Lists and Ledgers

Slave lists, tax records, registers, receipts, and account books are relatively unique sources in their straightforwardness. While occasionally embellished with the compilers' comments on the individuals being documented, such records provide a basic list of facts about people's lives and work. Such records are particularly valuable as sources to introduce specificity to the study of African-American women's history. They are one of the few available avenues through which one can gain access to the everyday realities of women lives.

Although the content of these materials may appear thin when compared with the rich narrative of a diary, they can nevertheless provide a factual skeleton on which other information can be placed and can be quite substantive when pooled together. Often these materials are used for genealogical purposes - to connect certain individuals with a specific place at a particular date and time. Yet, the organization of the materials and the uniform data found in many of these records also allow researchers to chart trends or shared experiences among groups of people.

For instance, slave lists, by virtue of their organization, can tell a researcher whether slaves were perceived of as having valid family connections, they can give insight into gender differences in work patterns, sickness, and treatment. Mercantile accounts and post-emancipation landholders' accounts with their laborers can answer questions about women's place in the household economy, which items were bought and which were made, and work patterns among sharecropping family members. A farm account ledger can contain citations for payments made to a local grannie which in turn charts the birthing patterns of slaves women as well as the economics of health care in relation to other farm accounts. Census and tax records can reveal settlement patterns, occupational trends, and the economic status of an entire community over time.

Lists, ledgers, and receipts can be buried deep with a large family or business collections or they may stand on their own as single items. The collections described below represent only a portion of those available in the Manuscript Department. Additional materials, especially those related to slave sales and slave trade and farm and store accounts, can be located through the department's catalog.

Iveson L. Brookes Papers, 1784-1888. 709 Items & 11 Volumes. Hamburg, South Carolina.

Correspondence of a white Baptist preacher and landholder in South Carolina and Georgia. Included in the collection are lists of slaves divided by family groups and a contract for the "Conditions For Hiring Negroes by the Georgia Rail Road and Booking Co., 1855". Letters discuss slaves and race relations, largely giving insight into white perceptions.

Samuel Chapman Papers, 1800-1822. 2 Items And 1 Volume. Charles County, Maryland.

Financial ledger of lawyer and planter itemizes Chapmans's extensive personal and business transactions including those with a midwife and free blacks. Financial papers, 1815-1822 include and additional list of slaves.

Francis Porteus Corbin Papers, 1662-1885. 719 Items. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Letters and papers of Francis P. Corbin and his family. The content of the collection from 1828 on centers on Francis Corbin's financial interests, including the maintenance of his Louisiana sugar plantation. Business letters from Paris, where he relocated in 1830, include reports on crops and conditions of slaves. Of particular interest are the circa 1712 slave lists from Ripon Hall Plantation in York County, Virginia. The lists are extensive, document family ties between slaves and list clothing, and supplies distributed to approximately 60 slaves.

Devereaux Family Papers, 1776-1936. 454 Items & 4 Volumes. Raleigh, North Carolina.

Papers of a prominent and wealthy white family. The majority of the collection falls between 1839 and 1900 and are primarily correspondence concerned with personal and family affairs. There are also comments of slavery and manumission as Thomas P. Devereaux (1793-1869) was a lawyer and wealthy planter, who owned more than 1000 slaves. One of the volumes includes accounts for three plantations with extensive slave lists.

Mary G. Franklin Papers, 1842-1855. 2 Volumes. Cherokee County, Georgia.

An account book kept by a white businesswoman concerning a gold mine, sawmill, farm, water-powered mill, and coal mining on her 40-acre lot on the Etowah River which she won in the gold lottery of 1832. Included are entries for work by both male and female slaves.

Samuel Fuqua Account Book, 1835-1866. 1 Volume. Charlotte County, Virginia.

An executor's records of settlements of estates, household expenses, and labor. Includes a written agreement between a Virginia planter and his slaves regarding their continued service after emancipation. Briefly noted are some workers, both men and women, who had "absented themselves" from the plantation without permission.

Mcdonald Furman Papers, 1883-1903. 36 Items & 1 Volume. Privateer, South Carolina.

Family and business correspondence of McDonald Furman (1863-1904), white lecturer, student of local history, and member of the South Carolina Historical Society. The volume included is a plantation book for the Cornhill Plantation in South Carolina for 1827 through 1873. Cornhill appears to have been a medium sized plantation with approximately 30-50 slaves. Furman's record keeping reflects a recognition of family groups and slave marriages and provides insight into planter rules and slave productivity. Of note are his rules concerning pregnant slave women, and a runaway woman whose mother apprehended her and returned her to the plantation.

Georgia Superior Court Slave Importation Register, 1820-1821. 1 Volume (Microfilm). Augusta, Georgia.

Records of slave imports to the state of Georgia. Descriptions include name, age, and sometimes occupation and physical characteristics.

Methodist Episcopal Church, North Carolina Conference, Greensboro District, Haw River Circuit Church Book, 1841-1852. 1 Volume. Haw River, North Carolina.

Membership records for various churches in the Haw River circuit. Included are "names of the colored members in full connection" to the various churches, many of whom are listed under their owner's name.

Isaac Brooks Headen Papers, 1848-1855. 1 Volume. Chatham County, North Carolina.

Account book of a white physician in Chatham County, North Carolina. It includes numerous entries for the treatment of slaves. Rarely are these records gender or treatment specific, but they do document the frequency of illness on specific planters' plantations.

