Slaves owned by more than one family will be duplicated?

Question

In my family tree, there are multiple slave owners that sold slaves multiple times. This was common for young children, or those who bucked the system, or if the owner died. So if you create “Sarah Johnson” age 3 because she was born on the Johnson plantation; then she is sold to punish her mother, so she winds up on the Smith plantation in a different state. Now she is 10, and hired out to the Landry family. Mr. Smith, the owner, dies, and Sarah, now 15, is sold to the Walker family, in yet another state. She is given to the teenage son, and bears several children. At any given point, if you don’t know the whole story, she might be created under several last names.

How do you prevent duplicates?

While this example might seem extreme, it is not that uncommon. If the slave was disabled, disfigured, or unable to work a full day for any reason, they might be sold quite often.

Answer 1

Hi Cindy - what Renee said is correct- basically we do our best and try to research the entire family, not just one individual at a time. In general, I think it's easier to merge duplicates than to de-conflate people. Part of the USBH's Heritage Exchange system includes the advice to not change the LNAB until it is certain it will be the final one. (see here) If you want to check out some of the plantation pages and how research can be recorded, here is the index, and here is an example I picked at random - Cherry Hill Plantation, Abbeville County, South Carolina  

Answer 2

I think all you can do is record what you know for each profile.  If all you know is Sarah Johnson age 3 ( in whatever year) add that.  If you add information about who the slaver owner was but you don't know any more about her, then hopefully if someone from the Smith side finds Sarah was purchased from a Johnson, they will find the profile for Sarah Johnson.  That is pretty much the best we can do.

Answer 3

Hi Cindy:

I've run across this situation too. It requires painstaking care (emphasis on pain). Enslaved people were often transferred from parent to child to grandchild, and elsewhere in a family. I had to track these many transfers in the family of Elisha Dodson Jr. Here's a link to his "Slaves of." page. You can click on just about any of the enslaved people and you will see how they were bounced around cruelly. A good example of how I tracked one particular female is in the profile for Peggy. In this case I used the FAN approach to research the entire family (white and Black) to outline Peggy's life.