Moses Watkins (abt. 1760)

Born about 1760 in Virginia

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Lilly Martin [send private message]

Biography

Moses Watkins is a part of US Black heritage.

Moses was born about 1760.

Sources

• http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-fpoc/index.cgi/md/read/id/7367/sbj/nickens-watkins/

Nickens/ Watkins By:Paul Heinegg <Show E-Mail> Date: 5/27/2008, 11:05 pm

James Nickens was head of a Lancaster County household of 9 "Blacks" in 1783 [VA:55] and was a "Mulatto" taxable in Culpeper County from 1789 to 1796. On 24 July 1789 he rented 100 acres in Culpeper County from William Allason of Fauquier County for 5 pounds rent per year and agreed to build a 20' square house, 16' square kitchen, stables and a barn. The deed named his wife Sarah and son James who was not yet 21 years old [DB P:249-55]. He was taxable in Fauquier County in 1797, listed as a "free Negro" there in 1807 [PPTL 1782-96, frames 1797-1807, frames 13, 116, 137 819]. He and James Nickens, Jr., were sued for debt in Fauquier County court by William Allason on 22 May 1797. They acknowledged they still owed him 4 pounds of an original debt of 49 pounds, 15 shillings from 5 November 1796 [Orders 1797-8, 97]. He was a "F. Negroe" head of a Fauquier County household of 8 "other free" in 1810, called James Nickens, Sr. [VA:368]. On 3 September 1834 James Nickens, Elizabeth Nickens, and Judy Watkins appeared in Frederick County court to apply for the survivors' pension of their father James Nickens and their brother Hezekiah Nickens, a seaman in the Virginia State Navy who died during the war. Judy Watkins was the wife of Moses Watkins, a "Mulatto," who rented 100 acres in Culpeper County on 13 July 1789 from William Allason on the same terms as James Nickens. The deed names Moses' wife Judie and their son Robert who was not yet 8 years old [DB P:243-8]. Moses descended from a white woman named Catherine Watkins who lived near the Nickens family in Northumberland County. Paul

http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-fpoc/index.cgi/md/read/id/8300/sbj/indian-slave-trade-and-the-generic-negro/

By:Paul Heinegg <Show E-Mail> Date: 11/14/2008, 6:54 pm In Response To: Indian Slave Trade and the Generic Negro (James Nickens)

Hi Nick. I do not recall ever coming across a case in any of the colonial court records of Virginia, North Carolina or Maryland in which someone of Portuguese descent was treated as anything but white. That was the very reason mixed-race people claimed to be Portuguese--so they could avoid racist laws regarding people of African descent.

I think it far more likely that the Watkins family descended from white woman Catherine Watkins of Northumberland County who is listed in the inventory of the estate of John Coppedge between 1743 and 1749 with "Molatto children" Robert, Jeane and Michael Watkins [Record Book 1743-9, page 131]. Michael shows up in Brunswick County (from which Greensville was formed in 1780) in 1779 when the court ordered his poor children William and Robert bound out. William and Robert were called "Mulattoes" and children of Ann Watkins when they were ordered bound out earlier in 1771. Michael is listed with (his apparent wife) Ann as "Mulatto" in the 1813 Greensville County tax list, and he was head of a Greensville County household of 5 "free colored" in 1820.

Moses Watkins travelled with James Nickens from Northumberland County to Culpeper County where they rented land near each other. Moses married James' daughter Judy. In James' free papers, she is said to have been born of a free woman in Northumberland County.

A family descended from someone born in 1650 would have had hundreds of members by 1800--like Chavis, Sweat, etc.

As to people recalling their origins over a 250-300 year period and through some 80 years of Jim Crow, I do not know of any family that retained their family history of descending from a white woman by a slave when there were probably about 1,000 cases of this in colonial Maryland and Virginia. Paul

http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Walden_Webster.htm