The Case of Adam Jacobsen. Enslavement in 18th-Century Norway

ABSTRACT

The article explores the life of Adam Jacobsen, an enslaved man who was trafficked from the Danish West Indies to the small town of Arendal in southern Norway sometime around 1780. By using the micro-spatial perspective the article aims to investigate how Jacobsen and others who were trafficked from America, Africa and Asia to Europe were understood within the broader processes of marketization and racialization that occurred with the development of the Atlantic slave trade. The article examines how these processes were given a localized expression through investigations of different ‘sites’: the geographical places of St. Croix and, primarily, Arendal, and the institutional sites of the household and the interrogation room. In St. Croix, Jacobsen lived in a society constructed around plantation slavery. In Arendal, he was a working member of his owner’s household residing with local servants and a local family, but he was also singled out and often racialized. Jacobsen’s life story, then, demonstrates how colonial slavery extended into Europe in a way that not only concerned capital and goods but also trafficking of people.

KEYWORDS:

• Eighteenth-century Denmark–Norway
• enslavement
• household

Introduction

On 4 August at 2 PM in the afternoon a police interrogation was conducted in the rooms of the town court in Arendal, a small town of about 1500 inhabitants on the southern coast of Norway.¹ The interrogation was carried out to make sense of what had happened to a man referred to in the case records as ‘the Negro Adam’.² Adam, who gave his full name as Adam Jacobsen, had turned to Arendal’s town magistrate some days earlier to ask for travelling papers. Jacobsen revealed that he had run away from his master, and he went on to explain that he now wanted to leave Arendal and return to his birthplace on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, part of the then Danish-Norwegian colony of the Danish West Indies.³ Moreover, Adam Jacobsen said he had been bought on St. Croix years before and subsequently brought to Arendal where he came to live in the household of his purchaser, the merchant Hans Herlofson. Herlofson himself confirmed this in a statement he gave to the magistrate, reportedly saying that ‘he had bought the Negro [Adam Jacobsen], who had cost him 300 Riksdaler’ in St. Croix.⁴

In this article, I examine the case of Adam Jacobsen. In particular, I focus on Adam’s life and work in ‘the king’s realm and lands in Europe’,⁵ i.e. the European part of Denmark-Norway. I explore how Jacobsen and others trafficked from America, Africa and Asia to the king’s European lands were understood within the broader processes of marketization and racialization of African people that occurred with the Atlantic slave trade and investigate how this manifested in a local setting.⁶ While the economy of Adam Jacobsen’s birthplace St. Croix’s was completely dependent on plantation slave labour,⁷ Arendal and other Danish-Norwegian towns in Europe were embroiled in trade networks with the Caribbean colonies that benefitted from the labour of Atlantic slaves but where – in contrast to the Caribbean – the enslaved were mostly out of sight. Yet, as the case of Adam Jacobsen demonstrates, this was not always so. Although the number of people of African and Afro-Caribbean origin, enslaved and free, were limited in pre-industrial Denmark-Norway, they were there.⁸ Most lived in Copenhagen, but some, Jacobsen being among them, were found in smaller towns or on occasion in the Danish-Norwegian countryside.⁹

The article makes use of a wide range of primary sources in order to investigate the life of Adam Jacobsen and the broader processes and practices that led to the trafficking of a young boy from the Caribbean to Arendal: material from Arendal’s town magistrate, census data, church and cadastral records, merchant archives, customs records and letters from members of a commission that sought to formulate a Code Noir for the Danish West Indies, which included legislation on the access of Africans and Afro-Caribbeans to Europe. The sources were produced on both sides of the Atlantic and Skagerrak; on St. Croix and in Europe; in Copenhagen and in Arendal. When it comes to information on Adam Jacobsen and his family, I have included all the records I have located, but my belief is that more will be discovered as new primary sources are digitized. Digitization has already helped investigations of non-elite people since it has allowed us to find individuals who have previously been hidden among fragmented source material,¹⁰ and continued digitization will aid such efforts further.

None of the primary sources used in this article, however, were produced by Adam Jacobsen himself or any other enslaved and formerly enslaved person. Such archival biases are commonplace in research on enslaved and colonized people. Rikke Lie Halberg has pointed out how almost no ego-documents produced by the colonized, particularly by colonized women, have been collected and preserved in the archive from the Danish West Indies kept at the Danish National Archives,¹¹ an archive that has also been utilized in this article. What we do have are documents produced by the authorities and Adam Jacobsen’s owner, the merchant Herlofson, who left behind business records.¹² This also illustrates how the disparities between Jacobsen and Herlofson have epistemological consequences. Nevertheless, the information we can find regarding Adam Jacobsen’s Arendal life is more extensive than what we find when investigating most local servants. This difference, as we shall see, was in itself part of the racialization of Jacobsen in Arendal. There he was singled out and made visible in the records in a way local servants seldom were. Finding information on Adam Jacobsen’s life on the other side of the Atlantic, on the other hand, proved more challenging precisely because there he was one of St. Croix’s many enslaved.

Parts of Adam Jacobsen’s story has previously been told by Gustav Særtra. Sætra gave a detailed account of Jacobsen’s life in Arendal, and many of the primary sources used in this article were located by Sætra.¹³ This article differs from Sætra’s partly because it utilizes a wider range of primary sources, predominantly a consequence of the digitization touched upon above, and because it aims to put Jacobsen’s story within broader historical processes of the Atlantic slave trade and its extension into Europe. Although never plentiful, scholars have pointed out how persons of African, Asian and Afro-Caribbean birth or origin did live in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway. There they appeared in different roles: as gifts to the royal court, as students, as sailors, as apprentices, as engaged, or working as household servants.¹⁴ The last group, household workers, were the most plentiful, and Adam Jacobsen was among them.

Recent research has, like this article, also made a point of investigating the influence of place and space on this group. Gunvor Simonsen has argued that a local racial dialect developed during the second half of the eighteenth century in Copenhagen. This dialect adapted the rhetoric of the Atlantic slave trade to the local Copenhagen reality, an exercise that was also shaped by the presence of trafficked Africans and Afro-Caribbeans in the Danish-Norwegian capital.¹⁵ According to Simonsen, Africans were commodified and this process made them different from other ‘subordinate groups’ in eighteenth-century Danish society, such as peasants, crofters, servants and apprentices.¹⁶ In this article we shall see how elements of the language of commodification was used in descriptions of Adam Jacobsen as well, but how the Arendal version of this also differed from what Simonsen found in Copenhagen. In Arendal the language of race was more ambiguous.

The article is organized around space, and is inspired by what Christian De Vito has called the micro-spatial perspective.¹⁷ By ‘ground[ing] historical processes spatially, rather than situating them at the local and global levels’, De Vito argues it is possible to connect microhistory with global history in a manner that moves beyond the classic binaries of agency – structure, macro – micro and local – global¹⁸. In a study of slavery, for instance, this means that one ‘does not make a separation between a bird’s-eye (global) view of slavery and a detailed analysis of its specific (local) features’, but looks at practices. This involves

ask[ing] what slavery meant to different individuals and groups within specific localities; and it studies how and why the legal status and subjective perceptions of slavery changed across time.

