![]() ![]() Sale of "a certain Negro man named Charles" to Aaron Lopez from Joseph Holloway of Exeter and Lopez's transfer of Charles to Capt. Lopez's daybook includes record of receipt of payments which occasionally list the goods as being delivered by a "negro boy." This guide should be considered a working draft. Dates following a person's name and in parentheses are birth and death dates. The dates following the collection name indicate the span of years the collection encompasses. The "MSS" number is the catalog number, which should help the staff locate the original document. When papers are part of the miscellaneous manuscripts collection the name is written last name, first name. The guide is laid out alphabetically by collection name, using the last name when it is the collection of a family or an individual. Those documents may have been miscataloged in the intervening years, or perhaps some of the original descriptions were inaccurate. In a few cases, she was unable to find the document that Kemble referred to, which is noted in the text. In 1998, Amy Lappin attempted to track down each of these documents, and record its proper current catalog number. Many of these early references are now difficult to find because the documents have been recataloged. Harold Kemble began assembling these notes in the 1980s, and subsequent staff have expanded upon his work. Essentially, the Manuscripts Division staff has taken note of anything relating to people of color that they noticed in the course of their work, and collected these notes in a single document. These sources have not been gleaned in an systematic manner. These sources include references to individuals identified as being of African, American Indian or Asian descent, as well as general discussions of broader topics such as slavery or racial discrimination. Manuscripts Division relating to people of color. This guide describes a variety of sources in the R.I.H.S. Many thousands of passing references in account books, court records, letters and diaries are waiting for careful interpretation by the historian. In some ways, however, these stories can be told through the distorting lens of the records left by the ruling classes. No diaries of Rhode Island slaves are known to survive, if they ever existed at all. Researchers looking for the diaries and memoirs left by the early Narragansett people will be disappointed. Those on the outside are less likely to be literate, less likely to leave a written record, and much less likely to pass down that written record through several generations. The ruling classes leave behind great masses of letters, diaries, business records, books, and newspapers, and store them in their sturdy attics and counting houses for the benefit of future generations. The historical study of marginalized groups always presents a challenge to the researcher. Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island Historical Society Relating to People of Color ![]()
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