Are you working on pre-Civil War slave-owning families of the South?

Question

[Not sure which g2g category this belongs in]

As I've been helping with an early Ball family of Virginia, one of the source types I've been transcribing are old wills. Bequests in such wills often include named slaves.  Given the difficulty of conducting genealogical research of slave ancestry, I thought it would be a good idea to create a section in such profiles called "Slaves Associated with ___ Family" and list there whatever can be extracted from the will or deed or other documents. It occurs to me that this would be at least some small help in building evidence for those people reaching way back to try to identify their slave ancestry.  Take a look at the profile of Joseph Ball, linked to here, as an example. 

If you have access to pre-Civil War documents that mention slaves, please be willing to transcribe and include any identifying information you can find. 

Civil War Project folks, what do you think about this?

 

Comments

if there were a category for post-Civil War slave-owning families of the south maybe the Waltons of Arkansas could be listed

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Another resource that might be useful: the Documenting Runaway Slaves project at http://aquila.usm.edu/drs/  Right now it only covers some pre-Civil War newspapers in Mississippi, but the creators hope to expand it to covert the rest of the American South and even other countries like Brazil.

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I'm collecting resources for slave records on the Southern Colonies British Colony Resource Page.  There aren't many and not searchable but in case they are of any help, I thought I would mention it.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:US_Southern_Colonies_British_Carolina

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PJ, this is a WONDERFUL page. I'm trying to nominate it. Amazing work! Thanks for putting all that together.

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We are all working hard in the Southern Colonies Project and appreciate you noticing one of our pages! Several people worked on this and we are only just beginning! It isn't  quite finished. Thanks so much for highlighting our project!

Paula

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Sharon I have recently begun to find info on the Hunnicutts owning and freeing slaves in 1710. But I don't know where to look for documents. One of the Augustine Hunnicutts wife Margaret was supposed to be a slave, but I think she was indentured. But there are three Margerets I'm tracking. Jillian can slave owns be added to the category if only the mention of bequests were made?

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Trudy, I'm not the one to ask about the use of the category. My suggestion was for a section in the biography that listed any slaves known to be land by said person. In the case of slaves mentioned in the will, I've been putting such slaves I the profile of the person who left the will.

I suppose if I was using a slave-owner category I'd put it both the person who left the will and the person who received a slave through a will-- they did, at least for a time, own the slave. And be sure to include the source for using the category.

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Many thanks, especially to Joseph and Jillian -transcriptions of wills and other documents owned by slave-holding families would greatly help us in the search for our enslaved or manumitted ancestors.

Warm Regards,

ShiraDest.

January 21. 12015 H.E. (Holocene Era)

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Tying this back to  3 related threads:

1.
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89028/naming-conventions-for-slaves?show=121840#a121840 
:

-I sugges (via Nae) that Slave LNAB's should be 1st found owner's name, Other Names=owners, and last owner or CurrentName=Free-chosen:

2.

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/122830/servants-enslaved-persons-category-african-american-history?show=123114#a123114

I agree with Goodman-2062 and Smith-32867:  FreeSpace profiles 
which list a.) the person who left the will 
b.) the person who received a slave through a will, and 
c.) the Slave him/herself ??

and

3.

Eyestone-2:  I agree;   I'd suggest 3 new Categories:

1.) "Enslaved Persons in the USA" 
2.) "Freedman" or 'Freedmen' (not to be confused with 
'Cherokee Freedmen' and the Cher. Freedmen's Controversy, 
which will overlap, as most if not all Cherookee Freedman are 
in the Freedmen category) 
and  

3.)  "Contraband"   -Free Space profiles for each camp, such as Camp Barker in DC, the camps in Alexandria, VA, and the other 'Contraband Camps' across the Occupied South would list the profiles of escaped slaves listed as 'Contrabands' by Union forces in that particular camp.

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/122830/servants-enslaved-persons-category-african-american-history?show=123121#a123121

 

I think I missed a discussion title/link, but don't have time at the moment to find it.  My apologies,

Shira

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Answer 1

Hi Jillaine, Please use the category search to look for the word slave.  There is a Slave-owner:_Virginia category already. Is that sufficient, or are you suggesting a project to consolidate the slave categories?

Comments

Excellent! Thanks, Kitty. I'll do that.

I hope others will, too.

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I'm not at all sure that category is correctly named. Maybe before it's used too extensively it should be discussed with the Categorization Project.

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As that project considers this, I'd like to add that I'm seeking a way to grouping profiles that contain identification of at least some of the slaves. The point of my initial request is to help people researching slave ancestry to find potentially useful data. The existing category however named will not help such researchers if the associated profiles do not contain anything further than the owner's info.

Thanks.

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I'm aslo considering doing this.  I was planning to add lists to the slave-owners category somehow.  I was thinking we could just do a sub bullet point  under each name with "list of known slaves of X" whenever we have them, and link it to a free page list for each slave owner.

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It also begs the question: do we create profiles for every slave identified in such records? Seems like we should. 

Such a profile would include whatever we can extract from the slave-owner records. 

"Was called 'girl' in the 1789 will of slave-owner Joseph Ball [link to his profile], implying she may have been under 12 at the time'' etc.

Was referred to as "Slave Joe and his woman Bella" implying "marriage" or cohabitation and the potential for parenting of others.

Property Deed decreed that Joe and Bella and all their offspring ("their increase") be equally divided among the six children. 

I so DO NOT know about researching slave ancestry, so I hope someone with more contextual, historical knowledge would best advise here.