In this article the micro-spatial perspective serves both as an overarching inspiration and as an organizational principle. I take what we know about Adam Jacobsen and investigate if and how his situation changed or did not change in the different ‘sites’, both the geographical places of St. Croix and, primarily, Arendal and the institutional sites of the household and the interrogation room. The article begins with Jacobsen’s journey to Arendal, then moves on to the household to explore Jacobsen’s work life, and, next, to his relationship with the family who had brought him across the Atlantic, others who worked in the household with him and the wider community. Last, I investigate Jacobsen’s dealings with by the authorities in Arendal. Here I particularly examine the question of whether Jacobsen was a slave or not, wherein I argue that Arendal’s authorities employed a dual practice of both declaring slavery illegal but also of simply sidestepping the issue of legality altogether.

From St. Croix to Arendal

This is what we learn about Adam Jacobsen’s life from various primary sources: He was born and baptized in St. Croix sometime around 1769.¹⁹ Upon his confirmation in Arendal the pastor noted that Jacobsen had ‘presented a note of baptism from St. Croix’, so that piece of paper must have followed him across the Atlantic.²⁰ This might have been prudent. When two other trafficked people from St. Croix, referred to as the ‘negro slave boy Michael’ and the ‘mulatto girl Susanne’, prepared for confirmation in Copenhagen in 1799 they were forced to acquire special permission from the authorities since they lacked proof of baptism.²¹

During the police interrogation Jacobsen explained that his father was a slave born on a St. Croix plantation where he had died ‘a long time ago’.²² We do not know the name of the plantation, but Adam said his father’s name was Jacob. Adam’s last name, then, was a patronymic. This was rather uncommon among slaves, or rather, it was uncommon that slaves’ surnames were recorded as such. I found no trace of the father Jacob or the son Adam in the archive of the Danish West Indies, so we do not know if Adam called himself Adam Jacobsen when he lived there. What we do know is that in Arendal Jacobsen lived in a household were the patronymic naming practice dominated. There male and female servants and the master used patronymic surnames.²³

According to Jacobsen, his mother Sophia had been born a slave but had been freed by her owner after having ‘served’ him for eight years.²⁴ There is indeed a record of Sophia’s manumission, which was registered on Christiansted on St. Croix 23 April 1781.²⁵ After that Sophia appears on several lists of free black people until the year 1803 when we lose track of her.²⁶ Sophia was one of an increasing number of free blacks in the Danish West Indies. Their number grew slowly from the last decades of the eighteenth century and increased more quickly after the turn of the century. ²⁷ Most, Sophia included, lived on St. Croix.²⁸ The free white population, however, continued to outnumber freed blacks till around 1815, and the enslaved black population continued to dwarf both groups for decades.²⁹

In the preserved lists of the free black population in the Danish West Indies, Sophia is usually listed with the surname of her former owner, magistrate Suhr, as Sophia Suhr or ‘Sophia of Suhr’ (Sophia af Suhr). It was fairly routine for former slaves to use the previous owner’s name, despite a rule from 1775 that forbade just that.³⁰ We do not know what Sophia did for a living, but she might have been a seamstress, a common profession among free black women.³¹ What we do know is that she continued to live at the same address in Christiansted from 1794 to 1802.³² The differences between the white population and free black population when it came to house ownership and ownership of slaves were relatively small in this particular area of town,³³ and Sophia’s building was partly owned by a ‘mulatto woman’, who also resided in the house with her three sons and two daughters.³⁴ Sophia rented a room and lived alongside other free black lodgers. Many of them lived in the house for years, particularly the women seem to have been a stable presence with some living alongside Sophia for most of her time there: One Elisabeth Blake moved in around 1797 and was still there in 1802, and another Elisabeth, Elisabeth af Holte, can be found living next to Sophia for the entire period Sophia lived there, from 1794 to 1802.³⁵ From 1798 to 1802, we also find a man called Nathaniel Ludwig living with Sophia.³⁶ What their relationship was we do not know. Nathaniel Ludwig did not feature in Adam Jacobsen’s narrative on the other side of the Atlantic.

When Sophia’s owner, magistrate Suhr, freed her in 1781, he had already sold her young son Adam.³⁷ We know Suhr had some problems with his creditors in 1778, so he might have sold Jacobsen then,³⁸ but precisely when and why remains unknown. Thanks to Jacobsen’s police interrogation, however, we know to whom he was sold. There he explained how he was first purchased by a ‘lawyer Olsen’, then by his clerk, a Mr. Gorm, who again sold Jacobsen to the captain who brought him to Arendal on behalf of merchant Herlofson.³⁹ Before this last unusual sale he had, then, been sold between members of the legal establishment of St. Croix. According to Jacobsen’s own timeline, he would have been around 12 years old at the time of his last sale and his voyage across the Atlantic, although it is not exactly clear when Jacobsen came to Arendal. He himself said that he did not know precisely how long he had been in Norway but thought he had arrived 9 or 10 years before, which suggests that he came in 1781 or 1782.⁴⁰ At that time Herlofson had built a substantial commercial business, and records show that he sent ships to the Danish West Indies in 1780 and 1782, perhaps also in 1781.⁴¹ Jacobsen would probably have been onboard one of them.

One last event in Adam Jacobsen’s life deserves to be mentioned. In 1790, the summer before he ran away, his mother Sophia tried to buy her son’s freedom or, as worded in interrogation, his ‘liberation’ (Frigivelse).⁴² She offered 170 Riksdaler, 130 Riksdaler less than Herlofson claimed to have paid when he bought Jacobsen ten years before. Regardless, for most of the population 170 Riksdaler was a substantial amount of money. How Sophia had acquired such a large sum is unknown. As already noted, we do not know what she did for a living. It was Jacobsen himself who told the authorities about the offer, which means that he must have been informed.⁴³ Herlofson refused the proposal, however. He would not let Jacobsen become a free man, and maybe it was the frustration brought on by this refusal that made running away seem like a good idea.

Life and work in the household

We know very little about what sort of work trafficked men and women living in Danish-Norwegian households did, but Adam Jacobsen’s case is unusually informative on this subject. In the police interrogation Jacobsen explained how he had to ‘haul bags of grain’, a labour so hard that he claimed his health had been damaged by it. Hauling bags seem, therefore, to have been something he did quite often. Jacobsen also revealed that just before he ran away he was working ‘pumping’ water with a sailor on a farm Herlofson owned,⁴⁴ perhaps work conducted as part of a field drainage project to improve the yield. Though sparse, these pieces of information reveal how Jacobsen’s work was connected to Herlofson’s many businesses: Herlofson imported large quantities of grain which again made it necessary to haul grain bags, while Jacobsen’s labour on the farm was necessitated by Herlofson’s need for workers there. Herlofson explained elsewhere that the farm was run by his town servants,⁴⁵ and, at least in this case, Adam Jacobsen was one of those he used in this work, together with a sailor who might have worked on one of Herlofson’s numerous ships.

