Online slave records help Britons trace past
By Ben Fenton
28/04/2007
Chilling records of the traffic in humankind were made available on the internet for the first time yesterday, allowing thousands of Britons to trace their slave and slave-owning ancestors.
Hundreds of thousands of Britons are descended from men, women and children abducted from the west African coast between the 1560s and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl, 1764
The trade was such a lucrative business, with a 600 per cent premium between purchase price in Africa and sale value in the New World, that millions of people crossed the Atlantic in appalling conditions.
When the abolitionists triumphed with the outlawing of the import or export of slaves from British overseas territories, it became clear that it would prove hard to enforce.
In order to keep an eye on possible breaches of the trade, the Government ordered that from 1812 onwards slave owners had to keep records of their human chattels.
Although it relied on co-operation by the plantation owners in the Caribbean, South Africa and other colonies, the register, which ran until 1834, is the only document recording the names or numbers of slaves.
It contains a total of 186,000 pages of names.
The first tranche of records is the register for Barbados in 1834. It is one of the most detailed and thorough records in the entire collection, containing the names of 99,349 slaves and 5,206 owners.
The average slave-ownership was 19 per owner, but some had only one while large plantations had as many as 400.
Barbados was one of the busiest slave trade markets in the British empire and among the well-known Britons who trace their ascent to the island are Moira Stuart, the former BBC newsreader, Theo Walcott, the Arsenal and England footballer, and the singer Des'ree.
Theo Walcott, the Arsenal and England player, has Barbados ancestry
Ancestry.co.uk has digitised and transcribed the original records in the National Archives in Kew. Simon Harper, a spokesman, said: "As few records exist which document the lives of individual slaves, the collection will, for many, be the only record of their ancestor ever having existed and so represents a vital resource for everyone with or interested in researching slave ancestry.
"With few relevant collections online, it has not been easy for those with ancestors from former British colonies or territories to research their black family history but this will help bridge major historical gaps for many people."
Mia Morris, who founded the website Blackhistory.co.uk, said: "It is terrific that Ancestry is making these slave registers and records available online for the first time.
A page of the Barbados Slave Register 1834
"They provide a much needed piece in the puzzle for those of us wanting to find the truth about our ancestors."
At the same time detailed records of English settlers in Barbados between 1637 and 1800 are being put online.
Many Americans of British descent can trace their origins to the island because it was used as a point of departure between the mother country and the colonies of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Surviving parish records were copied in the mid 19th century and the details online come mostly from those. They vary in the amount of detail, but can be very informative and include baptismal records, marriage certificates and documents dealing with wills and administration of estates.
In 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act came into force across all of Britain's territories, forbidding the "possession of enslaved persons" within the empire or by British subjects anywhere in the world.
Every slave over the age of six became an indentured labourer and was required to serve an apprenticeship. Full emancipation came in 1838.
Compensation of £20 million (£21 billion by the most accurate computation of lump sum values at today's rates) was awarded, not to the slaves, but to their former owners.
telegraph.co.uk
By Ben Fenton
28/04/2007
Chilling records of the traffic in humankind were made available on the internet for the first time yesterday, allowing thousands of Britons to trace their slave and slave-owning ancestors.
Hundreds of thousands of Britons are descended from men, women and children abducted from the west African coast between the 1560s and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl, 1764
The trade was such a lucrative business, with a 600 per cent premium between purchase price in Africa and sale value in the New World, that millions of people crossed the Atlantic in appalling conditions.
When the abolitionists triumphed with the outlawing of the import or export of slaves from British overseas territories, it became clear that it would prove hard to enforce.
In order to keep an eye on possible breaches of the trade, the Government ordered that from 1812 onwards slave owners had to keep records of their human chattels.
Although it relied on co-operation by the plantation owners in the Caribbean, South Africa and other colonies, the register, which ran until 1834, is the only document recording the names or numbers of slaves.
It contains a total of 186,000 pages of names.
The first tranche of records is the register for Barbados in 1834. It is one of the most detailed and thorough records in the entire collection, containing the names of 99,349 slaves and 5,206 owners.
The average slave-ownership was 19 per owner, but some had only one while large plantations had as many as 400.
Barbados was one of the busiest slave trade markets in the British empire and among the well-known Britons who trace their ascent to the island are Moira Stuart, the former BBC newsreader, Theo Walcott, the Arsenal and England footballer, and the singer Des'ree.
Theo Walcott, the Arsenal and England player, has Barbados ancestry
Ancestry.co.uk has digitised and transcribed the original records in the National Archives in Kew. Simon Harper, a spokesman, said: "As few records exist which document the lives of individual slaves, the collection will, for many, be the only record of their ancestor ever having existed and so represents a vital resource for everyone with or interested in researching slave ancestry.
"With few relevant collections online, it has not been easy for those with ancestors from former British colonies or territories to research their black family history but this will help bridge major historical gaps for many people."
Mia Morris, who founded the website Blackhistory.co.uk, said: "It is terrific that Ancestry is making these slave registers and records available online for the first time.
A page of the Barbados Slave Register 1834
"They provide a much needed piece in the puzzle for those of us wanting to find the truth about our ancestors."
At the same time detailed records of English settlers in Barbados between 1637 and 1800 are being put online.
Many Americans of British descent can trace their origins to the island because it was used as a point of departure between the mother country and the colonies of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Surviving parish records were copied in the mid 19th century and the details online come mostly from those. They vary in the amount of detail, but can be very informative and include baptismal records, marriage certificates and documents dealing with wills and administration of estates.
In 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act came into force across all of Britain's territories, forbidding the "possession of enslaved persons" within the empire or by British subjects anywhere in the world.
Every slave over the age of six became an indentured labourer and was required to serve an apprenticeship. Full emancipation came in 1838.
Compensation of £20 million (£21 billion by the most accurate computation of lump sum values at today's rates) was awarded, not to the slaves, but to their former owners.
telegraph.co.uk
