Born 1744 in Savannah, Georgia

Died 1820 in Georgia, United States

Profile manager: Jerry Barnard [send private message]

Biography

Rose (Slave) Nunez is part of Black history.

Rose was born around 1744. She was the second wife of Moses Nunez, and is noted in his will as "Mulatto Rose," along with her sons Robert, James and Alexander Nunez, as well as her daughter, Frances Galphin.^[1][2]

An ad in The Augusta chronicle and Georgia advertiser on 11 June 1823 for a Notice of Free Persons of color registered in the book of Registery, Waynesborough, 30th May 1823 listed:

Charles Nunes age 26, born S. Carolina - residence in Georgia 23 years - occupation - Planter

Alexander Nunes age 46, born Georgia - residence in Georgia 46 years - occupation - Planter

Janet Nunes age 17, born Georgia - residence in Georgia 17 years - Seamstress

Robert Nunes age 18, born Georgia - residence in Georgia 17 years - Planter

Rose Nunes age 70, born Georgia - residence in Georgia 70 years - no occupation^[3]

She died around 1820.

Research Notes

Rose may also be the individual mentioned in the will of George Galphin, based on this information on an Ancestry site:

1776 Will of George I Galphin Contested 1782

South Carolina

A will, sworn and signed in April of 1776 by George Galphin is being contested [by wife he left in Ireland]. The portion having to do with the Indian is not being contested. Ironically, what is being contested is whether a mixed race descendant of George can inherit. In any case, George, back in 1776, freed his female Indian slave and even gave us the name of the Indian slave’s parent. Abstract of George Galphin's Will. The testator first gives freedom, from the time of his death, to all legatees or devisees not then free, and especially to BARBARA, daughter of ROSE. The having given freedom to two mulatto girls, and one Indian (daughter of NATECHUCKY), &c.[etc], &c.[etc], he leaves in 4 lengthy clauses, several tracts of land, and also from 12 to 20 slaves, with their children an increase, to THOMAS and MARTHA GALPHIN, children of RACHEL DUPEE, and to GEORGE and JOHN, sons of MATURNEY: the lands and slaves being given to each of them under the same restrictions and limitations as in the devise to BARBARA. The testator then gives to JUDITH, daughter of MATURNEY, one half of the 3 tracts of land, 200 acres of the ceded lands, with 18 slaves, their children, &c.[etc],under limitations, as in the case of BARBARA. He next gives to BARBARA , the daughter of ROSE, for and during her natural life, without impeachment of waste, the use of the lower half of 3 tracts of land, which said tracts run from NEWMAN's liine down to the point, containing in the whole about 13 or 14 hundre acres, with all the improvements thereon, called Silver Bluff. He also leaves her 17 slaves,^[4]

This is another narrative regarding Rose on an Ancestry site: Rose was a Mulatto Slave belonging to Moses Nunes, another trader among the Creeks. It is possible that she is the "Negroe Slave" Nunes transported illegally into Tuckabatchee in 1757 and was fined as listed in the S.C. Indian Commision records. This date would be about right for the time Rose was present there. She was born about 1744, so at that time she would have been about twelve years old. Data from the will of Moses Nunes, written 14 October 1785: Mulatto Rose, whom he firmly calls his wife, and mother of his four children, Samuel, James, Robert, and daughter Frances Galphin (wife of George Galphin II). (Possibly she is the same Mulatto Rose who bore George I Galphin's daughter, Barbara Galphin.) The copy of the will comes from The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio, with the help of Archival Resident, Christine A. Crandall. The handwritten will of two pages is signed by Moses Nunes in a firm hand, and witnessed by David Montaigut and Joseph Abraham. He names two sons, Samuel and James, and George Galphin (II) as his executors. The existence of the will is confirmed in "Georgia Intestate Records", page 236, though when requested from the Georgia Historical Library at Savannah, it was not provided. See will as Appendix. Rose is always referred to as "Mulatto Rose" by Nunes in his will. He does "order and confirm and I do give unto the above mentioned Mulatto Rose and her three sons James, Robert and Alexander Nunes, and her daughter Frances Galphin (wife of George II Galphin) being all my issue, a full and perfect freedom from all slavery and servitude, in reward and as an acknowledgment of the faithful conduct and behaviour of the said Mulatto Rose toward me and my children." He acknowledges that his oldest son Samuel is also her son and his. Possibly he had already freed Samuel before the will was written. The meaning of the word "Mulatto" is debateable. It once meant a person of mixed blood, and could mean someone of Indian and white, or black and white, or all three. Recently it has meant half white and half black in some groups. It has been implied that she was what came to be called a quadroon, that is of one quarter African blood. It is not known whether or not she was ever actually the property of George I Galphin. In his will, he claims that she is deceased. This may have been for daughter Barbara's sake. One source, as researched and written by Mario de Valdes y Cocom, in his PBS Tri-Racial research, believed that the Slave Rose who bore Barbara was a quadroon daughter of Moses Nunes. ^[5]Perhaps the relationships of Galphin's and Nunes' children were tangled, with Barbara being the half sister of the Nunes children, with Frances Nunes who married George Galphin II being the aunt of TGH. Mulatto Rose was his grandmother, and the mother-in-law of George II Galphin, TGH's half-Creek Uncle. In the 1830 Census Index of Georgia, there are four Nunes entries: Charles Nunes colored 1830 Burke County; Janet Nunes colored 1830 Burke County; Joseph Nunes colored 1830 Burke County; Robert Nunes colored 1830 Burke County. A note says "Eunier same as Nunes" Daniel Eunier colored 1830 Appling County Hugh Eunier colored 1830 Appling County;