What is striking in the story of Adam Jacobsen’s work life is how hard and ordinary it was. We do not hear that he was used to display the wealth of this owner, and we hear nothing of him being dressed in livery, as was common for black male servants,⁴⁶ or being paraded in front of friends and town-people. Seeing that Herlofson bought Jacobsen for a substantial amount of money, he must have intended for him to be more than a mere servant, of which Herlofson had many. Hans Herlofson was certainly a man who was concerned with his status. In Arendal’s church he was allowed to rent the most prominent seat, the king’s chair.⁴⁷ From other sources it is precisely the performative aspect of trafficked men and women that are most pronounced. We do find a number of black men and, less so, women depicted on paintings and engravings. In fact, as in many other early modern European states, a whole genre of paintings existed in Denmark-Norway wherein black people, particularly black young boys, were dressed up in exotic garb and often placed next to their white owners.⁴⁸ It has been argued that the smaller size of the black boys compared to the grown white person next to them was a way of signalling the owners superiority, and that the difference in body size would be interpreted as also showing the white person’s ‘cognitive and emotional superiority’.⁴⁹ The purpose, then, of these boys was not only to be decorative and exotic, but also to serve as a moral contrast, signalled through differences in size, colour and clothing. The mere existence of this genre of paintings is revealing in itself, as it shows how trafficked persons were somebody, or more precisely something, to be shown off, to be displayed to the world. In this, they contrast with other household workers who were rarely depicted in paintings, precisely because they were ubiquitous in early modern Danish-Norwegian homes.

The perceived usefulness – or rather the opposite – of trafficked men and women was an important concern for the members of a legislative committee formed to work on a new slave law in the 1780s. They also concerned themselves with Afro-Caribbeans trafficked to Europe, and the very first sentence of the commission’s proposal on that topic stated: ‘It must not be allowed to transport Negroes or Negresses from our American lands to our European states, because they are necessary there but superfluous here.’⁵⁰ This referenced the work they performed as American plantation slaves compared to the type of work they would do in ‘our European states’ where they would primarily be ‘domestics’ (Domestiquer).⁵¹ There were already, members of the legislative committee argued, plenty of household servants in Europe. ‘Here [in Europe]’, one commission member wrote, ‘we have enough people of both sexes to serve their compatriots’.⁵² Another commission member, former governor general of the Danish West Indies colonel Ulrich Wilhelm von Roepstorff, even claimed that, ‘these black servants would rob … whites of their livelihoods’. For von Roepstorff labour supply was not the only concern, however, and he combined such arguments with the claim that allowing black people into Denmark-Norway would damage ‘the race’ (Racen), meaning, of course, the white ‘race’.⁵³ Gender and age entered the discussion as well: children and women were more acceptable than grown males, but none were desired.⁵⁴

Although von Roepstorff’s language was particularly vitriolic, mixing concern about labour needs and race were typical for the commission. No one suggested barring white servants ‘from our American lands’ entry to Europe, but when it came to black people the commission members quarrelled on whether they should be allowed entry to Europe at all, with some members completely opposing it, some allowing for a restricted number of people for a limited time period, and others permitting the entry of West Indian slaves as long as their owners had the king’s particular permission to import them.⁵⁵ Place, or in de Vito’s term ‘site’, and not just geography, made a difference. Most commission members argued in favour of allowing the returning slave owners to have slaves with them on the journey from the West Indies to Europe, that is, on the ship. The site of the ship, then, was to be differentiated through law from the site of the household.

Moreover, a discussion erupted in the commission on whether the black slaves should be seen as a form of luxury,⁵⁶ which was the very point of the representation of black people discussed above. This rhetoric inscribed itself into larger debates in the late eighteenth-century state where luxury was often seen as something negative. Similar claims were made in debates on the uselessness of liveried servants, but in this particular case the needs of white people in the Americas became a central part of the argument. If white ‘West Indians’ were not allowed to bring their slaves with them to Denmark, some commission members argued, they would simply skip Denmark and opt for those European states where this was allowed.⁵⁷ This was a particular concern for those born in the Americas who, it was claimed, had become ‘used to’ being ‘waited on’ by their black slaves. They would, it was claimed, simply not know how to handle white servants.⁵⁸

Most black men and women trafficked to Denmark-Norway would probably have taken part in the daily running of the household. This was certainly what the slave law commission thought they would do, as we saw above, and this assumption is backed by the empirical evidence we have. In the 1801 census for Copenhagen black men and women are referred to as servant, housekeeper, valet, chamber maid and parlour maid.⁵⁹ Outside of Copenhagen their work tasks might have been more varied and also included agricultural labour, as seen in Jacobsen’s case.

Age and time in the household would probably also have played a role regarding black men and women’s work tasks. Adam Jacobsen can again serve as an example. He arrived in Arendal when he was around 12 years old, and might then have been thought of as an exotic playmate for the children of the house. This was typical for many other young black men; King Christian VII himself had lived with a black boy called Moranti.⁶⁰ Hans Herlofson and his wife Mette certainly had children Jacobsen could play with or perhaps look after. They parented 13 boys and girls in a twenty-year period between 1761 and 1781.⁶¹ By the time Jacobsen ran away, however, he was a grown man who had been in Herlofson’s house for a decade. The Herlofson family’s interest in the difference of the newcomer might have waned, leading his owner to use Jacobsen’s labour where ever he was needed. Despite the mundane nature of his day-to-day life, however, Herlofson would not liken him to an ordinary servant. This was clearly demonstrated by his actions and attitudes after Jacobsen ran away, which I will return to below.

Relationships. Life in the household and the neighbourhood

We find Adam Jacobsen living in Herlofson’s big house in Arendal,⁶² alongside Herlofson’s family and a large contingent of white servants. In the following, I will examine Jacobsen’s relationship with the Herlofson family, with the other people employed by Herlofson, and with the community of Arendal, where he was living for at least ten years.

Local censuses give us information on members of the Herlofson household. In a census from 1787 we find Herlofson and his wife, a son, five daughters, a housekeeper, a shop clerk and a younger ‘shop boy’ (Krambod Dræng), two female servants, one male servant and Adam Jacobsen listed as living in Herlofson’s house. Jacobsen was singled out in the census as the only one, except Herlofson himself, who was actually named. He was referred to as ‘Adam, Neger’ and given the title of Dræng, literally meaning boy but here denoting a male servant.⁶³ In 1790 and 1791 Arendal’s authorities once a again counted its inhabitants, and we find Herlofson’s widowed daughter and grandson added to the household. The number of servants remained the same as in 1787, with the addition of one parlour maid and the subtraction of one male servant.⁶⁴ In contrast to the 1787 census, Adam Jacobsen was not mentioned by name in 1790–1791. His appearance in front the magistrate in the summer of 1791, however, makes it likely that the remaining male servant mentioned was indeed Jacobsen. The mention and subsequent non-mention of Jacobsen in the censuses are, as is argued throughout this text, emblematic of how Jacobsen was referred to in the sources: sometimes he was identified with reference to his skin colour, as he was in the census from 1787; other times he was not, as in the census of 1790–1791. Also characteristically, his slave status was not mentioned. This, too, as we will return to shortly, was typical.

