About the Database of People Enslaved on Aruba 1840-1863
Please note:
The text below refers to the first (pre-April 2024) version of the Database of People Enslaved on Aruba 1840-1863. This page will be updated shortly, to reflect the features added in April 2024.
How can you view the results?
A search result screen appears after you enter a name. You can further refine these search results by choosing one of the following filters: (Slave) name, Event, Year of birth or Sex.
When you click on one of the results, a screen (index record) appears with information about the specified person. Below, under Scan and Scan 2, you will find links to scans of the archive document on which the information is based. When you click on the link, you can view and download the scan.
What information can you find in the index?
For every slave, you will find the index data such as name, gender, date of birth, mother name, profession, religion. You will also find information about events from the life of the slave (for example, changing owner). If there are multiple events in the life of a slave known (for example, sale and release), this person is more common in the index. There is also information about the slave owners (such as name and residence). Finally, references and links are included to one or two archival documents on which the data is based.
(Slave) name The name of the slave in slavery. It only contains a first name (or forenames), because slaves were not allowed to have a last name. Sometimes someone was known by a different name. In this case, this name is written by an a (alias).
Forenames The first name(s) given to the slave upon release. This information comes from a mission letter or from the emancipation register.
Last Name The last name the slave got on release. This information comes from a mission letter or from the emancipation register.
Date of birth The year of birth or the date of birth of the (former) slave. The year of birth was often an estimate for the elderly. Only the birth register, the civil registry records and parts of the emancipation register contain dates of birth. The death register sometimes shows the age in days, so the exact date of birth could be calculated.
Gender The sex of the (former) slaves.
Mother’s name at emancipation The name of the mother of the (former) slave.
Occupation The profession that the slave practiced, as mentioned in the borderelles in 1862.
Religion The faith of the (former) slave, as mentioned in the borderelles in 1862.
Belonging Slave-men could be privately owned or employed on a plantation. This field indicates that distinction. When slaves worked on a plantation, the name of the plantation was recorded in the broderel (and in the index). In the case of privately owned slaves, this index field contains the entry ‘Private’.
Event Life events are mentioned here that can be found in the archives. These include birth, death, manumission and emancipation. It may also contain information on how a slave was transferred to another owner (as listed in notarial archives), such as Donation, Import, Private sale, Public auction (vendu), Export and Inheritance. The transfer to another owner is also called ‘transport’. If the reason for transport is not known, the term Overwritten has been used
Event Date The day an event took place.
Note Remarks about a (former) slave in the sources. The comments may concern the ownership or sale of a slave. There may also be information about the time after Emancipation, for example about marriages and recognition of children. Information about the time after Emancipation comes from the Emancipation Register.
Owner old The name of the former owner of the slave. An attempt was made to make the names of the owners as complete as possible, so that they can be found in other archive sources.
Owner of old residence The residence of a former owner of the slave.
Note owner old Comments about a former owner of the slave.
Owner new The first name of the new owner of the slave, if the slave changed owner.
Owner of new residence The residence of the new owner of the slave, if the slave changed owner.
Owner comments new Comments on the new owner of the slave.
Source Entry A reference (link) to the inventory number and the archive where the information can be found.
Scan A link to the scan named in the “Source Reference” index field.
Archives elsewhere A reference (link) to the inventory number and the archive where the information can be found.
Scan 2 A link to the scan named at the bottom of the index field “Archives Elsewhere”.
What is the index based on?
The index Aruba: slavery and emancipation, 1840-1863 is a reconstruction of the slave Aruban population in the period 1840-1863. Although careful work has been done, it is inevitable that information will be lacking. Firstly, because part of the archival resources are not, or are no longer, fully present and, secondly, because there is no information about slaves who were temporarily in Aruba but formally living elsewhere.
In addition, the use of multiple archive sources increases the likelihood that names in those sources are written in different ways. Use spelling variants or wildcards when searching (see search tips).
Missing archive resources
A number of archival sources on slavery in Aruba have not yet been found, or have been lost. The main sources missing are:
a register of slaves;
Aruba’s Vendue Books for the period 1840-1863, which may include public auctions of slaves;
the principal tax register until 1845;
the “books of letters” of the Aruban administration from 1840 to 1855;
the registers of Curaçao from 1847.
Most of the missing information could be reconstructed from other sources, notably the notarial archive (protocol notarial) and the slave register of Curaçao. However, it is difficult to check whether these additions are complete without the original. This does not mean that these additions are necessarily incomplete. Just that we simply won’t know until the original is found. Some scans of the protocol notarial of 1848 are missing. As a result, some slaves and their life events remain anonymous.
License
The index Aruba: slavery and emancipation, 1840-1863 was made available by the Archivo Nacional Aruba (ANA) and the Stichting Historische Database Suriname en de Cariben (HDSC) under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 NL license (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Netherlands).
Colophon
The index Aruba: slavery and emancipation, 1840-1863 is the result of a collaboration between Raymond Hernandez of the Archivo Nacional Aruba and Coen van Galen of the Radboud University Nijmegen (on behalf of the Foundation Historical Database Suriname and the Caribbean), with support from the National Archives in The Hague.
The index is based on archival research and transcriptions by Rosa M. Arends (Archivo Nacional Aruba) and Wouter Raaijmakers (Radboud University) Nijmegen), with the support and advice of Edric Croes and Johny van Eerden (Archivo Nacional Aruba) and Peter Scholing (Biblioteca Nacional Aruba). The final index was compiled by Rosa M. Arends, Wouter Raaijmakers, Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge and Coen van Galen. The project has been made possible with the support of Radboud University, the Radboud Group for Historical Demography and Family History, the Stichting Historische Database Suriname en de Cariben (HDSC) and the Platform Digitale Infrastructuur Social Sciences & Humanities (PDI-SSH).
