Federal records erased enslaved people’s identities while counting them as taxable wealth.

Evidence

As recorded in the 1850 US Census, “Female, Black, 60 y.o., Born in 1790,” “Male, Black, 25 y.o., Born in 1825,” and “Female, Black, 25 y.o., Born in 1825” were some of the enslaved people who lived and worked at Northview. They weren’t even given the basic dignity of having their names recorded, consistent with standard practice. Collectively, they spent their entire lives serving Margaret, her parents, or other enslavers. They built up the Barbers’ wealth while being stripped of their own. Many had been bought to serve for life and could only dream of becoming free. They tended to their tasks, inside the house and out in the fields, day in and day out. They were never paid wages for their labor, and if they had ever invented anything, they would have been deprived of their intellectual property rights. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 59

Categorization

• DEFINE: Demonstrates concretely how archival/federal records package human beings as enumerated property (‘Female, Black, 60’) — the literal record-keeping origin of the harm Brown says must be rebutted with names.
• BMF: The census lines listing enslaved people as bare physical descriptions — ‘Female, Black, 60 y.o.’ — evoke the number-naming of citizens in Zamyatin’s We, where persons are reduced to registry digits.
• SHARE: Send to a genealogist friend: 1850 census slave schedules recorded age/sex/color but rarely names, which is why Black family historians hit dead ends the white branches never do.