We do not know how the Herlofson-family felt about Jacobsen. Herlofson himself was summoned to appear in the police interrogation to discuss Jacobsen’s case but did not show, a decision that seems to have had no repercussions.⁶⁵ Perhaps this signalled Herlofson’s power and wealth in a town that by the 1790s was home to a number of ships that trafficked the Danish West Indies.⁶⁶ Hans Herlofson was one of Arendal’s major ship owners and together with other merchants in Arendal he benefitted from Danish neutrality during the American war of independence. After that Herlofson managed to keep up a substantial foreign trade until the economic situation improved around 1793.⁶⁷ In addition, Herlofson built ships, owned a farm, ran a well-stocked store, was a prolific money lender, owned parts of a saw mill, was involved in smuggling, and, from 1792, ran a tobacco mill.⁶⁸ Jacobsen, we saw above, had to take part in some of these activities.

As a trafficker of black people, Herlofson was both typical and atypical. Among those who brought black men and women to Denmark-Norway, we find many merchants, in addition to a number of state officials and sea captains, both from the Navy and the merchant marine. Unlike Herlofson, however, most had lived in the Danish West Indies, India or West Africa, and had not simply ordered a black boy to be bought by proxy. We know, however, that Herlofson corresponded with a merchant in Oslo who had done the same.⁶⁹ Furthermore, among Herlofson’s connections in St. Croix was the merchant Jens Friedenrich Hage who brought black slaves with him when he moved to Copenhagen in 1801. His sister-in-law did the same.⁷⁰ There were, therefore, people in Herlofson’s network who condoned slave keeping in Europe.

Through the source material we get some impressions of Herlofson’s treatment of Jacobsen. Jacobsen himself claimed to have run away because he had ‘suffered’ in Herlofson’s house. His work had been very hard, he said, and he was often beaten by Herlofson ‘without cause, when Herlofson was evil or not in a good mood’. Jacobsen admitted, however, that he had enough to eat and proper clothing, something that was confirmed by two of his fellow servants.⁷¹ The two, the office clerk Christen Mally and the servant Gunhild Kirstine Tallachsdatter, appeared as witnesses and testified that Jacobsen behaved well most of the time, although he had been insubordinate on occasion. In particular, Jacobsen was prone to sleeping in, for which he was, they contended, rightly punished.⁷² The testimony of Mally and Tallachsdatter are similar to what servants typically say when summoned to give statements in court cases between their fellow servants and their employers,⁷³ and Jacobsen’s skin colour did not play a major role in how they narrated their story. Jacobsen was, however, systematically referred to as ‘the Negro Adam’ or ‘the Negro’ in the police interrogation, but since this record was not ad verbatim it is unclear if these terms were the choice of the witnesses, the scribe or both.⁷⁴ The fact that such phrases were used throughout the interrogation, regardless of who testified, supports the second and third option.

In some respects, Herlofson dealt with Jacobsen in the same way he did his local servants. He sent Jacobsen to work on his farm, a place he himself claimed was worked by his servants,⁷⁵ and he used him in the day-to-day running of his business. But Herlofson also thought of Jacobsen as different, as singular. This is apparent in Herlofson’s interactions with the authorities after Jacobsen ran away. Herlofson demanded that Arendal’s magistrate punish Jacobsen but stressed that after Jacobsen had been punished he wanted him returned to his house.⁷⁶ Herlofson had instructed his office clerk Christen Mally to expressively tell the police interrogators that Herlofson did not want to ‘loose [miste] the Negro Adam, but wanted him back in his service’.⁷⁷ This insistence on Jacobsen’s return differs from Herlofson’s behaviour when one of his male servants ran away in 1792. In May that year, the year after Jacobsen absconded, a servant named Jens Jensen Flade did the same. According to Herlofson, Flade made off with some of his money and joined the army. Despite the alleged theft, Herlofson initially asked Flade to return to his service, but after Flade refused Herlofson sent two letters to local authorities demanding that they punish Flade.⁷⁸ Herlofson, then, wanted both Jacobsen and Flade punished and he wanted the authorities to carry out the punishment, but in Jacobsen’s case he kept insisting that Jacobsen should return to him. When it came to Flade, Herlofson was content if Flade was just punished. The difference between the two, of course, was that that Herlofson ‘had bought’ Jacobsen on St. Croix,⁷⁹ he was a black man Herlofson had set an actual monetary value on − 300 Riksdaler – while Flade was a local crofter’s son and one of about 35,000 male servants working in Norway at the time.⁸⁰

Jacobsen not only lived with Herlofson and his family, he also shared a house with a number of local servants; the censuses listed six. In this, Jacobsen seemed to have been typical. Most black men and women living and working in Copenhagen households in 1801 lived alongside white servants.⁸¹ Such practices say little about whether or not trafficked people became integrated into European society or not, however. Living with a white servant may have heightened the feeling of isolation if black persons were made to feel different at home. In Copenhagen this might have been ameliorated somewhat by the fact that many blacks lived alongside other trafficked people,⁸² but this was not the case for Adam Jacobsen. He was the only black person in the Herlofson home and probably the only one in Arendal.

Recent research has emphasized that the household, that primary building block of early modern society, was not isolated but part of a relational web which included the community and engaged household members, including servants, in larger networks.⁸³ Although we do not know much, we get glimpses of Jacobsen’s relationships outside Herlofson’s home. On the day he ran away, we know he worked alongside a sailor who came from one of Herlofson’s ship,⁸⁴ which would have given him a connection to the world outside Arendal. Most likely, after ten years in Arendal Jacobsen would have no problems talking with the sailor and other locals. He probably knew Danish even before that, since he had been owned by a number of Danes in St. Croix. Furthermore, we are also know that Jacobsen was incorporated into the local Christian community. On 30 March 1788 he was confirmed, alongside seven local boys and four local girls. Jacobsen, however, was the only one whose age was not entered into the church record; probably he was 19 years old, which made him older than all but one of the others confirmed that day, a 20-year-old soldier.⁸⁵ Jacobsen was also the only one who was referred to by ethnicity in the church register: he was listed as ‘Adam Jacobsen Negro’.⁸⁶ We already saw how he was referred to in a similar way in the police interrogation. Such recording practices were not specific to Arendal, but were part of broader patterns of singling black people out in late eighteenth-century European records.⁸⁷

Adam Jacobsen ran away from Herlofson twice, and what he did while on the run connects his time in Arendal with his slave past: Perhaps mimicking what he knew about marronage from his upbringing in the Atlantic slave world, Jacobsen spent his time ‘in the field’ during his first abscondment and mostly in the woods living of berries the second time he ran.⁸⁸ His choice here, however, reflected generalized escape patterns wherein the enslaved often sought refuge in nature. In the Danish West Indies of Jacobsen’s youth the establishment of plantations had left islands’ forests severely decimated, thus restricting their potential as hide-outs. Instead, many slaves fled to neighbouring islands.⁸⁹ Perhaps Jacobsen explored the potential for a maritime escape as well. He could for example have questioned the sailor he worked alongside about this, but regardless whom he might have talked to the distance across the Atlantic would severely limit his possibilities for a successful escape. When he asked Arendal’s magistrate to furnish him with travelling papers, he did indeed seek a legal way to cross the Atlantic.

