The Bristol County Enslaved History Database

Historical Chronology

Please note that in the chronology of documentation, up until 1752 the New Year did not begin until March 25th. For those with multiple documents pre-1752,  they will be organized accordingly. 

Understanding the database tagging system

Names are a unique thing to have and as we built this website and databases, they were something we considered carefully. Of the 491 enslaved currently identified, only 130 appear by name. For those enslaved, the names they were known by -if they were documented by name- were not necessarily those they were born with or would have chosen for themselves and were often forced upon them by their enslaver. However, in many instances, this is how they were recorded in the historical record and how they have become known within the historical narrative.  If the enslaved individual was not documented by name but rather by race, they are noted as such. With respect to this, I am currently working to design a tagging system that holds their place in time and history without further stripping them of their identity and without further centering their enslaver. In the event that we do uncover further information in which they were named, we will update the database accordingly. 

Since 2021, I conducted extensive primary source research into the history of enslavement within Bristol, RI and have, to date, identified a total of 491 enslaved or likely enslaved African, African-American, and Indigenous People who lived in Bristol between 1680 and 1808. During this period, more than 104 families, including judges, farmers, captains, merchants, and members pivotal to the town’s founding, owned enslaved people. The earliest document located so far dates to 1689 - a mere nine years after the founding of the town - when the inventory of the estate of Capt. Nathan Hayman valued “his negro woman” at £12. My research has made it clear that Bristol’s involvement in the business of slavery and human trafficking was far more extensive that of the entire DeWolf family - the one family openly discussed in relation to Bristol and its history of enslavement. 

With funding from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and with support from The Bristol Historical & Preservation Society, among other groups, this data was compiled into The Bristol Timeline of Enslavement, a fabric banner spanning 56 feet that named each enslaved or likely enslaved individual to create a visual record of each individual identified in Bristol’s recorded history. Though the timeline presented an impactful and physically interactive dataset, I felt that more could be done outside of locating and proverbially reshelving the data. Thus, I created the Bristol County Enslaved History Database. As of May 2024, it currently holds 1,200 entries and includes transcriptions of primary source documents.

The intention of the database is not to tell one's story but rather to present the facts and proof of their existence. Each entry is tagged for the individual and, for those with multiple entries, organized chronologically, so as to allow one 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.