Slave Rolls Project

Draft Dataset

The Slave Rolls Project is a geographic index of 5971 files digitized by the National Archives. Each file contains payrolls for impressed enslaved laborers forced to work for the Confederacy. Documents often contain the names of enslaved people forced to labor for the Confederacy. In addition to the labor of enslaved people it also details runaways, deaths, and other interesting details. Free people of color, impressed white laborers, payments for rent, and even Confederate soldiers appear on these pages as well.

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This index provides researchers a quick way to find those rolls that might be of use to their research. 

Hopefully this project will allow scholars to more easily incorporate the lives of enslaved people into their research no matter the topic or location they study. The collection is expansive covering all 11 states in the Confederacy as well as Kentucky, Maryland, and Pennsylvania so it should be of use to many scholars of the Civil War. Whether studying the Confederate military, or home front dissent this dataset may have something for you.

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Given the inclusion of the names of enslaved people, we also hope this may aid genealogists looking for information on their ancestors.

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This dataset remains a work in progress (and some features have been disabled). We are working to expand the features and search capability but did not want to wait to make this data available to scholars. Feel free to contact Dr. Domby for updates or if you find mistakes. We welcome feedback.