Nevertheless, Jacobsen’s actions after his escape differ from those taken by most local servants who illegally left their employment. The running was not unique in itself: it was not uncommon for servants in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway to abscond,⁹⁰ but when local servants ran they rarely hid in nature. Instead, they would contact kin or friends, move to a different location or take up another type of employment, for example in the military as Herlofson’s absconded servant Jens Jensen Flade did. Jacobsen’s skin colour would haverestricted his options, particularly when combined with the space he operated within, Arendal. Jacobsen stood out in his environs. We do know of others living in the region who had been trafficked from afar, but they were not numerous: Caspar and Catharina from India lived in neighbouring Kristiansand in the 1730s, and a man named Alexander of unknown origin but described as a ‘Negro’ was listed as staying in nearby Mandal in 1801.⁹¹ There might also have been the odd African or African-descended sailor who visited Arendal while working on transatlantic trade ships. We know of some black people who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Arendal, such as Aye who was among those saved when the slave ship Fredensborg ran aground in 1768, or Bacchus, who supposedly was on his way from Denmark to the West Indies to be sold when shipwrecked in Arendal in 1791.⁹² Bacchus and Jacobsen, then, would have been in Arendal at the same time. We do not know if they met, but we do know that Bacchus was swiftly shipped back to Copenhagen where he would be one of around 100 black people.⁹³ This limited but compared to Arendal substantial number of black people might have given black slaves in Copenhagen more leeway compared with what was available to Jacobsen. The male slaves Hans Jonathan and Peder Samuel escaped their owners in Copenhagen and joined the military around 1800, like Flade had been able to do in Arendal.⁹⁴ This possible latitude, however, was limited in Copenhagen as well: Hans Jonathan and Peder Samuel were both subsequently prosecuted.

From Jacobsen’s police interrogation we are given one more piece of information that shed light on Jacobsen’s community relations. After spending some time in the woods during his second escape, Jacobsen got hungry and contacted one ‘Mr. Petersen’ and ‘got some food’.⁹⁵ Petersen owned a farm bordering Herlofson’s and probably knew Jacobsen from Jacobsen’s work there. Petersen is the only one we know Jacobsen contacted while on the run, which indicates that after almost a decade in Arendal Jacobsen’s circle of trusted friends was limited. On the other hand, there is no indication that Petersen contacted Herlofson or the authorities to turn Jacobsen in, as the law compelled him to do.

In front of the magistrate

After Adam Jacobsen turned to Arendal’s city magistrate in August 1791, he met the Danish-Norwegian state’s representatives in the physical sites of the magistrate’s office and, when he was interrogated, the town’s court room. These particular physical spaces can also be understood by using De Vito’s concept of ‘sites’, here as a juridical ‘site’ wherein law was interpreted and authority enacted. In these ‘sites’ we encounter law and local legal practice. In addition, the ‘sites’ have further importance since it is through them that we have access to Adam Jacobsen’s story, albeit filtered through the scribe’s pen.

From the magistrate Adam Jacobsen requested travelling papers to allow him to return to St. Croix, but instead the magistrate sought to reconcile him and Herlofson. This was common practice for what was considered less ‘serious’ cases and was frequently attempted in cases involving quarrelling servants and masters.⁹⁶ Often reconciliation meant that the servant would return to his or her employer. In this instance, such efforts failed because Herlofson felt that Jacobsen had ‘behaved so badly that he [Herlofson] did not want him in his house’ until Jacobsen had been punished.⁹⁷ Herlofson even gave specific suggestions as to what type of punishment Jacobsen should suffer and recommended that Jacobsen spend time in a prison workhouse (Tugthus).⁹⁸ A prison workhouse had indeed been built in the region’s main town Kristiansand only two years before. Instructions on who should be punished there were uncharacteristically vague for this type of institution and primarily named vagrants, but regulations for other prison workhouses in Norway did prescribe time in a correction house as punishment for run-away and disobedient servants.⁹⁹ We also find some servants incarcerated in such institutions in the eastern part of Norway, but by the time of Herlofson’s demand the largest inmate group in prison workhouses were thieves and not disobedient servants.¹⁰⁰

In light of these general trends, Hans Herlofson’s demand to punish Adam Jacobsen with a spell in a prison workhouse is particularly interesting. Herlofson’s attempt to outsource the punishment of Adam Jacobsen to the state is less surprising, however. Above we saw how Herlofson demanded that the state also interfere to punish a male servant who had absconded, and in Oslo and Copenhagen the lower police courts were busy dealing with such cases.¹⁰¹ This demand for state-executed punishment came in addition to the state sanctioned right employers had to corporally punish their servants, a right we saw Herlofson used when he beat Jacobsen at home. The situation in the Danish West Indies, on the other hand, was somewhat different. There punishment of the enslaved seems to have become increasingly privatized during the second half of the eighteenth century and not, as in Denmark and Norway, something employers were increasingly willing to partly subcontract out to the authorities.¹⁰²

Arendal’s town magistrate did not know what to do with Jacobsen and wrote to his superior, the regional governor, for help. Despite Herlofson’s demand to have Jacobsen committed to the prison workhouse, the magistrate was ‘not convinced he [Jacobsen] had committed any crime’. Moreover, and importantly, the magistrate expressed doubts regarding the legitimacy of the purchase of Jacobsen:

This Negro Adam is baptized and confirmed, now a member of the Christian community, and I do not believe that the purchase by which Mr. Herlofson has acquired his negro makes him unfree in this country where private thraldom or serfdom is unknown.¹⁰³

The wording is revealing. Arendal’s magistrate did not use the word ‘slave’, and the word did not appear in any of the Arendal documents connected with Adam Jacobsen. The word ‘slave’ was indeed used in European Denmark-Norway but for male convicts sentenced to hard labour. The linguistic correspondence did not mean that the ‘convict-slave’ and the chattel slave were conceived as equivalent. They were not.¹⁰⁴ Perhaps it was the difference between them Arendal’s magistrate alluded to with the phrase ‘private thraldom or serfdom’ wherein convict labour would constitute public serfdom, a convict category the magistrate himself would probably be familiar with through his work. Private thraldom, then, would be chattel slavery.

