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