Free people of color

8 December 2014 Across centuries of recorded history, many classes of people have had to legally register themselves—voters, military-aged men, free people of color in slave regimes, aliens during a time of war, and "just plain folk" on the occasions of their births, marriages, and deaths.

17 February 2014 When a tax roll is arranged alphabetically—or semi-alphabetically by first letter of surname—that makes it easy to find a person of interest, right? Wrong! If we simply search under the "proper" letter of the alphabet, we'll miss much.

24 January 2014 When we set out to study slaves and freedmen in antebellum America, we learn quickly the importance of knowing the laws. Not the suppositions we hear right and left, not the broad generalizations we "learn" from the media, but the actual text of state and local laws for the time and place.