The magistrate’s claim that ‘private thraldom or serfdom’ was ‘unknown’ in ‘this country’ was untrue, and, as noted previously in this article, a small number of enslaved people did work in Norwegian and Danish households in the late eighteenth century .¹⁰⁵ Arendal’s magistrate was right, however, in pointing out that there was no positive law explicitly regulating slavery in ‘the king’s realm and lands in Europe’.¹⁰⁶ This was what the legal commission referenced above attempted but failed to achieve. On the other hand, the absence of positive law on slavery did not prevent the authorities from confirming and enforcing one person’s property rights over another. Rebekka von Mallinckrodt has shown how German bureaucratic and legal practice repeatedly affirmed slavery despite there being no law that stated that slavery was permitted in the Holy Roman empire.¹⁰⁷ This also seem to have been the case in Denmark where a number of administrative decisions in the second half of the eighteenth century effectively allowed enslavement. In 1774, the question of whether or not four slaves brought in from West Africa could be sold on auction came up. The regional governor doubted the legality of this and had to ask the central governing body of the Danish Chancellery (Danske Kancelli) for guidance. They mulled it over, and came to the conclusion that the sale of humans was legal: ‘as long as a slave is property’, their circular argument went, ‘the opinion is, that it (den) can be sold (…)’.¹⁰⁸ In addition, towards the end of the eighteenth century Copenhagen’s courts concluded that slavery was for all intent and purposes legal there.¹⁰⁹

Arendal’s magistrate saw it differently. He did not seem to have been aware of any previous decisions on slavery in Denmark, neither did the later Copenhagen-rulings appear to have been familiar with the Jacobsen case. Perhaps the magistrate did know the so-called Somerset-case in which the Chief Justice Lord Mansfield in 1772 famously ruled that one could not be a slave in England. Although historians have qualified the significance of Mansfield’s ruling claiming that it did in fact not end slavery in England,¹¹⁰ contemporaries often assumed that it did. One of the people on the legal commission tasked with writing the new slave law for Denmark-Norway interpreted it in this way, stating that ‘Lord Mansfield gave them [the enslaved] freedom (…)’.¹¹¹ There is, however, no reference to the Somerset-case in the magistrate’s papers and Mansfield’s ruling was not reported in the local regional paper.

Regardless of the magistrate’s thoughts on the issue, the regional governor did not comment on the legality of enslavement in his response to the magistrate. He simply ignored the issue. The governor did, however, agree with the magistrate that Jacobsen had not committed any crime.¹¹² This is significant because it reveals that Adam Jacobsen was not considered to be a servant. Servant law regulated when and how a servant could quit, and Jacobsen’s abscondment was in clear violation of these rules.¹¹³ The magistrate and the regional governor could have punished Jacobsen for running away if they had employed servant law, but they did not.

Conclusion

In this article, I have explored the life of Adam Jacobsen and particularly his life in Arendal with the help the micro-spatial approach. This allows us to investigate connections between the local and the global, and, it is argued, helps us examine how enslavement was practiced in a small town in southern Norway in the late eighteenth century.

Adam Jacobsen was bought in St. Croix and brought to the small but well-connected town of Arendal in Norway in 1781 or 1782. His mother Sophia continued to live in the Danish West Indies, but became a free woman who lived among other free blacks. We know little of her life, but we do know she tried to buy her son’s freedom ten years after he was trafficked to Europe. For Sophia, then, an enslaved person remained enslaved regardless of whether he or she was in St. Croix or in Arendal. This also seems to have been the sentiment of her son’s owner in Arendal, Hans Herlofson. Herlofson did not think of Jacobsen as a servant but as something he owned. This outlook is comparable to the ‘commodification’ of Africans and people of African origin Simonsen argued was found in eighteenth-century Copenhagen, a process that differentiated them from other ‘subordinate groups’ also subject to coercion in eighteenth-century Danish society, including servants.¹¹⁴

What is different in Arendal compared to the situation in Copenhagen is the view held by the town’s magistrate on this issue: he doubted that one could be a slave in Arendal. His superior, the regional governor, however, chose to disregard the question of enslavement all together, and we have no information on whether the issue was discussed further. For Denmark and especially for Copenhagen, on the other hand, we find several examples where the legality of slavery in Europe was assessed, and around 1800 jurists and bureaucrats claimed that the supreme court on more than one occasion had confirmed the right to own slaves in the European part of Denmark-Norway.¹¹⁵ One of the surprising things regarding Jacobsen’s case is perhaps how little attention was devoted to his enslavement: Arendal’s authorities did not refer to similar decisions from other places in Denmark-Norway, the legality of enslavement in general or the famous Somerset-case. It seems that they opted to ignore the issue.

Adam Jacobsen came from a place where the enslaved were the majority to a place where he was possibly the only black resident. As such he stood out, which was probably the reason why he had been bought in the first place. Herlofson wanted him because he looked different, as many other European purchasers of slaves. Here Herlofson’s decision to acquire Jacobsen were an expression of broader European trends that placed black people, particularly black boys, as priced possessions in elite households, and by 1780 the expansion of Atlantic trade networks had made it possible for a merchant in a small Norwegian coastal town to partake in this trend. We have no knowledge of how Jacobsen himself felt about this, but we do know that he did not want to stay in Herlofson’s house or in Arendal.

Jacobsen had, as demonstrated, several relationships and encounters in Arendal; with the Herlofson-family and the servants in the household, with the community and with the authorities. He lived and worked alongside local servants, he did mundane and everyday work tasks, and he objected to being beaten by his master. His skin colour or his enslavement did not always play a role in such relationship, but the documents that deal with Adam Jacobsen very often employed racialized language, as was often the case in Europe at the time.¹¹⁶ The availability of sources is indeed in itself an expression of the racialization of Jacobsen since it so often singled him out, yet the lack of ego-documents reveals his position as a subordinate and the biases of early modern archives. At the same time, the absence of the word ‘slave’ in all but the magistrate’s rebranding as ‘private thraldom or serfdom’ is telling and typical: with the development of the Atlantic slave trade racial epitaphs had themselves become a shorthand for enslavement. It was sufficient to call someone a ‘Negro’, you need not call him a slave. It might also have been a way to ‘obscure slavery in European context’, as Josef Köstlebauer has argued with regards to the Moravians in Germany, who had a similar textual blindness when it came to that term.¹¹⁷

None of Arendal’s inhabitants seemed to have objected or protested to Jacobsen’s enslavement, at least no record expressing such sentiments have been found. Moreover, Jacobsen had lived in Arendal for a decade before the town magistrate questioned the legality of his enslavement and he only did so after he had been contacted by Jacobsen. We do not know what happened to Adam Jacobsen after he ran away the second time. So far, no credible trace of him has been found in the archival material after 1791. In this, he seems fairly typical of slaves brought to Denmark-Norway to serve in European households. With some exceptions,¹¹⁸ we do not know what became of them.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanne Østhus

HANNE ØSTHUS (b. 1980) is a social and labour historian. She is interested in relations of work, gender, power and patterns of consumption and has done research on domestic service and slavery in the Danish kingdom in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Østhus has a doctoral degree from the European University Institute in Florence. She now works as Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. https://www.ntnu.no/ansatte/hanne.osthus

Notes

1. Kristiansand regional archive (SAK), Arendal byfogd, politiprotokoll 1783–1799, f.232b–233a and Arendal byfogd, rettergang, fm justissaker, L001 politisaker, 0001 administrative saker. Entry dated 3 Aug. 1791. Population data Arendal 1791: SAK, Arendal byfogd, M/Mc/L0001, Manntall, folketelling, 1790–1791.

