Slavery-related Documents, 1752-1877 and undated

Correspondence, slave deeds, legal and financial records, broadsides, manumissions, bounties for military service of enslaved people, petitions for freedom, travel permits, certificates or affidavits of freedom, inventories of enslaved people, and reports relating to individual enslaved people and enslavers particularly in the state of Maryland. Among the topics covered in the records are: runaway enslaved people; various legal cases involving enslaved people; manumissions; sale of enslaved people; opinions on slavery and abolition; military service of enslaved people; the Fugitive Slave Act; hiring of enslaved people; histories of the slave trade; and a secret society of Negroes called the Free Masons. Prominent individuals mentioned in the records include Augustus W. Bradford, John Pendleton Kennedy, and Charles Benedict Calvert.