When slave owners died in the Amazon, custom required that descendants make a list of all that person's property and belongings. This list also includes information on slaves owned by the deceased. The slaves belonging to the deceased had to answer several questions such as: their names, ages, married life, children, profession, values, injuries, illness and their ethnicity or origin. Using the information gathered, Hawthorne was able to trace the origin of slaves in America to parts of Africa such as the Bay of Benin, Angola, and Upper Guinea. The relationship between postmodern inventory records concerns the location of the origin of slaves, as the information recorded refers to the ethnic group of slaves in