2. In this article the term ‘negro’ (Da. Neger) is used only when it is a quote from the original source.

3. SAK, Arendal bvfogd, rettergang, fm justissaker, L001 politisaker, 0001 administrative saker. Entry dated 3 Aug. 1791.

4. Ibid.

5. National archive of Denmark (RA – D), Generaltoldkammeret, “Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789,” P.M. by Bang dated 14 April 1783, nr. 10.

6. ‘trafficked’ is used here to signal that for many of these individuals the trip across the Atlantic, from Africa and Asia was not voluntary. Rebekka von Mallinckrodt has recently used the German equivalent, Mallinckrodt “Verschleppte Kinder”. Asia is included because the racial categories were not clear-cut. An example of this was Juliane, who was brought to Copenhagen from Patna, who in 1817 was described as a ‘mulatto’, Bardenfleth. For lang og tro tjeneste, 56.

7. Olsen, Vestindien, 150–1.

8. Waaben, “A. S. Ørsted,” 321–43.

9. Olsen, “Disse vilde karle,” 103–17; Olsen, ”Fra Danmark,” 254–62; and Østhus, “Slaver og ikke – europeiske tjenestefolk,” 37–41.

10. Østhus, “Slaver og ikke – europeiske tjenestefolk,” 36.

11. Halberg, “En caribisk barnepiges breve, 1871,” 511–4.

12. Aust – Agder museum og arkiv (AAKS), PA–1060, Samling av forretningsarkiv. A–Å, F/Fa: Herlofson, Hans.

13. Sætra, “Adam – Herlofsons negerslave,” 7–17.

14. Díaz, “The Trade in Domestic Servants,” 194–217; Lien, ”Kolonial skam,” 96–108; Olsen, “Disse vilde karle,” 103–17; Olsen, “Fra Danmark til verdens ende,” 254–62; Nielsen, Fru Jensen; 21; Pálsson, The Man Who Stole Himself; Simonsen, “Belonging in Africa,” 91–115; Waaben, “A. S. Ørsted,” 321–43; Waaben, “Folk fra det fjerne”, 7–40.

15. Simonsen, “Racisme, slaveri og marked”.

16. Ibid., 288–9.

17. De Vito, “History without scale”.

18. Ibid., 356.

19. No record of his baptism has been found. The surviving church records for the Danish Lutheran church for 1769 and 1771 are in bad condition and altogether missing for 1770. Moreover, Jacobsen may have been baptized in one of the other churches on the islands.

20. SAK, Arendal sokneprestkontor, Trefoldighet, SAK/1111–0040/F/Fa/L0001Ministerialbok nr. A 1, 1703–1815, f. 61b.

21. Waaben, “Folk fra det fjerne,” 22.

22. SAK, Arendal byfogd, politiprotokoll 1783–1799, f.232b–233a.

23. SAK, Arendal byfogd, rettergang, fm justissaker, L001 politisaker, 0001 administrative saker, summons to appear, 3 Aug. 1791.

24. See note 26.

25. RA – D, Det vestindisk – guineiske Kompagni, Den vestindiske regering, “Gruppeordnede sager: Sociale og kulturelle forhold”, “Fortegnelse over frikulørte mænd, kvinder og børn i Christiansteds jurisdiktion, 1744–1811”.

26. Ibid., lists Nov. 1783, 1791, 1794, 1795, 1797, 1798, 1800, and 1802.

27. Hall, Slave Society, 5, table 1.1.

28. Tomter, “Frie fargede,” 68.

29. Hall, Slave Society, 5, table 1.1.

30. Tomter, “Frie fargede,” 96.

31. Ibid., 66–7.

32. See note 26.

33. Tomter, “Frie fargede,” 56.

34. RA – D, Reviderede regnskaber, Vestindiske regnskaber, 1758–1915, matrikkel for St. Croix, years 1798–99, nr. 86.33–34, and 1799–1800, nr. 86.35–36, address: Östergade 54; Den vestindiske regering, “Gruppeordnede sager: Sociale og kulturelle forhold,” Frikulørte mænd, kvinder og børn i Christiansteds jurisdiktion, 1744–1811’, list 1794, nr. 276 Catharina Høyer.

35. See note 26.

36. Ibid.

37. Magistrate Niels Bernt Suhr, Sophia’s owner, seems to have died in 1781, but diverging information is given on this. Sophia might have been freed because he died, but no confirmation of this has been located. Suhr’s widow moved to Copenhagen, where she bought a burial plot in 1782. Christiansen, “Uddrag,” 153. On Suhr, see Lengnick, Genealogier, 6; and Worsøe; “Suhr”.

38. RA – D, Danske kanselli, Vestindiske Sager, 1773–1786, I 2, ff. 756b–757b.

39. See note 26.

40. Ibid.

41. Ships 1780: Favoriten/Le Favorite, captain Knut Nordberg, Bredesen, “Skipsfart og handel,” 36, table 3; Sound Toll Registers Online, record-id 198,827, date 6 Dec. 1780, Accessed February 21, 2022. http://dietrich.soundtoll.nl/public/advanced.php?id=198827. Ships 1781: Bredesen, “Skipsfart og handel,” 43. Ships 1782: Cron Prindz Christian, Diesen, Slekten Herlofson, 84. In the Sound toll registers we find no Jahnsen from Arendal who was the captain on the ship that took Jacobsen to Arendal, sailing to the Danish West Indies in 1781, 1782 or 1783. One Frederich Jansen Buck from Copenhagen sailed from Copenhagen to St. Thomas in 1782, record-id: 233467; and one Hans Jansen Groot, also from Copenhagen, did the same 18 Sept. 1782, record-id: 236344, Sound Toll Registers Online.

42. See note 26.

43. Nothing was found regarding the letter in Herlofson’s merchant archive. AAKS, Samling av forretningsarkiv. A–Å, F/Fa: Herlofson, Hans, ‘Kopibog 1788–1790’ and ‘Kopibog 1790–1793’.

44. See note 26 above.

45. AAKS, Samling av forretningsarkiv, Hans Herlofson, “Kopibog 1790–93,” letter 30 Aug. 1791. This might not have been the case later on. The 1801-census lists 50 inhabitants on Langsæv farm, with most of the adults listed as cottars, workers, sailors and/or miners (Bergarbeyder). Digitalarkivet, census 1801, 0918P Austre Moland prestegjeld, https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/rural–residence/bf01058325003172.

46. Simonsen, “Racisme, slaveri og marked,” 292–3.

47. Diesen, Slekten Herlofson, 99.

48. Waaben, “Folk fra det fjerne,” 7–12. Paintings: Abraham Wuchter, painting of queen Sophie Amalie (1667), in the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle; Johann Salomon Wahl, painting of princess Charlotte Amalie; painting of Christian VI. Nobility: Benoit Le Coiffre, painting of Dorothea Krag, Lorentz Lönnberg, painting of Ernst Heinrich v. Schimmelmann

49. Mallinckrodt, “Verschleppte Kinder,” 21. My translation.

50. RA – D, Generaltoldkammeret, Generaltoldkammeret, Genpart af adksillige anmærkninger og plakater ang. slaver samt udkast til slavelov, draft on slave law code, 29 June 1785, chapter 5, art. 1.

