I'm sure that Florence is right, but if one gets a copy of the 1810 U. S. Census form from ancestry.com, it shows two columns after "free white females", the first being "all other free white persons" and the next is "slaves". Those columns don't show up in the actual census records for Dartmouth. As Florence noted, there is only one column after the females columns, that being for the total number of persons in the household. I wondered if Charlie meant Bristol Co. RI (it was on RIGENWEB where slavery was the topic of discussion), but I found only a Rufus Hunter listed there--no Alexander. Jim Bullock Littleton, CO -----Original Message----- From: Florence Gargaro [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 9:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MABRISTO] Slavery in 1810 census At 10:30 AM 12/28/02 -0500, you wrote: >On the R.I. list, Slavery seems to be the topic of the day. This >brought to mind that on the 1810 Bristol Co. Census, my g g g >grandfather Alexander HUNTER was listed as owning 4 slaves. Quite >certain he was not a wealthy person. Is it possible he inherited these >slaves?? If so would this be recorded somewhere as public record??? >Thanks Slavery was abolished in 1783 in MA - and I believe you may have misread the census for 1810. If your Alexander Hunter is the one in Dartmouth, the entry for him shows one male under 10, one male 16 to 25, one male 45 and over, and one female 45 and over. The final column on that census is not slaves, but was used to list the total number of individuals in the household - in this case, four. Similarly, in 1820, if you check the headings for the columns, you will find the section for slaves shown on the standard forms for 1820 do not appear in the Dartmouth MA census - that section was omitted, and the column after persons engaged in manufacture was the first column for free colored males. Not every town has a header, but those that don't have one still had no columns for slaves, since slave ownership was not legal in MA at that time. Florence

At 03:26 PM 12/28/02 -0700, you wrote: >I'm sure that Florence is right, but if one gets a copy of the 1810 U. S. >Census form from ancestry.com, it shows two columns after "free white >females", the first being "all other free white persons" and the next is >"slaves". Those columns don't show up in the actual census records for >Dartmouth. Part of the problem is that Dartmouth had no headings for the columns. However, New Bedford did have a column heading "Total" for the rightmost column, and at the bottom of the page for New Bedford, the enumerator mentions that his district consisted of New Bedford and Dartmouth. This would not be obvious without looking beyond Dartmouth for the column heading information. Not every town in Bristol county included a column with totals per residence - some kept the original form - with the column for slaves and just left it blank. The 1820 census according to Ancestry's form - and other descriptions, has 8 columns for slaves. That is followed by 8 columns for free colored persons. In some states the slave columns were used - but in all the images I checked for MA and NH, the 8 columns for slaves were not included, and the 8 columns for free colored persons replaced them. I'm glad Charlie asked the question, or I would not have realized that the Ancestry forms don't always accurately depict the columns that were on the actual images. It's a good lesson learned! Florence