William Horton Peace Jenkins Papers, 1845-1925. 2,417 Items & 10 Volumes. Oxford, North Carolina.

Collection consists of predominately public school records for Granville County, North Carolina where during the period of 1881 through 1895 Jenkins was Superintendent of Public Instruction. These records provide a wealth of information and statistics on conditions in the schools. Teacher lists, pupil lists, attendance records, teacher salaries, average length of school terms and number of school-aged children in the various counties are all broken down by race and gender. There are also written reports and suggestions by black male and female teachers and superintendents.

Louis Manigault Papers, 1776-1883. 2,038 Items & 4 Volumes. Charleston, South Carolina.

Personal and business papers of Louis Manigault and the Manigault family, who began to acquire rice-planting land in the mid-eighteenth century and by 1850 owned several plantations. The papers relating to planting begin in 1837 and continue through to 1883. There are work schedules, slave lists, instructions to overseers on the care of slaves, and the management of plantations. In 1848 Charles Izard Manigault purchased a plantation on the Savannah River; the land cost $28,000 and $19,000 was required to "stock it" with slaves. Here as in many other places in the collection there is an itemized listing of slaves and their prices. One of the volumes is an 1852 prescription book for medicine given to slaves on the plantation.

Henry Mcpherson Papers, 1801-1826. 3 Items And 1 Volume. Charles County, Maryland.

Daybook and financial papers record general store transactions with blacks. Plantation accounts include entries related to the hiring of slaves and women for weaving, farm labor and granny (midwifery) services.

Jacob Rhett Mott Papers, 1743-1902. 305 Items & 4 Volumes. Charleston, South Carolina.

Papers and records of a white physician and surgeon in the Confederate Army. Included is the Exeter Plantation Book, 1846-1871, which lists slaves, provisions issued to them, occupation, ages, births, deaths, names of parents and prices.

Thomas B. Nalle Papers, 1805-1905. 641 Items. Culpepper County, Virginia.

Personal, financial, and military papers of Virginia farm family include a farm account book, 1877-1881, in which labor contracts with black women and man are entered.

Negro Collection, 1757-1980. 315 Items.

Artificial collection containing various items pertaining to Afro-Americans. Included are miscellaneous slave sale receipts, free papers and clippings of black women. Of particular interest is a bill of sale, in which a black woman sold two slave children.

North Carolina. Anson County Tax Lists, 1903-1906. 4 Volumes. Anson County, North Carolina.

Tax records for towns in Anson County listed alphabetically with black and white accounts differentiated, amounts owed and amounts paid, and county, state, school, and road taxes entered in separate columns. Full name entries make male and female distinctions possible over a four year period.

Haller Nutt Papers, 1848-1911. 722 Items 1 Volume. Natchez, Mississippi.

Papers of a large-scale white planter of Louisiana and Mississippi containing a plantation journal, 1843-1850. The journal includes lists of slaves, treatment for sick slaves, rules for overseers, charts of amounts of cotton picked per male and female field slave.

John Ramsey Papers, 1834-1885. 35 Items And 5 Volumes. Seaboard, North Carolina.

Account books kept by white farmer and merchant which contain extensive and detailed records of Ramsey's dealings with his hired laborers, many of whom, if not all, were black. Records of cotton picked are listed by name, and document gender similarities and differences in work patterns.

Rockingham Plantation Journal, 1828-1829. 1 Volume. Brunson, South Carolina.

Daily record of work done by slaves from 2/7/1828-7/13/1829. The owner notes which slaves are doing which job each day, who is out sick, and who has run away. The journal is a good illustration of what jobs were done by whom on a medium sized plantation.

William Slade Papers, 1751-1929. 2,750 Items And 32 Volumes. North Carolina.

Personal correspondence and business records of a prominent eastern North Carolina farm family chiefly valuable of social history and a picture of ante-bellum family and plantation life. Includes several slave lists, including prices at which each were bought and sold.

Washington M. Smith Papers, 1831-1916. 8,578 Items. Selma, Alabama.

Papers of a lawyer, banking specialist, and planter who owned quite a few slaves contain a number of receipts for purchase and sale, as well as accounts for their upkeep and doctor bills. Letters from his wife relate to incidents of runaways slaves and reveals her bitterness towards abolitionists who she felt were responsible.

St. Paul's Church Record Book, 1909-1959. 1 Volume. Rockingham Co., North Carolina.

Records, primarily 1909-1912 and 1932-1939, of former black Methodist Episcopal Church includes lists of members, financial accounts, and memoranda on church and Sunday school services.

Virginia. Campbell County Clerk Register Of Negroes, 1801-1850. 1 Volume. Campbell County, Virginia.

Photocopy of a register kept by the clerk of the Campbell County Court (1801-1850), listing the names of free Afro-Americans in the county and giving their name, age, height, complexion, and where and by whom emancipated.

Joseph Westmoreland Papers, 1780-1865. 1 Volume. Edenton, North Carolina.

Journal of a white merchant's business accounts concerning vessels and cargoes trading on the eastern coast of the United States, the West Indies, Europe, and the Canary Islands. There are entries for the selling, hiring and activities of slaves, usually specified by name. In addition there are household accounts kept by a woman for the issuance of cotton, wool and cows hair to slaves and neighbors for spinning, weaving, and knitting cloth.