Voices from the NHS Archives: Records of Enslaved, Free, and Manumitted People of Color and Enslavers in Newport, Rhode Island

Dataset CreatorsKaela Bleho, Newport Historical SocietyZoe Hume, Florida State UniversityThis dataset contains records for over 7,019 people of African and Indigenous descent who were connected to Newport, Rhode Island, and the surrounding area—either through their presence in the town or through their enslavement and transport on voyages funded by Newport merchants—between 1663 and 1865. Approximately 27 percent (1,892) of these records include a name. The majority of the people of color in the dataset are “unidentified”; their names were once known, but are currently obscured by an incomplete historical record and the biases of historical record-keepers. The dataset also contains 2,128 records for people identified as white, who are included on the basis of their mutual association in Event records with people of color or through their own apprenticeship or indenture. A further 38 people whose race is unclear from context have also been included.White enslavers trafficked ten to fifteen million enslaved Africans to the Americas between 1650 and 1860;1 roughly 60 percent of voyages originating in North America started in Rhode Island.2 By 1774, the town of Newport was an established and prosperous regional trade center, standing as one of the five major colonial ports.3 At this time, over 9,200 people lived in Newport, and over one third of Newport’s white-led households contained at least one person of color.4 Approximately 13% of the town’s population was of African descent. The number of African-born Newporters was fairly high and was likely at its highest between 1751 and 1775. More than two thirds of the gravemarkers that contain African names in Newport’s Common Burying Ground predate 1775, and Rhode Island slave traders trafficked more than twice the number of enslaved Africans than all other colonies combined between 1751 and 1775, at which time the Rhode Island General Assembly’s partial ban on the import of enslaved Africans would have taken effect.5 Without an official accounting of Rhode Island and Newport’s African-born population, it is impossible to know the demographics with certainty, yet some estimate that as much as 75% of New England’s Black community during this period was African-born.6Newport was incorporated in 1639, and for the following two hundred years slavery was legal in the Colony of Rhode Island to varying degrees.7 The 1830 United States Census, the last federal census that documents the presence of people enslaved in Newport, shows four enslaved people in the town and 444 free people of color.8 However, it was not until 1842 that the constitution of Rhode Island officially made slavery illegal in the state.9 The records in this dataset encompass legalized slavery in Rhode Island as well as the generation that followed, thereby including data on enslaved and free people of color between roughly 1663 and 1865.Efforts to study African and Indigenous-descended groups in Newport during this period, enslaved, indentured, and free, have been hampered by seemingly insurmountable gaps in archival records that obscure the identities and personal histories of these peoples. The “brick wall of enslavement” is a particularly challenging obstacle for Black and African American families seeking the stories of their ancestors pre-Reconstruction.10 The 1870 census was the first federal census that recorded all people of African descent by name. Before 1850, census takers only recorded the names of the head of a household, which at times was a person of color; however, these documented individuals were free people, leaving any unfree person or those who were not the head of their own household out of the census records. As a result, the names of most people of color were omitted and replaced by numbers in household counts.11This pattern of erasure is also present in other historical documents from the collection of the Newport Historical Society, such as ship manifests12 wherein slave traders rarely recorded more than the number and sex of the enslaved people they abducted. In other documents used to build genealogies and study community demographics, such as church and medical records, enslaved people might only be referred to by their enslaver’s surname or simply by their sex. These erasures in historical documents are often then reproduced by memory workers. Some historians and genealogists transcribing these materials historically omitted the names or other identifying information for Black people. For example, John R. Bartlett’s 1858 transcription of the 1774 Census of the Inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island elided the age and sex information for Black and Indigenous people that had been included in the original document, while retaining that information for white people. Reprints of this deficient transcription are still in circulation. Furthermore, this violence is not always intentional. Minimal processing helps archivists move through significant backlogs and ensure increased access to more records, but the emphasis on product over process can lead to the obfuscation of records that might reveal a wealth of marginalized voices.13By combing through the archives and cross-referencing documents to build this dataset, we have begun to re-identify some of the people that enslavers kept in bondage to enrich themselves. For example, on the 1774 census two enslaved Black men above the age of sixteen were recorded in the household of Philip Wanton.14 After adding the manumission records of the Religious Society of Friends to the database, one of our researchers was able to determine the two enslaved men were most likely Prince and Pero, enslaved men manumitted by Philip Wanton on August 17, 1775.15 This work demonstrates the immense potential of databases that collate archival data in relation to historically marginalized people.Research in the Newport Historical Society’s archives has recovered 6,304 people identified as Black (1,810 named), 137 people identified as Indigenous (57 named), and 70 people identified as multiracial (14 named). A further 508 people have been identified as people of color with no clear race defined, 11 of whom were recorded with their names.Of the 1,892 people of color identified in this dataset by name, 1,476 (78%) are recorded with their first and last name, whereas 416 (22%) are identified by their forename only. Such statistics highlight the system in Newport of enslavers assigning their own surnames to the people they enslaved, a practice that begs comparison to naming conventions for the enslaved beyond New England. In some cases freed Africans in Newport chose their own surnames, as was the case for Arthur Tikey (also known as Arthur Flagg) and Occramer Marycoo (also known as Newport Gardner). Names that have been identified by researchers as “chosen” or “restored” are recorded in the database as “preferred labels,” to position them hierarchically above names assigned by enslavers (when relevant, those are retained in the dataset as “non-preferred labels” to promote searchability). Naming conventions are explored further in the Methodology section below. Within the dataset, 443 named people of color have been identified as enslaved, formerly enslaved, or indentured (a further 4,134 unidentified people of color fall into the same category). 