It's just that every time I see these individuals recorded on these old documents, it makes my heart ache-- for among many other reasons-- to try to link them to their descendants.

AND it also begs the question of coming up with naming standards for slaves. 

First name: Bella

Last name: Unknown

Other last name: Ball (owner's surname)

Do we already have such profiles here?

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There's a separate conversation going on about naming conventions for slaves.

 

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Can someone point the Categorization project folks here, please? I'd love their input.

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I second Jilliane's request ...

Also... maybe we should talk to, and thank Betty Tindle. She really got the categories off the ground on WikiTree.

I would also like it If the categorization project could shorten the names of the existing categories, and expand it to include:

* Brazil (this is where the majority of those abducted were taken)

* and the Carribean Islands.

 

 

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Jillian, you are a wonderful wonderful person.  Thank you.

Shira

January 21. 12015 H.E. (Holocene Era)

Answer 2

Related discussions on G2G:

Can someone create a sub-category of Slavery in the Africa-American History Category please?

Naming conventions for slaves

Slavery in the U.S.

Ethics: Regarding slave owners and those they owned

 

 

Answer 3

There is now a sub project within the Southern Colonies project in need of a leader.  It is in the preliminary stage of development, but here if you see the main resource page there is a link to the US Southern Colonies Resource page.  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:US_Southern_Colonies_Slavery

Comments

Is a similar catagory going to be created for the Northern Colonies as the south was not the only local to hold slaves.

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Michael,

The above is a free space page, not actually a category.  It could probably be renamed, but was originally just recently started under the umbrella of the Southern Colonies of North America (present day continental USA).

 

I just basically set up the page, and am adding information as I find it for each area, etc.  This page can also be linked to the categories that are being created, just haven't gotten there yet.

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Even though I've put this on the back burner-I've been thinking about it alot. I had ancesters that were slave owners and I have "black" cousins  that I've discussed Wiki-Tree with. I'm going to get my facts together and start out on the sub section Slavery in the Southern Colonies project I'm working with Mary on the New Spain colonies. I was surprised to learn that the first Spanish Slaves were Spanish Moors and Indiginous people, to a large degree ( that supply was rapidly depleted) Then Algeria was next (They never told the people of the Canary Islands they were slaves, they just told them they had a quota to fill) But the colonies project is the perfect place to start and it will grow down from there...just saying. Allan Harl Thomas

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Very good point.  My ancestor Miles Manzilla (Sr.) was purchased as a young boy in VA, around 1800, and taken to Ohio (then the NW territory, I believe) before appearing as a free man in the 1850 (or 1840) census.  So I wonder, despite OH having entered the Union as a Free State (or did it?), whether he was initially enslaved in Ohio, meaning that court documents should exist?

Many thanks for all of your work on this,

Shira

January 21. 12015 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)

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Shira: I believe slavery was forbidden in the NW Territory as a condition of admission of states.  He would have become free upon entering Ohio.  There was actually a lot of litigation, all the way to the US Supreme Court, dealing with former slaves re-entering a slave state (voluntarily and involuntarily).  There may be court records; but not likely if he and his former owner had no problem with his new free status.

Answer 4

Another resource for slaves in the antebellum South may be census registers ... one of my Ross cousins has census records of our ancestors' slaves in Florida and South Carolina.

Comments

Do you have any links to these records or sources?  Would love to add them to the resource page.  :)

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I don't yet. Wayne said he'd send them to me but has not got around to it yet.

Answer 5

Good idea, Jilliane. I just adopted a profile that had a will in the bio, and there is mention, by name, of slaves. I'll pull it up and add the profile. Hope it helps.

Answer 6

The  Gamble Mansion in Ellenton, Florida on US301 has a museum that details the lives of the Gamble family, how the plantation worked and lists of about 191 slaves.

You may want to write to them. We go there for the Cotillion in April

 

Sharon Troy Centanne aka Troy-204

Answer 7

I'm more than happy to share my family wills, plus others I've run accross.   I'm a long, long way from having all my profiles done, but I've got many of their wills.  Do you have somewhere you want the profile and all posted?  Or just the wills?  If you will show me where, I'll hurry up and do the first and you can see if that is what you are looking for.  Then we can go from there.

Answer 8

Tying this back: please see

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/123951/categories-and-tags-for-profiles-of-slaves?show=124734#c124734

-we now have a category:American Slaves, but still need a way to include slaves in the Carribean.

May I suggest a category such as 'Slavery in North and South America'  to go under the Category: World History?

Shira

Answer 9

please join the tie-up thread at

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89028/naming-conventions-for-slaves?show=124979#c124979

Comments

Uncle Thornton seemed deluded and to love a lie. He was my direct ancestor's nephew. There is no shame in being a slave since you are born one and have little to say about it. We are all slaves to something one way or the other. The only shame is in being an owner without being equipped to accept and handle the responsibility. That is what Jefferson and Lee knew to be the case. A larger percentage of slaves made it to heaven than slave owners did. A slave did not have much to love about this world. The fat and sassy owners probably died suddenly with little or no chance to repent. My 19th Century ancestors were younger sons who had smaller farms. Both direct paternal and maternal 18th Century ancestors have their Wills published online. My maternal ancestor set his personal slave married couple free and charged his heirs with responsibility for looking after them and making sure they were taken care of. Both of my direct 18th Century ancestors had hundreds and hundreds of acres in Virginia and North Carolina with at least 20 slaves. Never cry for those who have gone on before us. Their fate is already determined. Cry for the lost in the third world who has nobody to pray for them but us. Regards