Skip to content
MyData Login
 

Description & Citation--Study No. 3464

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:3464
 
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03464
 
Title:New Orleans Slave Sample, 1804-1862 [Instructional Materials]
 
Principal Investigator(s):James W. Oberly, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Department of History
 
Funding Agency:University of Wisconsin. Office of Instructional Development.
 
Bibliographic Citation:Oberly, James W. New Orleans Slave Sample, 1804-1862 [Instructional Materials] [Computer File]. ICPSR03464-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002-11-27.
 

Scope of Study

Summary:These instructional materials were prepared for use with NEW ORLEANS SLAVE SALE SAMPLE, 1804-1862 (ICPSR 7423), compiled by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman. The data file (an SPSS portable file) and accompanying documentation are provided to assist educators in instructing students about the economics of slavery and the lives of the people recorded in the slave market. An instructor's handout is also included. This handout contains the following sections, among others: (1) general goals for student analysis of quantitative datasets, (2) specific goals in studying this dataset, (3) suggested appropriate courses for use of the dataset, (4) tips for using the dataset, and (5) related secondary source readings. The dataset includes data on slave sales that occurred on the New Orleans slave market between 1804-1862. For each sale, information was recorded on the date of the sale, the number of slaves on the invoice, the geographical origin of the buyer and seller, the sale price, and characteristics of the slaves sold (age, sex, family relationship, and occupation). The information presented for each transaction was obtained from the notarized bills of sale in the New Orleans Notarial Archival Office. These bills often contained information on several persons who were sold in a group or as a "lot." Whenever feasible, sale and personal characteristics of individuals appearing in such groups were entered on separate records. This was usually done when separate sale prices were recorded for each member of the group. When separate prices were not recorded for children sold in a group, information describing those children was attached to the record of a principal slave with whom they were associated on the original bill of sale.
 
Subject Term(s):African Americans, instructional materials, nineteenth century, slave labor, slave ownership, slave populations, slave sales, slavery
 
Geographic Coverage:antebellum South, Louisiana, New Orleans
 
Time Period:1804 - 1862
 
Date(s) of Collection:1989 - 2002
 
Universe:Slave sales on the New Orleans slave market between 1804-1862.
 
Data Type:administrative records data
 
Data Collection Notes:(1) This collection is part of SIMI (Site for Instructional Materials and Information), (link) an ICPSR initiative to promote the use of social science data in undergraduate education through the sharing of faculty-submitted ICPSR data-based instructional materials developed for classroom use. (2) These materials were designed for use with the dataset NEW ORLEANS SLAVE SALE SAMPLE, 1804-1862 (ICPSR 7423) (link). (3) The data are provided as an SPSS portable file, which was created from the ASCII data and SPSS data definition statement files available from ICPSR 7423. (4) The codebook and handout files are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document (PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using the PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
 

Methodology

Sample:Depending on the period of the sale transaction, either 2.5 percent or 5 percent of the bills of sale for each year were drawn to form the final sample.
 
Data Source:notarized bills of sale stored in the New Orleans Notarial Archival Office
 

Access and Availability

Note:A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.
 
Original ICPSR Release:2002-11-27
 
Dataset(s):
  • DS1: New Orleans Slave Sample, 1804-1862 [Instructional Materials]
 

^ top of page