I
came across a transcription of a will of one of my 5th
great-grandfathers the other day and its contents surprised me. In the 1806
document he left seven of his surviving adult children a “negro” boy or
girl. It is the first reference I have found that one of my ancestors owned
slaves and it was (still is) a shock.
I
understand that south of the Mason-Dixon Line – this family lived in Kentucky –
slave-ownership was not uncommon in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Most of us probably think it was always someone else’s family that
participated in this abhorrent practice, so it is all the more disturbing to
find it was present among your own direct ancestors.
There
is no changing history and no use in trying to apologize for someone who lived over
two hundred years ago. The facts, in this case a will, are part of a public record
and there no point in trying to hide it. In this case I have no need to publish
the man’s name (I will just refer to him as “Grandfather George”) as there may
be other direct descendants who may feel more sting because their surname is the
same as his.
This
ancestor left an estate comprised of a “plantation” of 108 acres, surely a farm
of good size for the area and time. The eldest son received those lands in
total as was the tradition and law of primogeniture. His siblings each were
“given” a slave (there is no other word to describe them), four of them girls
and three, boys. What is jarring to read is that each of the people handed over
in the will firstly were named, reminding us that they were real people, and,
at the same time, equated to each having a value of 80 pounds, demonstrating to
us that they were considered chattels.
Grandfather
George also gave two women slaves “their liberty to be under the control of
none but the laws of the land & supported in their decline of life by
exers”, presumed to mean that these people would receive monetary and other
assistance from the estate. I suppose this might demonstrate that Grandfather
George had some sort of compassion for the people he “owned” and who had served
him, perhaps not always commonplace among such men.
There
is no mention of other slaves having been owned by Grandfather George but it is
hard to imagine a 108-acres farm being handed over without most of the labour
force that had been in place at the time. The 1810 US census for Bourbon
County, Kentucky, shows the family of Grandfather George’s eldest son, who had inherited the farm, had two
slaves – another shock once I realized this was probably my ancestor.
A
slave owned by a daughter of Grandfather George also was granted freedom, such
event to occur upon her death. A “Deed by Heirs” was executed by the children
of this woman in 1828, 14 years after the death of their father who had
“expressed a wish that said Isaac should be set free and emancipated at the
death of” their mother. The mother did not die until 1849, however, so it is
unknown whether Isaac was still owned until then or even alive when she passed
on. At any rate, the document does reveal that at least some members of the
family were still slave-owners well into the 1800s. I will look for other
descendants of Grandfather George now to see how many were involved in the practice.
As
a Canadian prairie boy born in the mid-20th century, this is not a
subject I am familiar with, nor comfortable about. As I indicated, it is part
of history, though. We cannot pretend it did not happen but we can be still be
startled by a discovery that some ancestors played a part.
I
am learning about slavery in Kentucky on these websites:
Wayne
Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in
England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has
published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past
Editor of Chinook, the quarterly
journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides
genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated
