1,648 Slaves in the Estate of Nathaniel Heyward, Charleston, SC, 1851

The estate inventory of Nathaniel Heyward, filed in June of 1851, lists the names of 1,648 enslaved ancestors on 15 plantations in Charleston, Colleton, Beaufort and Berkeley counties in South Carolina.

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This record was indexed and made searchable by Aaron Dorsey and by Toni.

To view the names of African Americans at Ashley Farm Plantation in 1851, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Ashley Farm Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of the enslaved community at Blanford Plantation in Beaufort County, SC, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Blanford Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, Beaufort, SC, 1851

To view the names of enslaved families at Clay Hall Plantation, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Clay Hall Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Island Plantation, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Island Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Savannah Plantation in Colleton County, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Savannah Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, Colleton, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Amsterdam Plantation on the Combahee River in Colleton County, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Amsterdam Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Rotterdam Plantation on the Combahee River in Colleton County, SC, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Rotterdam Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Lewisburg Plantation on Cuckolds Creek, a branch of the Combahee River, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Lewisburg Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of the enslaved community at Middle House Plantation, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Middle House Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Rose Hill Plantation at White Hall in Colleton County, SC in 1851, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Rose Hill Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of ancestors listed at Pleasant Hill Plantation, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Pleasant Hill Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of African Americans listed at the Pines Plantation in 1851, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Pines Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, 1851

To view the names of those listed at Hamburg Plantation on Cuckolds Creek, a branch of the Combahee River in Colleton County, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Hamburg Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, SC, 1851

To view the names of African Americans listed at Copenhagen Plantation on the Combahee River in Colleton County, SC, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Copenhagen Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, Colleton, SC, 1851

To view the names of the enslaved community at Bluff Plantation in 1851, please follow the link below.

Slaves at the Bluff Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, Colleton, SC, 1851

To view the names of African Americans listed at Silk Hope Plantation in 1851, please follow the link below.

Slaves at Silk Hope Plantation of Nathaniel Heyward, Berkeley, SC, 1851

Resources for Further Research:

1. The Heyward and Ferguson Family Papers, 1806-1923 are available online from the Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston. Here you will find, among 389 pages of document images of Heyward family papers:

• Notebook with lists of slaves and cloth assigned to them -- 1850-1852 which includes Rotterdam, Myrtle Grove, Hamburgh and Copenhagen Plantations
• Agreement for settling the Estate of Nathaniel Heyward -- June 7, 1851
• List of Slave Carpenters with New Tools Received, 1852 
• List of Slaves for Rotterdam Plantation, 1852
• List of Field Slaves for Hamburgh, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Myrtle Grove Plantations in 1854-1856, designated by sex and full hand, half hand, etc. 26p.

2. Resources available on the Lowcountry Africana website:

• List of 491 Slaves Freed from Charles Heyward's Amsterdam, Lewisburg, Pleasant Hill, Rose Hill, Myrtle Grove and Ashley Farm Plantations listed by name, age and occupation (shared by the South Caroliniana Library at USC)
• Freedmen's Labor Contract for the Pines Plantation 

3. Lineages of the Heyward family are outlined in the following full-text book, available online from Internet Archive: The Colonial History of the Heyward Family of South Carolina, 1670-1770

4. Heyward Family Papers, 1703-1975 are available in the Manuscripts Department of the South Caroliniana Library at USC, and also on microfilm as part of the collection Records of Antebellum Southern Plantations published by University Publications of America

5. If your family has roots on Heyward family plantations in SC, you may be interested in the book Twilight on the South Carolina Rice Fields: Letters of the Heyward Family, 1862-1871,available from Amazon.com.

These documents were digitized as part of a collaborative effort between Footnote, Lowcountry Africana, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and FamilySearch, to digitize all surviving Charleston, SC Estate Inventories, 1732-1872 and Bills of Sale, 1773-1872, for a FREE Footnote collection.

The collection was indexed entirely by volunteers of the Restore the Ancestors Project, whose efforts have brought the names of more than 30,000 enslaved ancestors into the historical light in this FREE collection, for generations to come.

This remarkable collection contains the name of every slave ever listed in a surviving estate inventory for Charleston, SC from colonial times to Emancipation. Many of the post-Civil War inventories list the names of former slaves as well.

This document was indexed and made searchable by Aaron Dorsey and Toni.