Beyond Property: Uncovering Enslaved People in Women’s Wills in Colonial Jamaica, 1661-1771

This dataset documents wills of several hundred women that were recorded in thirty-eight manuscript volumes between 1661 and 1771, housed at the Island Records Office (IRO) in Twickenham Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica. I devised a systematic approach for recording data that related to female colonists by entering them in a spreadsheet. I prioritized wills made by individuals with recognizably female names. Wanting to capture meaningful changes over time, I entered evidence from 741 documents created by women who either lived in Jamaica or who owned property on the island at the time of the will’s recording. Most of the documents (706) were created between 1665 and 1761. Facing time constraints, I then sampled an additional 35 female-authored wills made between 1770 and 1771.

本数据集收录了1661年至1771年间，被记录于现藏于牙买加圣凯瑟琳市特威克纳姆公园的岛屿档案办公室（Island Records Office, IRO）的38卷手稿卷宗中的数百份女性遗嘱。本数据集的编制者制定了一套系统化的记录方案，将涉及女性殖民者的相关档案数据录入电子表格进行整理，优先收录姓名可明确辨识为女性的立嘱者所留存的遗嘱。为捕捉不同历史时期的显著变化，本次共收录741份女性所立遗嘱的相关史料，这些立嘱者要么生前定居于牙买加，要么在遗嘱登记时于该岛拥有不动产。其中绝大多数档案（706份）的形成时间介于1665年至1761年之间。受限于时间约束，编制者又从1770年至1771年间的女性遗嘱档案中抽取了35份作为补充样本。