627 named people of color (355 unnamed) are identified as “free” (primarily through census records) with no indication recovered to date of their former enslavement. There are 820 named people of color (and 638 unidentified people) whose freedom/enslavement status is unclear.Of the people of color in this dataset, 1,361 are female (688 identified by name) and 2,482 are male (1098 identified by name). This distribution of gender (roughly 35% female and 65% male) does not align with current understanding of demographics for people of color in eighteenth-century Newport. The 1774 Colony of Rhode Island Census includes 670 Black and Indigenous males, relatively balanced with the female population of 622 people. This highlights a notable bias against women in the written record.Data on enslaved, free, and persons of liminal status were drawn from a broad range of archival documents in the collection of the Newport Historical Society. Materials include records from six religious groups, early colony censuses, family papers, merchants’ records, institutional records from Black-led organizations, legal and land evidence documents, and ship logs, among others. For a more detailed description of these sources, a Database Guide has been embedded on the project site under the heading “About This Project” (V4 is accessible online here: https://newporthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Voices-from-the-NHS-Archives-Guide_V4.pdf).2021-2025EnglishAfricaEuropeNorth AmericaSouth America and Caribbean1663-1865Administrative and Business RecordsAppraisal or AssessmentAuction or Sale NoticeBill of Sale or ReceiptCemetery Marker or DocumentsCensus or RegisterCivil or Municipal DocumentsContractCriminal DocumentsDeath or Burial DocumentDigital Data RepositoryFreedom or Emancipation DocumentsFreedom SuitIndenturesInstitutional RecordsInventory or Probate RecordsLegal contract (Bond, Mortgage, Land Transaction)Legislation or DecreeLetterLife History or NarrativeMedical RecordMembership ListNewspaperPetitionRunaway AdvertisementSacramental or Religious RegistrySecondary SourceShip Registry, Log or ManifestTax RecordWill and TestamentNewport Historical Society manuscript archiveStaff at the Newport Historical Society (NHS) digitized over 5,600 pages of source material, and from 2021 to 2025, worked with over a dozen researchers to review the documents, both remotely and in-person, and record the data. This work was driven by an ongoing research and accessibility initiative, Voices from the NHS Archive, which emphasizes the stories and histories of Black and Indigenous Newporters.The dataset was originally organized through a spreadsheet system that adapted data fields and controlled vocabularies from Enslaved.org. The dataset contains Entity (person), Event, and Source sheets, as well as location data. Person records are each assigned a unique five digit numeric ID starting with “E.” These records include seven fields (excluding source information): name, sex, birth and death dates, occupation, race, and freedom status. Interstitial data that defines relationships between people (familial connections, and employment or enslavement relationships) are also recorded.Event records, each with a 5 digit numeric ID number starting with “EV,” include an event name, date, type (defined using Enslaved.org’s controlled vocabulary), and description. Events are linked to Person records, Source records, and geographic locations (by town, county, and country, as applicable). Each person associated with an Event is assigned a defined “role.” The event types established by Enslaved.org included in this dataset are Appraisal, Baptism, Birth, Burial, Death, Disappearance, Disembarkation, Education, Emancipation or Manumission, Embarkation, Employment, Apprenticeship, or Indenture, Enslavement, Legal Proceedings, Marriage, Membership, Military Service, Narrative, Registry, Relocation, Residence, Sale, Trade, Voyage, and Mention.As the data recording process progressed, researchers noted the need for additional data fields and vocabulary terms beyond those outlined by Enslaved.org. For example, a “vessels” record type was created to track ships associated with Voyage Events. Person records were expanded to include organizations, thereby providing a way to indicate when organizations enslaved people rather than an individual. Event types unique to this dataset are Bond, Mortgage or Land Agreement; Custom; Institutional Minutes; Lease or Loan of Enslaved Person; Medical; Receipt of Funds; and Self Purchase or Purchase by Relatives.There are 9,131 total “entity” records in the dataset; entities are the people or organizations —including enslaved, manumitted, and free people of African and Indigenous descent, enslavers, and slave traders—recorded within the source material. Most of these records (approximately 99%) are for individuals, as opposed to organizations, though this number almost certainly contains duplicates. The duplicates not only stem from the presence of unidentified entities who may be represented by other entity IDs (but cannot be confirmed to be the same entity), but also named entities who cannot be equated with certainty. For example, if records such as the U.S. census suggest more than one person with the same name lived at the same time and no information in the source document could satisfactorily indicate which person the document referred to, then researchers would assign a unique entity ID. Though this creates the potential for duplicate entities, it reduces the possibility of conflating two or more people, thereby reinforcing erasure. In several instances, additional research has already led to the merging of entity