Looking for South Carolina Slave names McInis, McGinnis in St. James Santee, McClellanville, Georgetown, Moss Swamp, Santee Township. Earliest I found is Richard McInis *ca 1831, wife Peggie *1831

Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!

As the repository of the permanently valuable, noncurrent records of the Federal Government, the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) only holds records that were generated by the
various agencies and institutions of the United States Government, or from activities that were under
direct Federal jurisdiction. During the antebellum period, slaveholding and slave trading were officially
considered matters of private property and private enterprise and were not under the direct jurisdiction
or regulation of any agency of the Federal Government. Consequently, most records relating to slavery
and slaveholders are held at local and state repositories—not at the National Archives.

Keep in mind that legally slaves were considered part of their owners’ property, and any documentation
of their lives will be scattered among the records of the business transactions of their owners. So you
will need to determine where the various property records of their owners are held. These types of
records are usually held on the county level. The relevant type documentation typically consisted of
items such as probate records, vital records, tax records, and various types of documents found in the
court order books and county deed books (bills of sale, deeds of gift, mortgages, records of importation
and manumissions). Once you identify the location of the owners’ records, you will be able to find
whatever documentation exists on the subjects you are researching.

The records at the National Archives that do relate to the formerly enslaved and former slaveholders are
mainly from the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction. These were the years that the Federal
Government had its most direct contact with the formerly enslaved and former slaveholders. These
records consist primarily of military records documenting formerly-enslaved soldiers and sailors serving
in the US Colored Troops or the Union Navy, the Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) that assisted the formerly enslaved during Reconstruction,
the Records of the Freedman’s Saving & Trust Company (the Freedman’s Bank), and the Record of the
Commissioners of Claims (the Southern Claims Commission). None of these records are directly related
to the sale and holding of slaves during the antebellum period, although they can sometimes reveal
information pertaining to those matters.

Other than the Civil War and Reconstruction era records mentioned above, the only other records that
provide some personal details on slaves and slaveholders are the Records of the US District Court for the
District of Columbia Relating to Slaves, 1851-63 (Record Group 21 and 217). These records pertain only
to the enslaved and slaveholders in Washington, DC, and the surrounding areas of Maryland and Virginia
between the years of 1851 to 1863, so they will not be directly relevant to your South Carolina research.

If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to our office directly via email at: archives1reference@nara.gov.

We hope this assists you with your research!

Sincerely,

Archives 1 Reference Branch

RR1R-23-45658-DD