HISTORY + CULTURE
Why America Failed to Record The Birth Dates of Enslaved People
And what are the consequences of this gap in vital records?
Even something as simple as knowing your date of birth is a privilege that many Black enslaved people did not have. For instance, the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote to Fredrick May Holland in 1891 that "it has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday." Without proper record keeping, Douglass, like many enslaved people, estimated their date of birth. "He supposes that he was born in February 1817, but no one knows the day of his birth or his father's name," Holland said. Part of the consequences of treating human beings like chattel was that the careful record keeping of dates of birth, death, and parentage was abandoned throughout much of the country.
There is a dehumanizing element to depriving someone of simple facts about their birth. And yet, Douglass' comments, highlighting his frustration, show that depriving someone of this information doesn't lessen their longing to know. This was a common practice. For example, Harriet Tubman, another abolitionist, could not determine her birthday. The state did not produce a birth certificate detailing her parents' names, the date, or even the month of the birth, and her enslavers…