records.Each person encountered in the source material has their forename and surname (if known) recorded in the dataset as their “preferred label,” which is the primary designation for that person. The source where that person was first encountered by researchers is recorded in an accompanying “name source” field. As spelling was fluid during the study period, and names of African and Indigenous origin were often recorded through an European ear and summarily anglicized, alternate spellings of names are recorded in “non-preferred label” fields. For example, Barre Collins appears as Barra, Barrier, or Barrey, sometimes with different spellings of his name in the same document. The preferred label for a given person may be the spelling of their name that most frequently occurs in source material, or how that person spelled their own name, if known (Barre, for example, is the spelling recorded in Barre Collins’s probate records,16 which he endorsed with his mark). Aliases are also cataloged as non-preferred labels. The retention of alternate spellings and aliases within one entity record promotes searchability and aids in the deduplication of entity records.As referenced earlier in this article, enslaved people in Newport were generally assigned the last name of their enslaver. If that is the only known surname for a given person, that is the surname recorded in the preferred label field. However, enslaved and free people also chose their own names, though enslaved people might have only used their chosen name secretly. Once freed, some African-born people, like Occramer Marycoo (Newport Gardner), reclaimed their birth names. In these instances, chosen or reclaimed names take the place of names in enslavement in the preferred label field, while former names are retained in the non-preferred label field.Most of the data (e.g., names, dates, and places) are transcribed verbatim in Event descriptions and Entity records. In controlled fields, such as Race, data are adapted according to the controlled vocabulary. In descriptive fields, data concerning events are paraphrased, except in instances in which a transcription is necessary to indicate historical trends, provide context, directly quote the author of the document, or in cases where the original context is unclear. For example, in a record documenting the disappearance of an enslaved man named Cuffy from the plantation of Abraham Redwood, Cuffy’s capture by “two white men belonging to Giles Blizard and William Blizard” was left in quotes as it is not explicitly clear if these white men are indentured, employees, or have some other relationships with the Blizards.17There is much debate in the field of reparative archival description and conscious editing about whether archivists should preserve original offensive language in their descriptive work as a means of preserving provenance or if doing so effectively perpetuates violent and oppressive legacies.18 Combining the use of quotes to identify that offensive language is original to the document with additional user guidance and warnings concerning offensive language is a proactive strategy for navigating the tension between censoring the past and reinscribing racist practices.19 The NHS strives to adopt this practice in this dataset and shares a warning about harmful terminology in its database.Reparative archival work, focused on records that minimized and erased BIPOC identities, can involve making assumptions and inferences about the entities in the dataset. When the sex of an individual was not explicitly clear in the document, researchers looked for other indicators of sex or gender, often inferring sex from the individual’s name. However, not all names lend themselves to these inferences, and in some cases no names were provided at all, leading researchers to populate the sex data field with: No Sex Recorded/Not Clear from Context. There are 3,850 people of color in the database with this designation, 107 of whom are recorded with a name. In instances where gender was recorded or indicated in a source document, that source is recorded within the “Gender” field of the dataset.Similar assumptions or inferences occurred when reporting the ages of individuals. If a specific age was not provided within a document, the type of document and the event it described could be used to infer the age of the participants. For example, marriage records are likely to feature adults, not children. When age ranges were defined in census documents, those were replicated in the age field for a given entity (for example, the 1782 Census of Rhode Island used age categories 0-15, 16-21, 22-50, and 50-100). Broader age categories used in this dataset are infant (0-2) child (3-15), adult (16-49), and older adult (50 and older). Age data can be complicated by the fact that enslavers often derogatorily refer to adult men and women as boys or girls in archival records. When age was defined for an individual, the source event was specified in the dataset, to indicate what age that person was at the time of a recorded event.In addition to assumptions about sex and age, this dataset includes assumptions about race. This dataset is made up of records wherein Black and Indigenous people are rarely, if ever, recorded as belonging to a particular ethnic group or tribe. Most of the time, they are identified according to the language of the time, which is now offensive and harmful. Too often, archives ask users to search for records according to these outdated descriptive practices.20 In an effort to avoid uncritically reproducing colonial categorizations, we created access points based on contemporary descriptors for racialized identities. Accordingly, racialized people are identified as Black, multiracial, or Native American in the dataset. Like other archivists, we struggled with the pragmatic archival convention of narrowly defining racial or ethnic identities in this way and the desire to be as descriptive as possible. There has been great progress made by and with communities (particularly Indigenous communities) to build more fluid and inclusive representations of ethnic identities in archives,21 and we hope future updates to the dataset will be able to better the and of record from the to in the NHS archives has the potential to contain information on enslaved and free people of color; for that this dataset will to as more of archival are digitized and NHS will to this dataset and will data updates to highlight the by which people and events have been Voices the NHS Data in History of and for in of