Support Enslaved Texas
Keep their names alive
In 1860 the census counted 182,566 enslaved people in Texas, 30% of everyone living in the state, and listed them by age and sex under an enslaver's name. Seven years later more than 50,000 freedmen registered to vote and gave a board of registrars their name, their birthplace and the year they came to Texas. Those handwritten registers, kept by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, are the earliest record in which most formerly enslaved Texans appear under their own names.
Make a gift
Give once, or monthly. Every gift goes to reading the register and keeping the names on it free to search.
Give now- Tax-deductible. 501(c)(3) public charity.
- One-time or monthly, cancel any time.
- Card and wallets, handled by Givebutter.
Enslaved Texas is a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 42-3809138. Your receipt arrives by email and serves as your record for tax purposes.
What a gift does
Each entry in the register carries more than a name. It gives a birthplace, the years a man had lived in Texas, in his county and in his precinct, so a line of 1867 handwriting becomes a life that moved: born in Virginia, in Texas by 1827, in his county by 1847. For a descendant that entry is often the first document an ancestor appears in at all, three years before the 1870 census.
Enslaved Texas is directed by historian Deborah M. Liles, Ph.D., and built on the archives, the census and the register rather than on estimates. Your support keeps that standard and keeps the result free.
Where the money goes
The register, read and checked
Register pages read against the original handwriting by a trained reviewer, so that every freedman who registered in 1867 takes his place beside the rest.
Search by name
The county, origin and surname pages, and the search, where anyone finds an ancestor by name and opens the page the registrar wrote.
The map of forced migration
The interactive map of forced migration into Texas, 1800 to 1870, drawn on the county boundaries of each year.
Free to everyone who looks
Hosting the digitized register images and keeping every freedman searchable at no charge, across all 125 counties.
Other ways to support
A gift is one way. These cost nothing.
Become a reviewer
Reviewers read a register page against the transcription and correct what the machine could not, one page spread at a time.
Become a reviewerTell a family researcher
Genealogists, county historical commissions and family reunions are how a descendant finds out these names are searchable at all.
Search the recordsWrite to the team
Corrections, a family record that fills a gap, press and research enquiries.
info@enslavedtexas.org