeds, marriage settlements, census substitutes, land and tenure surveys, marriage license bonds, courts records, and wills. Over 250,000 names can be searched

via a new database.

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