This digital resource is an outgrowth of the Pinckney Papers Projects, The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry (University of Virginia Press, 2012) and The Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen (University of Virginia Press, 2016 – ). These born-digital editions document the political, military, and economic contributions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of members of the Pinckney family, a wealthy and prominent family from the lowcountry of South Carolina. As editors and staff members collected correspondence, they also found extensive records concerning people enslaved by the Pinckneys. This website is an effort to provide access to those records and expand information available in the digital editions about the plantations owned by the Pinckneys and the people they enslaved there. Many of the documents referenced in this website are available online through The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry and The Papers of the Revolutionary Pinckney Statesmen published through Rotunda, the digital imprint of the University of Virginia Press. The Pinckney Papers Projects have been funded since 2008 by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and since 2013 by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives. A grant from the Watson Brown Foundation funded a graduate assistantship held by E. Zoie Horecny, who in addition to her other editorial tasks has created this website.
Resources
In addition to data from plantation records and financial documents featuring the names of generations of enslaved people which have been compiled into spreadsheets, this website provides biographical sketches of individuals and enslaved families, examples of documents concerning slavery, and educational resources. When possible, we have identified genealogical connections among individuals and noted instances of the movement of individuals from one plantation to another. Some of the source documents for the spreadsheets are published in the digital editions, and they are linked to over seven hundred identifications of enslaved individuals, some of whom are mentioned in multiple documents We have highlighted a few of those identifications in the Biographical Sketches page, providing biographies of enslaved individuals and some families, and illustrating how financial documents can allow researchers to glean details about the lives of the enslaved. A digital exhibit section includes images of select documents demonstrating the breadth of sources that are part of the published editions. Educational resources feature additional information about the Pinckney family and slavery as well as a lesson plan.
Importance
Scholarly editing involves collecting documents from many repositories. It is detail oriented in its tasks of transcription and identification. By compiling information uncovered in the editorial process into the format of spreadsheets, we hope we have provided scholars with data in an accessible form that will enable them to connect familial relationships and analyze demographic changes, further illuminating the lives of enslaved people.
The information accessible to the public though this website is only part of the larger Pinckney Papers Projects work. More resources, including additional identifications of enslaved individuals, as well as documents containing references to issues relevant to the study of slavery as a system, are available here: