The Northeast Slavery Records Collaborative (NSRC) develops and maintains an online searchable compilation of records, called the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI). The NESRI identifies records of enslavement, including records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers, for the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.

NESRI will index census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents and many other sources. The goal is to deepen the understanding of slavery in the participating states by bringing together information that until now has been largely disconnected and difficult to access. This allows for searches that combine records from all indexed sources based on parameters such as the name of an owner, a place name, and date ranges.

The rationale for a project that encompasses the six states of New England along with New Jersey is primarily historical, based on the shifting jurisdictional boundaries of the states involved. For example, a Massachusetts index, for certain times when slavery existed, would include parts of what is now Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The Dominion of New England included Massachusetts and extended into Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.  A single NESRI database would enable a locality to access enslavement records from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries for that location regardless of boundary and jurisdiction changes.

Participating Organizations

There are participating organizations.

• John Jay College of Criminal Justice, of the City University of New York, which is responsible for the hosting and operation of the shared website and database, and which is the lead organization for NY State.
• The American Council of Learned Societies has provided grant funding for projects to search for and digitize enslavement records.
• Witness Stones is a lead organization for Connecticut.
• Atlantic Black Box, which is the lead organization for the State of Maine and which is responsible for shipping records of enslavement for all participating states. Vana Carmona of the The Prince Project is a leading independent historian.
• Rutgers University is a lead organization for the State of New Jersey, and the Monmouth County Historical Organization represents Monmouth County. Richard Geffken is a leading independent historian.
• The Rhode Island Historical Society is the lead organization for Rhode Island.
• Wayne Tucker is a leading independent historian in Massachusetts.
• NESRI has an agreement with the 10 Million Names to share records identifying enslaved people.