Young, Cory James2023-05-222021-07-202022-06-302021-07-20https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/39786A Just and True Return (JATR) contains information about more than 6,300 Black people and their enslavers principally taken from extant registries from fifteen Pennsylvania counties: Adams, Allegheny, Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Fayette, Lancaster, Northampton, Washington, and Westmoreland. It also includes a handful of records from four counties—Crawford, Franklin, Philadelphia, and York—whose registries have not been located, but which can be partially reconstructed from a variety of other sources. Pennsylvania's 1780 gradual abolition law required enslavers to register with their county clerk any people they wished to continue holding in lifetime slavery. A 1788 law required that they do the same for any children they wished to hold in twenty-eight-year term slavery. Complete entries provide the name, age or birthday, race, and sex of enslaved people; the name, place of residence, and occupation of their enslavers; and the registration date. Slightly less than two-thirds of the entries describe people whom enslavers held in lifetime slavery, whereas more than one-third describe children they held in term slavery. An ongoing project, JATR is the first effort to compile all surviving registration data in a single location and contributes to our understanding of slavery’s survival in the northern United States during the early republic..xlsxhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/slaveryterm slaverystatutory term slaveryhereditary term slaveryabolitiongradual abolitionPennsylvaniaHistoryAmerican HistoryAfrican American HistoryPennsylvania HistorySocial HistoryLegal HistoryDigital HistoryAfrican American StudiesAfricana StudiesBlack StudiesGenealogyAfrican American StudiesAfricana StudiesAfrican HistoryAmerican StudiesAppalachian StudiesDigital HumanitiesEuropean HistoryGenealogyHistoryLabor HistoryLaw and RaceLegal HistorySocial HistoryUnited States HistoryWomen's History