We welcome support for our project. Donations are tax-deductible and are spent for student assistantships and scholarships and for the costs of the website database technology.

You can donate online at the John Jay College Donation Page. Use the designation tab to dedicate your gift to the “New York Slavery Records Index.”

Larger Donations

We are already able to do some relatively simple research projects such as tracking slave ownership by members of the New York State Senate from 1790-1820, but as the database continues to grow, it will support more probing and informative research, which may warrant the participation of faculty with specialized skills and the involvement of students in more time-consuming field research activities. These research projects would position John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the forefront of information-based scholarship about slavery in New York and across the nation. Research questions could include:

• What is the general state of the records we have located, and what can be done to preserve them?
• Are there more record collections that we have not yet located and indexed? (We are sure there are!)
• What happened to the enslaved persons who emigrated to Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War?
• Can we identify more owners and investors for slaveships delivering enslaved people to New York?
• Why are their slave trade transaction records in the Louisiana Slave Trade Database for enslaved persons born in New York?
• What existing buildings in New York City and across the State were occupied by enslaved people?
• Can we document more instances of enslaved people in New York State being “sold south” when the eventual abolition of slavery in New York State was becoming more likely?

We also expect to receive requests for assistance from communities seeking to understand their records, and perhaps requests from other jurisdictions (other states) to replicate the project. Today, our small team is unable to respond to these requests.

Therefore, we would welcome substantial grants and gifts that support major projects and services and that might endow a fund for  permanent support of the project. You can reach is at nbenton@jjay.cuny.edu or jlpeters@jjay.cuny.edu.