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It's a very interesting article, and maybe I'm missing something but I am confused at where they get some of the details in Iceland. At the beginning they say t

by neaden 2y ago

It's a very interesting article, and maybe I'm missing something but I am confused at where they get some of the details in Iceland. At the beginning they say there is just the census record and nothing else, then later they specify that Hans arrived in June 1802 which seems to show better records, but what are those records? It's unclear to me if some of Hans' writing survived or what exactly they are using as their source.

throwup238 2y ago
The Nature paper cites the book The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan by Gisli Palsson [1] as its main source. The sources for the book seem to be the census of the hamlet of Djupivogur from 1802 onwards and some "memoranda of transactions with customers, stock taking, and other aspects of his work" that survive. The memoranda I think is the complete books of the general store that are archived in the National Archives, Reykjavik. The book has some photos [2] - his very fancy signature is quite legible. It says he is mentioned many times in the census: as a mate on a sailboat (possible owned by the store) in 1804, a donation to the poor he made in 1808, registered as an assistant and workman, in a district council meeting in 1810 his assets were recorded as "a ewe, three yearling lambs, and a horse", then no records until 1815, and by 1817 he owned two boats. The census listed him as a freed slave from Kantitusjanhill, St. Croyx since he was honest about his background. That's about as far as I read. My impression is that it’s more of a pop-history book than a painstakingly sourced academic tome. Lots of “probably” and “must have” speculation. [1] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo21936305.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo219363... [2] https://imgur.com/a/VUmXpq0 https://imgur.com/a/VUmXpq0
- neuronexmachina 2y ago
  > The memoranda I think is the complete books of the general store that are archived in the National Archives, Reykjavik. Wow, it's fascinating they still have those.

by neaden 2y ago

throwup238 2y ago

The Nature paper cites the book The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan by Gisli Palsson [1] as its main source. The sources for the book seem to be the census of the hamlet of Djupivogur from 1802 onwards and some "memoranda of transactions with customers, stock taking, and other aspects of his work" that survive. The memoranda I think is the complete books of the general store that are archived in the National Archives, Reykjavik. The book has some photos [2] - his very fancy signature is quite legible. It says he is mentioned many times in the census: as a mate on a sailboat (possible owned by the store) in 1804, a donation to the poor he made in 1808, registered as an assistant and workman, in a district council meeting in 1810 his assets were recorded as "a ewe, three yearling lambs, and a horse", then no records until 1815, and by 1817 he owned two boats. The census listed him as a freed slave from Kantitusjanhill, St. Croyx since he was honest about his background. That's about as far as I read. My impression is that it’s more of a pop-history book than a painstakingly sourced academic tome. Lots of “probably” and “must have” speculation. [1] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo21936305.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo219363... [2] https://imgur.com/a/VUmXpq0 https://imgur.com/a/VUmXpq0

neuronexmachina 2y ago
> The memoranda I think is the complete books of the general store that are archived in the National Archives, Reykjavik. Wow, it's fascinating they still have those.