The Bristol County Enslaved History Research Project seeks to situate previous research on enslavement in the town of Bristol, Rhode Island within the larger geographic locus of Bristol County, Massachusetts as it was defined in the 17th and 18th centuries when the towns of Bristol, Warren, and Barrington, Rhode Island were a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Since the start of my research in 2021, it has become clear that the geographical boundaries of the area that is now Southern Bristol County, MA, (Seekonk, Dighton, Rehoboth, Swansea, Somerset) and Bristol County, RI (Barrington, Warren, Bristol) were fluid, with enslaved people moving across changing town and state lines (East Providence, Barrington, Warren, and Bristol were moved from MA to RI in 1747). As such, many of the enslaved who lived within one of these towns also lived and labored in another, and/or were removed to yet another when bequeathed, sold, hired out, manumitted, or emancipated. Thus, it is imperative to analyze documents in both states. 

This research, combined with a general passion for genealogical work and innate curiosity, has sparked a strong commitment to making the information found widely available to others with similar interests, both academic and genealogical. By performing this research and compiling it into a database, I hope that my work can enable someone to find peace by connecting them to that small byte of information that settles a proverbial puzzle piece into place, personally or professionally. Whether it is the two-a.m. scholar or an undergraduate student working on their thesis, it is my goal to make this information as publicly available as possible to assist in the growth of the field and to help restore the historical and social narrative.

Please note that research is on-going and that the website may be updated periodically with new resources. 

Since 2021, extensive primary source research into the history of enslavement within Bristol, RI  has identified a total of 491 enslaved or likely enslaved African, African-American, and Indigenous People between 1680 and 1808, a period during which more than 104 families including judges, farmers, captains, merchants, and members pivotal to the town’s founding owned slaves. With the earliest document located to date dating to the 1689 inventory of the estate of Capt. Nathan Hayman, which valued “his negro woman” at £12 - a mere nine years after the founding of the town- it quickly became apparent that Bristol’s involvement in the business of slavery and human trafficking far surpassed the DeWolf family - the one family openly discussed in relation to Bristol and its history of enslavement. 

This data has since been presented as the Bristol Timeline of Enslavement, created in partnership with the Bristol Historical and Preservation Soceity, spanning 56 feet in a physical representation of each enslaved or likely enslaved individual, allowing the visualization of each individual identified in the recorded history at the first moment they appear in the written record. Though the timeline presented an impactful and physically interactive dataset, it was felt that there was more to be done outside of locating and proverbially reshelving the data. As such, the Bristol County Enslaved History Project Database was born-digital and, as of June 2023,  currently holds 1,197 entries in a twenty-four-factor base Airtable database that includes source transcriptions and images where possible. The database is a constant work-in-progress and is ever evolving. 

While this information has been gathered and compiled, it is not the intention to tell one's story but rather to present the facts and proof of their existence as they are currently known. Each entry is tagged for the individual and, for those with multiple entries, organized chronologically to allow us to follow them through time and, if possible, place. Originally ending in 1808 with the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, the database has grown to include those who were known to have been formerly enslaved and those within the ambiguous, legal gray area of servitude in the post-Gradual Emancipation North where their lives and labors were on their face that of enslavement but the language surrounding their existence was cloaked in the term “servant.” 

Research into the enslaved and practice of enslavement in Bristol, RI, and the larger Bristol County is ongoing and the database is subject to growth.

The Bristol, RI Enslaved & Free Person of Color Database