Speculation: The listing of free people in Georgia in 1819 includes Nunes, Rose, age 75, born Savannah, Ga. While it could be thought that this Mulatto Rose, slave, married to Moses Nunes, might be the MOTHER of Barbara, it is also possible that this particular Rose is a SISTER of Barbara. Galphin insists in his will that HIS mate, Mulatto Rose, is deceased. If he is not trying to cover up exactly who Barbara's mother really is, perhaps he did own a mulatto slave named Rose, the mother of Rose who married Nunes, and also the mother of Barbara, one of the older of Galphin's children, born before he had Thomas and Martha with Rachel Dupee. In the notorious Nunez case one witness, Chas. Cosnaham said "first knew James Nunes in 1807, his mother was very dark, does not know the proportion of mixed blood, they (the entire Nunez family, his neighbors) had black hair which curled..."; Another witness, Charles Ward stated, "Joseph Nunez was of mixed blood; his grand-mother (Rose), was a wooly headed mulatto..." Thomas Cosnahan stated, "..James Nunez' mother was about half negro and Indian..." ; Harriet Kilpatrick, "Jim Nunez...was not called a free negro in the neighborhood, but was regarded as a 3/4 blood Indian." The Opinion of Chief Justice Lumpkin in the Bryan V. Walton (Nunez) case, to determine if the Nunez children and grandchildren, especially James, were Free people of Color, finally uses the Will of Moses Nunes, "What was Moses Nunez? Probably a Portuguese (euphemism for Jew), as his name imports, from a left-hand marriage with a mulatto by the name of Rose....sprang James Nunes, Alexander Nunez, and Fannie Nunez who afterward intermarried with George Galph, that James.....intermarried with a pretty white woman,....that Joseph Nunez was lighter than is father...whose mother was a woolly headed mulatto....(Rose). A law had been passed in Georgia that free persons of color could not sell colored slaves. James had sold slaves, and this long case was to determine the race of James, and to overturn the sale of said slaves. Because it went on and on until 1864, when all slaves were freed it certainly did not help anyone financially.

