Enslaved Persons at the Peyton Randolph House in Colonial Williamsburg, 1699-1783

Eighty-three event entries document the lives of thirty named enslaved persons living at the urban property of Peyton and Elizabeth Randolph in Williamsburg, Virginia. The dataset, created by Cathleene B. Hellier for the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation, is a pilot project based on probate wills, inventories, and accounts from 1775 and 1783. It represents the largest known enslaved community from a single Williamsburg estate before 1784, focusing on the period 1763 to 1783.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing family and community networks based on named individuals and event entries.
• Analyzing the economic valuation and distribution of enslaved people based on probate inventory data.
• Studying urban slavery in a colonial capital based on the focus on an elite urban property.
• Examining the impact of estate settlements on enslaved communities based on wills and accounts.

Strengths

• Focuses on the largest known enslaved community (27 individuals) from a single Williamsburg estate before 1784.
• Draws from multiple corroborating record sets beyond probates, as mentioned in the description.
• Contains eighty-three detailed event entries for thirty named individuals.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative methods.
• The dataset is a pilot project, which may indicate a limited scope or exploratory methodology.

Provenance

Source

Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation Dataverse, author Cathleene B. Hellier.

Collection Method

Compiled from the probate documents (wills, codicils, inventory, accounts) of Peyton and Elizabeth Randolph.

Time Range

Principal period 1763-1783, with references from 1699 to 1783.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-08 18:50:50; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, specifically the Randolph property.