Through the Lens of Data:
The Enslaved People Owned and Sold by the Maryland Province Jesuits
Sharon M. Leon
@sharonmleon
Loyola University | February 22, 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)
Thomas Mulledy
The Hawkins Family
Jesuit Plantation Project
slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu
Working with the Data of Slavery
The Enslaved Group
- 1,140 individuals owned by the Jesuits (1717-1840)
- 587 individuals with birth years
- 30 enslaved people owned by others
- 32 free Blacks
Relationships in the Records
- 108 inferred partnerships (216 individuals)
- 13 sacramental marriages
- 394 identified parental relationship
- 86 baptisms
- 141 births
- 57 deaths indicated
- 12 deaths with specific date
[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
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
Change over Place & Time
| Estate | Total Enslaved | Workers | Indoors | Fields | Child/Elderly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Inigoe's Manor | 20 | 12 | 3 | 9 | 8 |
| Newtown | 29 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 14 |
| St. Thomas's Manor | 38 | 21 | 3 | 18 | 17 |
| White Marsh | 65 | 29 | 3 | 26 | 36 |
| St. Joseph's Manor | 7 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| St. Marie's Manor | 7 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Bohemia Manor | 26 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 11 |
| Total | 192 | 101 | 17 | 84 | 91 |
George Hunter's 1765 Survey
Family Growth
Social Network Analysis ?
Questions about using SNA
- What does it mean to analyze a community that is bounded and has very little control over their inclusion/movement?
-
With a significantly incomplete data set, what is the threshold at which social network analysis is revealing?
-
What are the appropriate visualizations to provide an entry point to this medium-sized collection of data points?
Newtown Community
Social Network Analysis Measurements
- 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
| 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 |
Maybe Simple is Better
Freedom Status Transactions
What's Next?
- Everyday condition events
- Health and sickness events
- Labor events
- Transfers, runaways, and punishment events
- A narrative!