USAroots.com » Slavery Database Sheds Light on British Colonial Records

Slavery Database Sheds Light on British Colonial Records

22. April 2008Emily Cooper [ Editor ]

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Genealogists with ancestors who operated estates or plantations in the British colonies have potential discoveries in one of Ancestry.com’s latest databases. There’s also hope within for those with enslaved ancestors to find the earliest mention of them in the record books. Since great numbers of people have emigrated to the U. S. from the Caribbean, this dataset is especially valuable for many Americans.

The database is titled “Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812-1834.” It is accessible by paid subscription to Ancestry, and includes the names of millions of slaves (some with surnames), owners, plantation managers, and local officials. Some of these records even reveal when and where slaves were born (exact dates for some), and the names of individuals who bought or sold them.

The slave registers contain some 200,000 pages of data for the following colonies:

Antigua (1817-1818, 1821, 1824, 1828, 1832)

Bahamas (1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)

Barbados (1817, 1820, 1823, 1826, 1829, 1832, 1834)

Berbice (1818-1819, 1822)

Dominica (1817, 1820, 1823)

Grenada (1817-1834)

Honduras (1834)

Jamaica (1817, 1820, 1823, 1826, 1829, 1832, 1834)

Mauritius (1817, 1819, 1822, 1826, 1830, 1832, 1835)

Nevis (1817, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831)

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) (1818-1832)

St. Christopher (1817, 1822, 1825, 1827-1828, 1831, 1834)

St. Lucia (1815, 1819)

St. Vincent (1817, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)

Tobago (1819-1834)

Trinidad (1813, 1815-1816, 1819, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)

Virgin Islands (1818, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)

The following colonies are not included in this collection but can be viewed in paper form at The National Archives in England:

Jamaica (pieces 193, 206-208)

St. Christopher (pieces 261-263)

Grenada (piece 264, 266)

Dominica (pieces 359-363)

Nevis (piece 369)

St. Lucia (pieces 382-390)

Demerara (pieces 391-436)

Berbice (pieces 441-446)

Montserrat (pieces 447-451)

Bermuda (pieces 452-455)

St. Vincent (pieces 494, 496)

Mauritius (piece 566, 571)

Cape of Good Hope (pieces 652-662)

Information available on these records includes:

Name of owner

Place of residence (usually name of parish)

Name of slave (usually only a given name. If the slave had been baptized this may include the slave name and the Christian name)

Gender of slave

Age of slave

Nationality of slave
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The project uses registers that the British government created between 1813 and 1834 in an effort to stamp out the slave trade by ensuring plantation owners did not buy new slaves. Britain abolished the trade in 1807. Slavery itself was outlawed in the colonies 17 years later.
Information from about 700 registers from 23 British territories and dependencies include Information available on these records includes: name of owner, parish of residence, name, gender, age, and nationality of slave.

Colonies were required to conduct censuses of slaves and their owners every three years. Records were kept on site and copies submitted to the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves. After the office was disbanded, some 200,000 pages of names were placed in the National Archives in Kew, in west London.

Although estimates vary, researchers say tens of millions of African men, women and children were enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean and the Americas. Many of these were sent to British-controlled islands such as Barbados, Jamaica and the Bahamas, where they were forced to work in plantations.

In 1807 The Abolition of Slave Trade Act came into force. The act made the trade in slaves from Africa to the British colonies illegal. To combat illicit transportation following this act many of the British Colonies began keeping registers of black slaves who had been so-called “lawfully enslaved”. In 1819 the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves was established in London and copies of the slave registers kept by the colonies were sent to this office. Registration generally occurred once every three years. The registers continue through to 1834 when slavery was officially abolished.

The original records from which the database was created are from the Office of Registry of Colonial Slaves and Slave Compensation Commission: Records; (The National Archives Microfilm Publication T71); Records created and inherited by HM Treasury; The National Archives of the UK (TNA), Kew, Surrey, England.

This database contains the slave registers for the following colonies and years: