Presence and Absence with Derived Historical Data:

The Enslaved People Owned and Sold by the Maryland Province Jesuits

Sharon M. Leon

@sharonmleon

@ACHorg | July 26, 2019

all our married people who had married out of our farms, have been sold to the masters of their husbands or wifes, or to the next neighbors of them, so that husbands & wives are together, but some children who could not be sold with their mothers, have been sent with the others to Louisiana. There remain in our farms only few old people, well provided for their life times. So old Isaac remained at W. Marsh

Fidelis Grivel to Charles Lancaster, May 4, 1839

Old Isaac Remained

Isaac Hawkins Hall (Mulledy Hall)

The Hawkins Family

Jesuit Plantation Project

slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu

Working with the Data of Slavery

[1802 Dr St. Thomas's Manor in acct with Cash]
[1803]
[Jan]
26     To cash from Henny for 3 barrels corn @ $2   6.00  2.5.0
April 22    To Cash recd for sale of negro Constant, property of N.L. Sewall's estate  101.10.0

[opposite folio 1802 Contra Cr.]
[1803]
[Jan]
10    By do to do (the Taylor C. Layman) for making a servant's great coat  0.12.6
April 22  By Do [cash] to Mrs. Dorothy Digges for negro woman Jenny & her child  85.0.0

Derived data

  • Hand generated from document transcriptions
  • Individuals and relationships processed to People with Unique ID, and then de-dupped
  • Appearances processed to Events with participants
  • Event types: birth, baptism, marriage, death, inventory, health, sale, legal, labor, commerce, conditions, travel, punishment, run away
  • Imported to Omeka S to publish LOD

The Enslaved Group

  • 1,132 individuals owned by the Jesuits (1717-1840)
    • 598 individuals with birth years
  • 48 enslaved people owned by others
  • 34 free Blacks

Relationships in the Records

  • 108 inferred partnerships
    • 13 sacramental marriages
  • 400 identified parental relationship
    • 87 baptisms
    • 141 births
  • 56 deaths indicated
    • 26 deaths with specific date

Linked Open Data

  • Each entity has a unique resource identifier (URI)
  • Those URIs are served over the web
  • Descriptive data about those entities is served using standards
  • Those standards make that data interoperable and promote aggregation and integration of material across the web

Labor: Compelled & Compensated

Agricultural Labor

January 1792....
2. .... Cut out the Negroes Cloths, having got the cloth from the fuller only last Friday.....
N.B. Yesterday I engaged my overseer on a fixed yearly salary instead of a certain share of the crop, as he had hitherto been, according to the agreement with my predecessor.
3. (Tues.) Two hands cuttin stoks for the sawmill, the others husking corn.
7. (Sat.) Hands cutting wood.
9. (Mond.) Two hands cutting wood; the others husking corn. [continues through month and February]

Robert Molyneux, SJ, Bohemia Manor

Skilled Labor

  • Carpenters
  • Shoemakers
  • Blacksmith
  • Millers
  • Cook
  • Midwives

Wages for Additional Work

[May 1794]

29  By 1 pd brown sugar paid to Dick for his Ditching                                                   0.1.6

June 7  By 1 quart whiskey paid to George                                                                       0.1.4

16  By cash paid to Clement Wheeler for <strike>Lawyer's fee</strike> traveling         <strike>3.0.0 <strike>
        expenses against freedom of negros                                                                        1.2.6

July 5 By cash paid to Charles in full for his ditching                                                    0.18.11

[Aug]
8   By Cash paid to Jerry, Dick & George for ditching & c in full                             2.0.3 1/2
[Oct]
10  By cash pd to the midwife for Monica's childe                                                        0.15.0

St. Thomas's Manor Account Book

Labor: Motherwork & Family

Social Networks

  • Average Degree: Average number of connections
  • Density: Inclusiveness (total number of points minus the isolated ones) and the sum of the degrees of its points 
  • Average Path Length: average number of edges from one point to another

Social Network Analysis?

Place Average Degree Density Average Path
White Marsh + Fingale 1.775 0.006 1.987
St. Thomas + Port Tobacco 1.808 0.011 1.671
 
Newtown 2.317 0.012 4.061
St. Inigoes 0.409 0.002 1.619
Bohemia 0.49 0.005 1.107

Newtown Network

Life and Labor

Day to Day Moments

  • Life course events
  • Everyday condition events (food, clothing, trade)
  • Health and sickness events
  • Labor events
  • Travel events
  • Discipline and resistance events