Online catalogues
The NRS online catalogue contains many detailed entries at item level, and it is possible to search it using terms such as ‘slave’ and ‘slavery’, and by the name of a plantation or plantation owner. It is less likely to yield information on enslaved individuals and former enslaved individuals unless they became well-known.
The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) online catalogue contains summary details of collections of records in more than 50 Scottish archives. Again this might be useful for searching for records of plantations and their owners, but not many other aspects of slavery. The SCAN website also contains the exhibition Slavery and Glasgow, which displays images of many of the types of material covered by this guide.
The online register of the National Register of Archives for Scotland (NRAS) is a catalogue of records held privately in Scotland.
United Kingdom government sources
Acts, statutes and slave registers
The Act of 1807 only abolished the transatlantic slave trade (the shipping of enslaved people from Africa to the colonies in the Americas). The sale and transport of enslaved people between colonies were not affected by this legislation. Moreover, in spite of the new law, the slave trade across the Atlantic continued illicitly. In response to this, the British government passed a Bill in 1815, requiring the registration of legally-purchased slaves in the colonies. The system of slave registration was gradually introduced by 1817. The registers are an excellent source for researching enslaved individuals. The amount of detail they give varies, but you can generally expect to find the enslaver’s name, the enslaved person’s name, age, country of birth, occupation and further remarks. You should be aware when studying these records that there was some opposition to the registration bill among enslavers, so the registers are not complete. The NRS does not hold slave registers. For most former colonies, you will need to contact the respective national archive services.
In 1816, another Act came into force, requiring an annual return of the enslaved population in each colony. The returns were obtained by parish and normally record the enslaver’s name and the number of male and female enslaved people in their possession; they do not normally include the enslaved person’s names. These records are a good source for identifying individual enslavers. Returns were taken until 1834.
During the 1820s, the British government began to make provisions for the gradual amelioration of slavery. This development towards its complete abolition in the British colonies is well documented in private and business letters from enslavers as well as speeches and pamphlets by abolitionists (see under 'the abolition movement' above). The new measures imposed by the government included Acts for the ‘government and protection of the slave population’, passed between 1826 and 1830. These Acts addressed topics such as minimum standards for food and clothing, labour conditions, penal measures and provisions for old and sick enslaved individuals. In Jamaica, enslaved persons could no longer be separated from their families, and released enslaved people were allowed to own personal property and to receive bequests. Murder of an enslaved person was to be punished with death. In Barbados, owners were instructed to have all their enslaved individuals baptised and clergymen were required to record births, baptisms, marriages and deaths occurring in the enslaved population. Enslaved people charged with capital offences were to be tried in court in the same way as white and free-coloured persons. In Grenada, every enslaved individual was to be given a proportion of land adequate to their support and be granted 28 working days per year to cultivate it. In Antigua, enslavers were required to build a two-roomed house for every enslaved female pregnant with her first child. A printed abstract of these Acts is held within a private collection (NRS reference GD142/57). For further information see the Parliamentary Archives website.
Manumissions
Occasionally, enslavers would decide to release some of their enslaved people. The release was formalised through a ‘manumission’ (a document granting the enslaved person his or her freedom). Manumissions are contained within the papers of the Colonial Office and Foreign Office, held at The National Archives (TNA). For more details of these and the records of the Office of the Registry of Colonial Slaves and Slave Compensation Commission, 1812-1851, including the central register of slaves in London, see the research guides on the slave trade on The National Archives website.
There are also some individual manumissions contained in estate papers held privately in Scotland. To search these and to find out more about how to access them, see National Register of Archives for Scotland online register.
Websites and bibliography
Websites
Books
- Eric J Graham, A Maritime History of Scotland 1650-1790 (Tuckwell Press, 2002)
- Eric J Graham, Seawolves: Pirates and the Scots (Birlinn Ltd, 2007)
- David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785, (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
- Alan L Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740-1800 (Cornell University Press, 1992)
- Kenneth Morgan, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
- Iain Whyte, Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756-1838 (Edinburgh University Press, 2006)
- Frances Wilkins, Dumfries and Galloway and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Wyre Forest Press, 2007)
