This collection of 46 documents consists of manuscript bills of sale, receipts, estate appraisals, deeds of gift, manumission statements, promissory notes, and other papers documenting slave ownership and the slave trade in the United States between 1770 and 1863. The bulk of the material documents slavery in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky and Alabama. There are also legal documents recording slavery transactions in Maine, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana.