The current SLIDE database is only a fledgling version of the database we intend to create. We are prioritizing sources to add to SLIDE and working to develop ways to identify linkages among people referenced across separate datasets.
Preparing these databases typically involves 1) creating typed transcriptions of handwritten documents; 2) double-checking transcriptions; 3) tabularizing data from the transcriptions into a spreadsheet; 4) double-checking formatted spreadsheets; 5) integrating the data into the SLIDE database. In the future we hope to obtain and incorporate data from records such as:
- US Census Records for St. Louis County for 1830 and 1840. This is an area of active development.
- Adding enslaved people documented in US Census mortality schedules
- Adding St. Louis Probate Court orders to hire enslaved people.
- Inclusion of the St. Louis Circuit Court Records Freedom Suits Database. This integration would effect a significant growth of personal information about the individuals in our database, as Freedom suits often contain testimony about the lives of the individuals involved.
- Encoding of Freedmen’s Bureau as relevant to St. Louis County.
- St. Louis City and County Census Records on file at the Missouri State Historical Society, including the 1845 St. Louis City Census, and two volumes of the 1840 MO State Census here and here. Thanks to Dennis Northcott, Associate Archivist for Records at the Missouri Historical Society, for these important leads.
- Missouri newspaper advertisements for the capture of people who attempted to seek freedom from enslavement.
More aspirational:
- Collaborative expansion to neighboring counties in Missouri, especially along the Missouri River and down the Mississippi River.
- Adding “Slave Narratives” from the Federal Writer’s Project in Missouri