51. Ibid.

52. RA – D, Generaltoldkammeret, Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, PM by Trant, 25 June 1785, no. 37.

53. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, PM by Roepstorff, 7 February 1784, nr. 17.

54. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. by. Hesselberg, 7 June 1784, nr. 21; P.M. by Söbötker 23 March 1784, nr. 19, and 24 May 1785, nr. 31.

55. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789.

56. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. by Trant, 25 June 1785, nr. 37; and P.M. by Roepstorff, 21 June 1785, nr. 38.

57. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. by Trant, 25 June 1785, nr. 37.

58. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. by Moth, 25 June 1785, nr. 38.

59. The titles given are Tiener, Tienestepige, Hushjelp, Kammerpige, Stuepige, Opvarter, Syerske, Gaardkarl. 1801-census, Copenhagen, online version https://ddd.dda.dk/asp/alle_opl.asp.

60. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M.by Söbötker nr. 31, and Moth, nr. 38; Langen, Den afmægtige, 2008, 337–9.

61. Diesen, Slekten Herlofson, 101–7.

62. Ibid. 77–9.

63. SAK, Arendal byfogd, manntall 1787.

64. SAK, Arendal byfogd, manntall 1790–91.

65. Arendal bvfogd, rettergang, administrative saker, report of summons, dated 3 Aug. 1791.

66. Gøbel, “Den danske besejling,” 50–51; Diesen, Slekten Herlofson, 84–93; and Bredesen,” Skipsfart og handel,” 31–8, 49.

67. Johnsen and Sætra, Sørlandsk skipsfart, 51–2.

68. Diesen, Slekten Herlofson.

69. Ibid., 79.

70. AAKS, Samling av forretningsarkiv, Hans Herlofson, “Kopibok 1790–93,” letters dated 12 Feb. and 19 Feb. 1791, “Kopibok 1795–96,” and 20 Jan. 1795. The trafficked persons were Peter, Charlotta and Pini, aged 10, 13 and 16 respectively, 1801–census, Copenhagen, St. Annæ Gade 92, https://www.sa.dk/ao–soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=27548#27548,2924161. Others in this household might also be trafficked: Christopher, 24, Joh. Lovisa, 22 and Nansa Julia, 1. Hage’s sister – in–law also brought with her two of her slaves when she moved to Copenhagen, Jack and Amalia. Census of 1801, original, area ‘Snarens Kvarter’, picture 20, https://www.sa.dk/ao–soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=27440#27440,2920542.

71. See note 22.

72. Ibid.

73. Østhus, “Vanartige tjenestefolk,” 49.

74. See note 22.

75. AAKS, Samling av forretningsarkiv, Hans Herlofson, “Kopibok 1790–93,” letter 30 Aug. 1791.

76. SAK, Arendal bvfogd, rettergang, fm justissaker, L001 politisaker, 0001 administrative saker. Entry dated 3 Aug. 1791.

77. See note 22.

78. AAKS, Samling av forretningsarkiv. Hans Herlofson, ”Kopibok 1790–93,” letters 1 July 1792 and 12 Aug. 1792.

79. SAK, Arendal bvfogd, rettergang, fm justissaker, L001 politisaker, 0001 administrative saker. Entry dated 3 Aug. 1791.

80. Folketeljinga 1801, table 8.

81. 49 of 51 persons (3 are uncertain). Dansk Demografisk Database.

82. Copenhagen: 1787–census: 6 of 19, 1801–census: 32 of 52. Dansk Demografisk Database.

83. Eibach, “Das Offene Haus,” 621–64.

84. See note 22.

85. SAK, Arendal sokneprestkontor, Trefoldighet, ministerialbok nr. A 1, 1703–1815, f. 61b.

86. Ibid.

87. Köstlbauer, ‘“I Have No Shortage of Moors”’, 116; and Østhus, “Slaver og ikke – europeiske tjenestefolk,” 37–9.

88. See note 22.

89. Hall, “Maritime Maroons,” 481–3.

90. Østhus, Contested Authority, 142.

91. Engevold, Nordmenn i slavefart, 222–3, 236.

92. Svalesen, Slaveskipet Fredensborg, 161–2; and Waaben, “A. S. Ørsted,“ 335–6.

93. Waaben, “A. S. Ørsted,” 325.

94. Ibid., 322.

95. See note 22.

96. Sogner, “Conclusion,” 271–3; and Østhus, “Vanartige tjenestefolk,” 85–6.

97. SAK, Arendal bvfogd, administrative saker, entry dated 3 Aug. 1791.

98. Ibid.

99. Wessel-Berg, Anordning om Christianssands Stifts Tugt – og Manufacturhus, 25 July 1789; Anordning om Tughusets Indrettelse i Christiania 2 Dec. 1741, chapter III, § 4.

100. Daae, Tugthuset, 138–44; Østhus, ‘Vanartige tjenestefolk’, 100–1; and Sauesund, ‘Tyver under tukt’, 58, 63.

101. Østhus, Contested Authority, 124–64.

102. Simonsen, “Sovereignty, Mastery, and the Law,” 283–304.

103. SAK, Stiftamtmannen i Kristiansand, Inkomne brev, Dae brev fra lokale instanser, L–1022 Arendal byfogd, letter from magistrate Berg, dated 6 Aug. 1791.

104. Heinsen, Det første fængsel; Heinsen, “Ind og ud af slaverierne,” 11–31

105. Østhus, “Slaver og ikke – europeiske tjenestefolk,” 40–1. It is unclear if ‘this country’ meant Norway or Denmark-Norway, but it might very well have been the first.

106. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. from Bang, 14 April 1783, nr. 10.

107. Mallinckrodt, ”Verhandelte (Un–)Freihet,” 348–51.

108. Olsen, “Disse vilde karle,” 104.

109. Bregnsbo, “Kolonirigets etablering,” 121; Waaben, ‘A. S. Ørsted’.

110. Lorimer, “Black slaves and English liberty,” 121–50.

111. Udkast og Betænkninger ang. negerloven, 1783–1789, P.M. by Roepstorff, 7 Feb. 1784, nr. 17.

112. SAK, Stiftamtmannen i Kristiansand, kopibok L0113, letter from Leventzau, dated 16 Aug. 1791.

113. Østhus, Contested Authority, 104–6.

114. Simonsen, “Racisme, slaveri og marked,” 288–9.

115. Waaben, “A. S. Ørsted,” 335.

116. Simonsen, “Racisme, slaveri og marked”; Østhus, “Slaver og ikke – europeiske tjenestefolk,” 37–9.

117. Köstlbauer, ‘“I Have No Shortage of Moors”’, 116.

118. Pálsson, The Man Who Stole Himself.