The Nunes family, headed by Samuel Nunes, M.D., Jew, came to Georgia among the first settlers, arriving 10 July 1733. In the family were Abigail, Daniel, Isaac, Moses, Rachel, and Rebecca. This Jewish family had the same difficult time living in the new world as other settlers. Though given land, in the form of town lots in the original square of Savannah, there was still a shortage of food and all other necessities. Some of the family fled the town in 1740 when the Spanish in Florida threatened to invade and take possession of the new settlement. The thought of being under the heel of the nation which still enforced the dicta of the dreaded Inquisition were too much and several family members fled to Charles Town, more out of reach, and a bit more civilized. These facts are all listed on the CD Early Georgia Settlers. But young Moses must have eyed the new country with eagerness and he was soon on the list of Licensed Traders to the Creeks, being in charge of the prestigious and prosperous store at Tuckabatchee. Traditionally this was one of the most important Creek towns. Later, in the eighteenth century, its links to the Shawnees became a matter of constant agitation. The mother of Tecumseh, great rebel leader of the Shawnees, as well as the mysterious Prophet, was from Tuckabatchee and returned there to live after the death of her warrior husband. Moses Nunes is listed among the official Creek Traders with his partner Joseph Wright in 1750. In 1753 one notorious case in which he was involved as a certified witness was when the powerful Creek Head Warrior Acorn Whistler led the ambush/murder of a group of Cherokee diplomats outside Charleston and the British demanded his death in exchange. In a secret meeting the over-chiefs appointed the Whistler's young nephew to assassinate him in the woods, making the death a clan matter to avoid a wide war. Then they ordered that the young nephew be assassinated too, so they could not be blamed. Word of this leaked out and Nunes was one of those called on to solve the conspiracy. The affidavit and details of this case appear in "The Colonial Records of South Carolina, Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1750-1754." In the Records of 1754-1765 Capt. Daniel Pepper reports from Ockchoys of the Upper Creeks, 30th November 1756 that he signed a certificate in favour of Moses Nunes and Joseph Wright for the Delivery of thirty-one Horse Loads of Presents in the Creek Nation for which he agreed with Mr. Nunes to pay twenty Pounds per Horse Load. This was to be presented to the Creeks to keep them from joining the French side in the French and Indian War. Another entry from 1757 states that a number of Traders brought Negro Slaves illegally into the Creek Nation, one of these being Moses Nunes, who brought in one Negro. It is not stated whether this slave was male or female. George I Galphin is not on this list of violators. On page 264 of Hawkins Letters in a letter from John Randon to Hawkins involving queries about property in Randon's father's estate about land and slaves, he writes "Some of the lands were left in the hands of old Nunns (Nunes), father of half-breed Samson, for 400 and the other 180 pounds sterling."^[6]

A tree from The American Jewish Archives can be found here.^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ Will of Moses Nunez, Savannah, Georgia October 14, 1785. ___Imprimis I give and bequeath unto my son, Samuel Nunez, and to my son Robert Nunez, the son of Mulatto Rose, a tract of six hundred acres of land in Burke County to be equally divided ___between them; Item I give and bequeath into my two other sons, James Nunez, and Alexander Nunez,, also the sons of Mulatto Rose, a tract of five hundred acres of land on the south side of the Great Ogeeche River; Item I further order and confirm and do give unto the above----- mentioned Mulatto Rose and her three sons James, Robert and Alexander Nunez and her daughter Frances Galphin being all my issue a full and perfect freedom from all slavery and servitude in reward as an acknowledgment of the faithful conduct and behavior of the said Mulatto Rose towards me and my children. Item I give and bequeath unto my son Samuel Nunez, three Negroes named Flemming , Joe, Cacarico. Item I give and bequeath all my house furniture and wearing apparel to Mulatto Rose, and my three sons, James, Robert! and Alexander- The remainder of my estate after my legacies are discharged and paid-shall be equally divided between my four sons, Samuel, James, Robert and Alexander Nunez. And lastly I do hereby nominate and appoint Samuel Nunez, James Nunez, my sons, and George Galphin Executors of this my last Will and Testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and Seal at Savannah aforesaid the 14th day of October ------one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five and in the tenth year of American Independence.---
2. ↑ Chatham County Georgia Wills, Book C, Page 436-442, citing page 437, 439, Rose, Moses Nunes. Digital images: Familysearch.org [database with images] Film 005759791 image 194 of 363. Accessed 20 Nov 2020.
3. ↑ Augusta chronicle and Georgia advertiser. (Augusta, Ga.) 1822-1831, June 11, 1823, Image 3. column 5, citing Notice of free persons of color, Nunes. Digital images: Georgia Historic Newspapers.
4. ↑ Origin of this transcript not listed https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/113768405/person/290150020138/media/3dee1a11-c616-4e93-bdb7-a72265b97e9e?_phsrc=viu277&usePUBJs=true
5. ↑ http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scedgefi/pioneers/
6. ↑ https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/90291249/person/83010474177/media/fc891e2d-2e70-4f14-a35c-a349e382d399?_phsrc=viu285&usePUBJs=true
7. ↑ http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/fajf/pdfs/stern_p337.pdf

• Augusta Chronicle, Augusta Georgia, Page 3. Article stated date of 30MAY1823. This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004. Source: GenealogyBank.com

Acknowledgments

• Slave-4 was started by Jerry Barnard through the import of Master 8.0_2015-11-06.ged on Nov 22, 2015.

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