African American Resources for Tennessee

Online Resources

 * Discover Freedmen - this site searches all of the Freedmen's Bureau record collections on FamilySearch altogether (and redirects there)
 * Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874
 * United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872
 * U.S., Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records, 1846-1867 ($)
 * Images only.

Resources for African-American research fall into two periods: pre- and post-Civil War. A great starting point is Afrigeneas's "African Ancestry in Tennessee."

Research Strategy
The Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville offers several free online research guides for tracing Tennessee African Americans in their collection:


 * African American Collections of Note at TSLA
 * African American Genealogical Resources @ TSLA
 * FamilySearch Guide:Tennessee Statewide Indexes and Collections
 * Guide to African American Genealogy-Related Documents Prior to 1865 in the Collections of the Tennessee State Library and Archives
 * Selected Bibliography of African American Genealogical Resources in the Tennessee State Library and Archives

History

 * Lamon, Lester C. Blacks in Tennessee, 1791-1970. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981. . This indexed book deals with the African-American experience in Tennessee with chapters arranged by 20- to 50-year time periods.
 * "Negroes in Tennessee" chapter 10 of the online book Tennessee: A Guide to the State. Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Tennessee. American Guide Series. (No Place: New Deal Network, 1996) Original published: Tennessee: State of Tennessee. Department of Conservation, Division of Information, 1939. This chapter provides a concise introduction to African Americans in Tennessee.
 * Patterson, C. Perry. The Negro in Tennessee, 1790-1865. Austin, Texas: The University of Texas, 1922. Free digitized copy. Written in 1922, this book can be viewed as treating slavery without a degree of compassion and understanding, but it is valuable for its information about the slavery system and laws in Tennessee.
 * Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee, Editors Bobby L.Lovett and Linda T. Winn. Nashville, Tennessee: Annual Local Conference on Afro-American Culture and History, 1996. This online publication contains short biographies of 70 members of the Tennessee General Assembly between 1873-1995.
 * Works Projects Administration. Slave Narratives - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves.Washington, 1941. Free digital copy.

Biographies

 * Works Projects Administration. Slave Narratives - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Tennessee Narratives.Washington, 1941. Free digital copy, courtesy: Internet Archive.

Cemeteries
African Americans were generally buried in race-specific cemeteries.

Census Records
The first Tennessee census that included the names and identities of freed slaves was taken in 1870.

Church Records
African Americans typically worshiped apart from white congregations in their own churches.

Other Records
Maps

Charles A. Reeves Jr. has created a detailed map, based on the 1860 U.S. Federal Census, illustrating the distribution of slaves throughout Tennessee just before the Civil War broke out. It may be purchased for a small fee through his website, which includes a scaled-down image of the map:


 * Tennessee Slave Population As Reported in the 1860 Census

Military Records
For pensions of African Americans who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, see:


 * Brogden, John V. and Willie L. Robinson. Tennessee Colored Pension Applications for CSA Service [Civil War], available online.

Reconstruction Records
Research consists of consulting the same record types as for non-African Americans. In addition, there are some types of records specific to African-American research, such as emancipation records, apprenticeship bonds for freedmen, and the other types of records.

Freedman’s Bank
An excellent source is the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (visit the African American Freedman's Savings and Trust Company Records page to learn more). This company was created to assist African American soldiers of the Civil War and freed slaves. Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers from 3 March 1865 to 25 July 1874 may list the name of the depositor, date of entry, age, birthplace, residence, complexion, name of employer or occupation, wife or husband’s name, death information, children’s names, name of father and mother, brothers’ and sisters’ names, remarks, and signature. Early books sometimes contained the name of the former master or mistress and the name of the plantation. Copies of death certificates were sometimes attached to the entries. The collection is organized alphabetically by state, then city where the bank was located, then date the account was established, then account number.

Online collections of Freedman's Bank records:
 * United States, Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874
 * U.S., Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1871 ($)

Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by the US government in 1865 until 1872 to assist former slaves in the southern United States. The Bureau created a wide variety of records extremely valuable to genealogists. Such documents include censuses, marriage records, and medical records. These records often include full names, former masters and plantations, and current residences. For 1865 and 1866, the section on abandoned and confiscated lands includes the names of the owners of the plantations or homes that were abandoned, confiscated, or leased. It gives the county and location, a description of the house, the number of acres owned, and the number of cabins of former slaves. These films do not appear to contain the names of former slaves.

Tennessee had two branches of this bank at:
 * Memphis 1865–1874 - Accounts 1–6298
 * Nashville 1871–1874 - Accounts 4174–6189

The signature registers for these branches are microfilmed:


 * Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (Washington, D.C.). Registers of Signatures of Depositors, 1871–1874. National Archives Microfilm Publications, M0816. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1969.

To find Freedmen's Bureau records: Other FamilySearch collections not included:
 * DiscoverFreedmen - the search on this site will utilize all of the Freedmen's Bureau records on FamilySearch, including:
 * Images only. These reports primarily contain statistical and historical information.
 * More collections are available in the FamilySearch Catalog. Search for "FREEDMEN - INDIANA" in the Subjects search bar to find.
 * Images only. These reports primarily contain statistical and historical information.
 * More collections are available in the FamilySearch Catalog. Search for "FREEDMEN - INDIANA" in the Subjects search bar to find.
 * More collections are available in the FamilySearch Catalog. Search for "FREEDMEN - INDIANA" in the Subjects search bar to find.

Other websites include:
 * The Freedmen's Bureau Online: Tennessee

Visit the African American Freedmen's Bureau Records page to learn more about utilizing these records.

Slavery Records
Records consist of slave importation declarations, plantation records, Tennessee hiring practices, census records, white family records, church and cemetery records, military records, vital records, and numerous Tennessee court records.

African-American vital records were usually recorded in separate books for many years. Slaves are sometimes mentioned in deeds, wills, tax records, or court order books. A few parish registers list slaves who attended church with their masters.

See the Land and Property, Probate Records, Taxation, Court Records, and Church Records wiki articles for Tennessee.

Occasionally slaves are mentioned in records of the plantations where they served. A collection of plantation records is:


 * Stamp, Kenneth M. Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War. Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1989–1992. The records of several plantations were microfilmed in several series. They are indexed with Family History Library film numbers in Family History Library Bibliography of African American Sources: As of 1994, mentioned below.

An index to records at the Family History Library containing the names of African Americans is:

A list of slaves that were impressed to work on the railroads is in:
 * Taylor, Marie. Family History Library Bibliography of African American Sources: As of 1994. Salt Lake City, Utah: Family History Library, United States Reference, 2000. (Family History Library book ; [this link allows access to a digital image].) Includes information taken from church, court, slavery, and vital records, as well from the Kenneth Stamp collection of Southern plantation records.


 * Bamman, Gale Williams. "African-Americans Impressed for Service on the Nashville and North Western Railroad, October 1863." National Genealogical Society Quarterly, September 1992, 204-210. Includes: name, age, height, complexion, name of owner, county, town, and other remarks.

Slaves were gradually emancipated by Tennessee law beginning in 1865.

Not all black residents of Tennessee were slaves before the Civil War. The following is a list of free black heads of household living in Tennessee counties at the time the 1820 U.S. Federal Census was taken (census records do not survive for all counties that year):


 * Waldrep, G.C. "'Free Colored' Heads of Household in the 1820 Tennessee Census," available online, courtesy: Free African Americans website.

Gale Williams Bamman, CG located the following statistics in a book by Historian Ira Berlin:

Free African American Population in Antebellum Tennessee

Marriage
The Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872) was created by the US government to assist former slaves in the southern United States. One of their responsibilities was to record the marriages (past and present) of the former slaves. These records can be found in the collections below and include the lists of marriages that occurred previously, marriage certificates, and marriage licenses. The information contained on the records may include the name of the husband and wife/groom and bride, age, occupation, residence, year or date of marriage, by whom, number of children, and remarks.
 * United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872
 * U.S., Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records, 1846-1867

Archives and Libraries
National Civil Rights Museum 450 Mulberry St. Memphis, TN 38103 Phone: (901) 521-9699

Bessie Smith Cultural Center 200 E. Martin Luther King Boulevard Chattanooga, TN 37403 Email: info@bessiesmithcc.org Phone: (423) 266-8658