Good Morning everyone,

In case you missed it, the Virginian-Pilot ran an article on the multi-year transcription project between Sargeant Memorial Collection with Norfolk Public Library and Roadstead Montessori High School (Norfolk).  We have been transcribing the surviving slave ship manifests filed at New Orleans' Customhouse for shipments originating from Norfolk.  There were roughly 21,000 enslaved sent from Norfolk from this region between 1819-1852.  Roughly 16,000 were sent from Norfolk and about 5,000 slaves were sent from Hampton (Hampton was part of the Norfolk & Portsmouth District for US Customs).   In comparison, 12,400 came from Baltimore; Richmond sent about 8,300; and Alexandria sent over 5,300 to New Orleans by ship.

Based on the surviving manifests, there were at least 250 recorded voyages from Norfolk to New Orleans.  A lot of these voyages originated in Richmond, Petersburg, Alexandria, etc.; however, they stopped in Norfolk for additional slaves.

https://www.pilotonline.com/history/vp-nw-bhm-norfolk-slave-trade-20220218-kqpzqfp2mvasjdyh6dunj3st2m-story.html

In conjunction with the research into the slave voyages from Norfolk, we have been seeking out and transcribing newspaper items published in the local Norfolk newspapers.   Those items tend to be advertisements for purchasing slaves, runaway slave ads, ads by Norfolk slave traders, ships used in the slave trade, and American Colonization Society to name a few.   They have been digitized, transcribed, and are going up in our digital library.   This project is

Domestic Slave Trade in Norfolk Newspapers, 1800-1862
https://cdm15987.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/dstnorf

Flight to Freedom - Runaway Slave Ads and ACS Ads in Norfolk Newspapers
https://cdm15987.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ftfnfnws

Finally we have a parallel indexing/abstracting project going here at Sargeant Memorial Collection with Norfolk Public Library as well.  It is called "Sold Down River."  NSU and ODU students have been searching and indexing the Orleans Parish's notary public records for transactions of individuals and firms connected to Norfolk's domestic slave trade.  The two goals of the project is to create a dataset for historians to use to further their research into the Domestic Slave Trade and give genealogists another tool that should make it a bit easier to trace their Upper South born enslaved ancestors who lived in the Deep South back to the Upper South.  The first phase of this project is to just index/abstract the transactions.  The second phase of the project will look to make connections between the transcriptions of the slave ship manifests and the notary public transactions.

Sincerely,

Troy


Troy Valos, MA, MSIS

Special Collections & Supervising Librarian

Sargeant Memorial Collection

Norfolk Public Library



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