Finding the Names — Installment 96 (Roll 12, 1848) — FREE

Finding the Names — Installment 96

New Orleans Inward Manifests, 1848

Roll 12, images 1–120

273 more entries, transcribed name by name from the National Archives' own scans of the original coastwise slave manifests filed at New Orleans — 268 of them named — on 52 documents. A new roll opens: the spring, summer and early autumn of 1848, when the great Baltimore brigs shared the river with little Gulf schooners carrying one, two, four people at a time.

Inside this installment:

• Patsy and Lulu, who crossed from Pensacola on the little schooner Martha with their residence entered as "On Board" — and the boarding officer's note across their manifest: "I have Inspected Lulu — Patsay I have not seen."

• Susan, 50, shipped alone from Baltimore on the barque E. H. Chapin under a term-service oath — a woman with a legal end to her enslavement, carried south anyway.

• The brig Union twice: 46 people in May, and 72 in October entered with full surnames, family by family — her inspector endorsing that he examined them "by calling each and all by Name."

• Rachael, entered as "Rachael & Infant" — the Balize boarding officer found her list correct "except one infant died on passage." Her baby died on the voyage from Baltimore.

• Charly, about 36, who has no manifest at all — only a deputy collector's handwritten certificate from Brazos St. Jago, Texas, and a New Orleans endorsement: "Examined and found Correct." That certificate is his whole record, printed as his entry.

• Jane, crossing from Savannah with four children no paper names — "Jane & Daughter" on one line, "Three Boys" on the next — each child given a row of their own, unnamed.

• Winney Barker, 47, carrying a full surname of her own on the table itself; Margaret, 25, with her four little children, two of them infants in arms; and Wilmina, 4, crossing alone, her owner's name read three ways — Glass, Buss, Wass — all three printed.

Every entry gives the name exactly as written, with sex, age, height, class as written, shipper/owner, and residence, plus the Roll 12 image number so anyone can check the entry against the original scan at the National Archives. Where a manifest and its certificate disagree, both readings are printed — nothing is guessed, and nobody is tidied away.

The free name-list CSV of all 273 entries is included with the book.

This is Installment 96 of Finding the Names, a free series transcribing the public records of America's coastwise slave trade, port by port and name by name, so descendants can find their people. Rolls 1–11 are complete; Roll 12 is under way. The whole project now stands at 60,899 entries. Free forever — please pass it on.

— Okey and Susan Barker, Trails End