Curacao Slave register Dataset Version 1.0

The Curaçao colonial administration began keeping track of slaves at the beginning of 1839. This so-called slave record was maintained until 1863, when slavery was abolished. All owners were obliged to register the name, gender, year of birth and name of the mother of the people in their property. Furthermore, all changes had to be registered: birth, death, sale, release and the import and export of people in Curaçao. This resulted in a closed registration: as long as someone was alive and in slavery, this person could be followed in the slave registers. In total, the slave registers of Curaçao consist of eight books, with a total of 1,070 folios (pages). The registers consist of 21,515 entries for 13,062 unique individuals. Absent from the registers are governmental owned enslaved persons. This encompasses maybe a few tens to a hundred individuals in Curaçao. Furthermore, as enslaved persons were not permitted to marry and hence are legally fatherless, the name of the father is missing in all slave registry.

This document provides an overview of the construction of the Curaçao slave registers database and the variables therein. A quick summary of the variables is given first. An detailed description of the variables is provided in the appendices, which is then followed by an explanation of how the variables were created.

1839年初，库拉索殖民当局正式启动奴隶信息登记工作。这套被称为奴隶登记册（slave record）的档案体系一直持续更新至1863年奴隶制废除之时。所有奴隶主均需如实登记其所辖奴隶的姓名、性别、出生年份以及其母亲的姓名。此外，奴隶相关的各类变动均须登记在册，包括奴隶的出生、死亡、买卖、释放以及其在库拉索境内的进出口情况。由此形成了一套闭环登记机制：只要某奴隶仍在世且处于奴役状态，即可通过奴隶登记册追踪其全生命周期的相关信息。库拉索奴隶登记册总计包含8册档案，共计1070对开页（页面），涵盖21515条登记条目，涉及13062名不同的奴隶个体。登记册中未收录政府所有的奴隶，此类奴隶在库拉索境内的数量仅为数十至百人左右。此外，由于当时法律禁止奴隶缔结婚姻，因此奴隶在法律上被视为无父之人，所有奴隶登记册中均未记录其父亲的姓名。

本文档旨在概述库拉索奴隶登记册数据库的构建流程及其内含变量。首先将对相关变量进行简要汇总说明，附录部分将对各变量展开详细阐释，随后将逐一解释各变量的生成逻辑与构建方法。