Information from about 700 registers from 23 British territories and dependencies include Information available on these records includes: name of owner, parish of residence, name, gender, age, and nationality of slave.

Colonies were required to conduct censuses of slaves and their owners every three years. Records were kept on site and copies submitted to the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves. After the office was disbanded, some 200,000 pages of names were placed in the National Archives in Kew, in west London.

Although estimates vary, researchers say tens of millions of African men, women and children were enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean and the Americas. Many of these were sent to British-controlled islands such as Barbados, Jamaica and the Bahamas, where they were forced to work in plantations.

In 1807 The Abolition of Slave Trade Act came into force. The act made the trade in slaves from Africa to the British colonies illegal. To combat illicit transportation following this act many of the British Colonies began keeping registers of black slaves who had been so-called “lawfully enslaved”. In 1819 the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves was established in London and copies of the slave registers kept by the colonies were sent to this office. Registration generally occurred once every three years. The registers continue through to 1834 when slavery was officially abolished.

This database contains the slave registers for the following colonies and years:

• Antigua (1817-1818, 1821, 1824, 1828, 1832)
  
• Bahamas (1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)
  
• Barbados (1817, 1820, 1823, 1826, 1829, 1832, 1834)
  
• Berbice (1818-1819, 1822)
  
• Dominica (1817, 1820, 1823)
  
• Grenada (1817-1834)
  
• Honduras (1834)
  
• Jamaica (1817, 1820, 1823, 1826, 1829, 1832, 1834)
  
• Mauritius (1817, 1819, 1822, 1826, 1830, 1832, 1835)
  
• Nevis (1817, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831)
  
• Sri Lanka (Ceylon) (1818-1832)
  
• St Christopher (1817, 1822, 1825, 1827-1828, 1831, 1834)
  
• St Lucia (1815, 1819)
  
• St Vincent (1817, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)
  
• Tobago (1819-1834)
  
• Trinidad (1813, 1815-1816, 1819, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)
  
• Virgin Islands (1818, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1834)
  

• Jamaica (pieces 193, 206-208)
  
• St Christopher (pieces 261-263)
  
• Grenada (piece 264, 266)
  
• Dominica (pieces 359-363)
  
• Nevis (piece 369)
  
• St Lucia (pieces 382-390)
  
• Demerara (pieces 391-436)
  
• Berbice (pieces 441-446)
  
• Montserrat (pieces 447-451)
  
• Bermuda (pieces 452-455)
  
• St Vincent (pieces 494, 496)
  
• Mauritius (piece 566, 571)
  
• Cape of Good Hope (pieces 652-662)