African American Slavery and Bondage

Brief History of Slavery in America
Nearly 75 percent of people who arrived in American from Europe and Africa before 1776 were immigrants in bondage. Those from Africa almost always arrived enslaved. Those from Europe were often convicts, indentured servant apprentices, or became indentured servants to pay for cost of their ocean crossing. In colonial times indentured servitude as an apprentice was considered the normal way to learn a trade (part of growing up), or a normal option for paying a debt.

In 1619 a Dutch ship blown off course came looking for fresh water in Jamestown, Virginia. At Jamestown they sold some of the African slaves originally intended for Cuba. These were the earliest known African immigrants to arrive in what is now the United States. It was the custom of that time to free servant-slaves after seven years.

Caribbean plantations usually grew sugar and few slaves survived there for seven years. But in the thirteen British-American colonies a milder climate and better working conditions growing tobacco, cotton, hemp, and indigo allowed slaves to live long enough to be freed. But the institution of lifetime chattel slavery applied to people of African descent was slowly accepted and developed when greedy owners were reluctant to free such valuable labor. This form of slavery was formally legalized first in Virginia starting in 1705.

All 13 British-American colonies participated in the slave trade at first. Pennsylvania was the first to abolish slavery in

Slave Records
Finding an African American ancestor who was enslaved almost always means finding the records of the family that owned him or her.

Study the life and records of the slave owner and his family. Your ancestor’s life was inseparably connected with the slave owner. Your ancestor may be listed in records of the slave owner’s property:


 * Tax records. These list slaves and their monetary value.
 * Land and property records. Search for information about deeds, sales, mortgages, or rental transactions of slaves.
 * Probate, estate, and chancery court records These show the distribution of slaves at the death of a slave owner.
 * Plantation records. Account log books give the names of slaves, family relationships, and their assigned tasks. Some records give the slaves’ birth and death dates. They also record when a slave was bought, from whom, and for how much. Most plantation records would be in the hands of the plantation family descendants, or at county or state archives or libraries.


 * A few plantation records are listed in set of booklets starting with the title Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1966). The records described in these booklets are a microfilm collection of manuscripts held in several major research libraries throughout the South. Parts of the papers from some plantations were once scattered by their donation to many libraries, and this collection now helps gather some of them in a single set. It offers access to selected material from Maryland to Texas in one source.


 * Use the index by Jean L. Cooper, Genealogical Index to the Guides of the Microfilm Edition of Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the Civil War ([S.l.]: 1st Books, 2003)[FHL Ref book 973 D22cj] to identify each collection with material about a given family name (usually owner, sometimes slave) or plantation name, and locate microfilms of the papers with that family name, or plantation name. The items indexed include deeds, wills, estate papers, genealogies,personal and business correspondence, account books, and slave lists. These are indexed in six separate lists:
 * Location (alphabetical by city or county)
 * Location (alphabetical by state)
 * Plantation name
 * Plantation name (alphabetical by state)
 * Surname
 * Surname (alphabetical by state)


 * To use the above index you usually need to know the slave owner's name, or the name of his plantation. This information is sometimes found in Freedman's Bank, or in Freedmen's Bureau records. Only about 15 percent of freed slaves used the family name of former owners.


 * For a competing index of the same ante-bellum plantation records see Marie Taylor, Family History Library Bibliography of African American Sources As of 1994 (Salt Lake City: U.S./Canada Reference, Family History Library, 2000)[FHL Ref book 973 F23tm]. This book is digitized and available on the Internet at http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/FH33&amp;CISOPTR=1765&amp;REC=1. It is indexed under the county or state where the plantation was located, the name of the plantation, or the name of the owner. It also cites many other sources beyond the ante-bellum planation records.