A register for Spring Garden Estate in Saint George, Jamaica, documents named people, ages and changes in the enslaved population. Such registers make plantation slavery visible through archival records, while also showing how colonial authorities counted people for the purposes of ownership and compensation. The surviving register is a partial view: it records what enslavers and officials entered and does not capture the whole of a person's life, kinship, memory or resistance.
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What is a key limitation of plantation slave registers as historical sources?
The registers are valuable evidence but were created for administrative and ownership purposes, not as full personal accounts.
The Spring Garden register is a complete account of every enslaved person's life and family history.
It is a partial administrative record that reflects the purposes and categories of those who compiled it.