Curacao Slave register Dataset Version 1.0

The Curaçao colonial administration began keeping track of slaves at the beginning of 1839. This so-called slave record was maintained until 1863, when slavery was abolished. All owners were obliged to register the name, gender, year of birth and name of the mother of the people in their property. Furthermore, all changes had to be registered: birth, death, sale, release and the import and export of people in Curaçao. This resulted in a closed registration: as long as someone was alive and in slavery, this person could be followed in the slave registers. In total, the slave registers of Curaçao consist of eight books, with a total of 1,070 folios (pages). The registers consist of 21,515 entries for 13,062 unique individuals. Absent from the registers are governmental owned enslaved persons. This encompasses maybe a few tens to a hundred individuals in Curaçao. Furthermore, as enslaved persons were not permitted to marry and hence are legally fatherless, the name of the father is missing in all slave registry. This document provides an overview of the construction of the Curaçao slave registers database and the variables therein. A quick summary of the variables is given first. An detailed description of the variables is provided in the appendices, which is then followed by an explanation of how the variables were created.

Curacao Slave register Dataset Version 1.0

The Curaçao colonial administration began keeping track of slaves at the beginning of 1839. This so-called slave record was maintained until 1863, when slavery was abolished. All owners were obliged to register the name, gender, year of birth and name of the mother of the people in their property. Furthermore, all changes had to be registered: birth, death, sale, release and the import and export of people in Curaçao. This resulted in a closed registration: as long as someone was alive and in slavery, this person could be followed in the slave registers. In total, the slave registers of Curaçao consist of eight books, with a total of 1,070 folios (pages). The registers consist of 21,515 entries for 13,062 unique individuals. Absent from the registers are governmental owned enslaved persons. This encompasses maybe a few tens to a hundred individuals in Curaçao. Furthermore, as enslaved persons were not permitted to marry and hence are legally fatherless, the name of the father is missing in all slave registry. This document provides an overview of the construction of the Curaçao slave registers database and the variables therein. A quick summary of the variables is given first. An detailed description of the variables is provided in the appendices, which is then followed by an explanation of how the variables were created.