Daily AncestorSlave schedule
The slave schedule was the separate 1850 and 1860 census form listing enslaved people under each owner's name, by number, age, sex and color, but almost never by name.
Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants, named the owner and then gave each enslaved person a number with age, sex and color (B or M), plus columns for deaf and dumb, blind, insane or idiotic, fugitives and those freed within the year. In 1860 it also counted slave houses.
Names were replaced by numbers. The 1860 instructions asked for names only of those 100 or older. Researchers match ages and sexes across 1850, 1860 and the 1870 census, the first after emancipation, to trace families.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Slave schedule." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/census-terms/slave-schedule. Last checked 2026-10-03.