Civil War. The history of slavery is well documented, mainly through records of succession, sales of enslaved people and manumission. Succession records list sales and contain inventories describing landed properties and buildings, the enslaved people attached to them, tools and animals, and the old and new crops stored in granaries or standing in the fields. While these are snapshots taken in circumstances such as the death or bankruptcy of landowners, the evolution of the economic and social situation of the plantation can easily be chronicled over several inventories. Further information can be found from trials, mostly of enslaved persons who had escaped but also those accused of murder, theft and certain minor offences. Some cases related to enslaved persons who had taken part in revolts, the largest of which had broken out on the German Coast in January 1811. All these documents meticulously recorded the skills, diseases and personal behaviour of the enslaved individuals. Their names and nicknames, the names of their masters and their birthplaces - or their 'nations' for those born in Africa - were also scrupulously documented.