Free, slave-holding, and prosperous property-owning blacks were
quite
numerous before the Civil War, but are a banished lost tribe
within the
pages of establishment history.
In an 1856 letter to his wife Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee
called slavery
"a moral and political evil." Yet he concluded that
black slaves were
immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially
and
physically.
The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in
fact, in
numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at
large. In
1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to
the U.S.
census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were
nearly 27
million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived
in the
slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000
individuals
who owned slaves.
Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to
only 1.4
percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern
whites owning
one or more slaves).
In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free
Negroes is
acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the
claim that
black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the
freedom of a
spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to
legally
manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a
misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is
debunked by
records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include
individuals
such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District,
South
Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a
fourth of the
free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more
slaves; eight
owning 30 or more
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were
nearly 4.5
million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four
million of them
living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks
residing in the
South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in
New Orleans.
The country's leading African American historian, Duke University
professor
John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free
Negroes
owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is
certainly
impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American
whites and
less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show
that, when
free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.
The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to
five
slaves. More often than not, and contrary to a century and a half
of
bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black and white masters
worked and
ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop.
The few
individuals who owned 50 or more slaves were confined to the top
one
percent, and have been defined as slave magnates.
In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65
or more
slaves The largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow C.
Richards
and her son P.C. Richards, who owned a large sugar cane
plantation. Another
Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over 100 slaves, was
Antoine
Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860
dollars)
$264,000 That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was
$3,978.
In Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 125 free Negroes owned
slaves; six of
them owning 10 or more. Of the $1.5 million in taxable property
owned by
free Negroes in Charleston, more than $300,000 represented slave
holdings.
In North Carolina 69 free Negroes were slave owners.
In 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro
slaveowner. In
Black Masters. A Free Family of Color in the Old South, authors
Michael P.
Johnson and James L. Roak write a sympathetic account of
Ellison's life.
from Ellison's birth as a slave to his death at 71, the authors
attempt to
provide justification, based on their own speculation, as to why
a former
slave would become a magnate slave master.
At birth he was given the name April. A common practice among
slaves of the
period was to name a child after the day or month of his or her
birth.
Between 1800 and 1802 April was purchased by a white slave-owner
named
William Ellison. Apprenticed at 12, he was taught the trades of
carpentry,
blacksmithing and machining, as well as how to read, write,
cipher and do
basic bookkeeping.
On June 8, 1816, William Ellison appeared before a magistrate
(with five
local freeholders as supporting witnesses) to gain permission to
free April,
now 26 years of age. In 1800 the South Carolina legislature had
set out in
detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of
freeing unruly
slaves of "bad or depraved" character and those who
"from age or infirmity"
were incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify
under oath to
the good character of the slave he sought to free. Also required
was
evidence of the slave's "ability to gain a livelihood in an
honest way."
Although lawmakers of the time could not envision the incredibly
vast public
welfare structures of a later age, these stipulations became law
in order to
prevent slaveholders from freeing individuals who would become a
burden on
the general public.
Interestingly, considering today's accounts of life under
slavery, authors
Johnson and Roak report instances where free Negroes petitioned
to be
allowed to become slaves; this because they were unable to
support
themselves.
Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia
(University Press
of Virginia-1995) was written by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., an
African-American
and assistant professor and associate curator of the Special
Collections
Department, University of Virginia library. He wrote: "One
of the more
curious aspects of the free black existence in Virginia was their
ownership
of slaves. Black slave masters owned members of their family and
freed them
in their wills. Free blacks were encouraged to sell themselves
into slavery
and had the right to choose their owner through a lengthy court
procedure."
In 1816, shortly after his manumission, April moved to Stateburg.
Initially
he hired slave workers from local owners. When in 1817 he built a
gin for
Judge Thomas Watries, he credited the judge nine dollars
"for hire of
carpenter George for 12 days." By 1820 he had purchased two
adult males to
work in his shop. In fewer than four years after being freed,
April
demonstrated that he had no problem perpetuating an institution
he had been
released from. He also achieved greater monetary success than
most white
people of the period.
On June 20, 1820, April appeared in the Sumter District
courthouse in
Sumterville. Described in court papers submitted by his attorney
as a "freed
yellow man of about 29 years of age," he requested a name
change because it
"would yet greatly advance his interest as a
tradesman." A new name would
also "save him and his children from degradation and
contempt which the
minds of some do and will attach to the name April." Because
"of the
kindness" of his former master and as a "Mark of
gratitude and respect for
him" April asked that his name be changed to William
Ellison. His request
was granted.
In time the black Ellison family joined the predominantly white
Episcopalian
church. On August 6, 1824 he was allowed to put a family bench on
the first
floor, among those of the wealthy white families. Other blacks,
free and
slave, and poor whites sat in the balcony. Another wealthy Negro
family
would later join the first floor worshippers.
Between 1822 and the mid-1840s, Ellison gradually built a small
empire,
acquiring slaves in increasing numbers. He became one of South
Carolina's
major cotton gin manufacturers, selling his machines as far away
as
Mississippi. From February 1817 until the War Between the States
commenced,
his business advertisements appeared regularly in newspapers
across the
state. These included the Camden Gazette, the Sumter Southern
Whig and the
Black River Watchman.
Ellison was so successful, due to his utilization of cheap slave
labor, that
many white competitors went out of business. Such situations
discredit
impressions that whites dealt only with other whites. Where money
was
involved, it was apparent that neither Ellison's race or former
status were
considerations.
In his book, Ervin L. Jordan Jr. writes that, as the great
conflagration of
1861-1865 approached: "Free Afro-Virginians were a nascent
black middle
class under siege, but several acquired property before and
during the war.
Approximately 169 free blacks owned 145,976 acres in the counties
of Amelia,
Amherst, Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Prince William and Surry,
averaging 870
acres each. Twenty-rune Petersburg blacks each owned property
worth $1,000
and continued to purchase more despite the war."
Jordan offers an example: "Gilbert Hunt, a Richmond ex-slave
blacksmith,
owned two slaves, a house valued at $1,376, and $500 in other
properties at
his death in 1863." Jordan wrote that "some free black
residents of Hampton
and Norfolk owned property of considerable value; 17 black
Hamptonians
possessed property worth a total of $15,000. Thirty-six black men
paid taxes
as heads of families in Elizabeth City County and were employed
as
blacksmiths, bricklayers, fishermen, oystermen and day laborers.
In three
Norfolk County parishes 160 blacks owned a total of $41,158 in
real estate
and personal property.
The general practice of the period was that plantation owners
would buy seed
and equip~ ment on credit and settle their outstanding accounts
when the
annual cotton crop was
sold. Ellison, like all free Negroes, could resort to the courts
for
enforcement of the terms of contract agreements. Several times
Ellison
successfully sued white men for money owed him.
In 1838 Ellison purchased on time 54.5 acres adjoining his
original acreage
from one Stephen D. Miller. He moved into a large home on the
property. What
made the acquisition notable was that Miller had served in the
South
Carolina legislature, both in the U.S. House of Representatives
and the
Senate, and while a resident of Stateburg had been governor of
the state.
Ellison's next door neighbor was Dr. W.W. Anderson, master of
"Borough
House, a magnificent 18th Century mansion. Anderson's son would
win fame in
the War Between the States as General "Fighting Dick"
Anderson.
By 1847 Ellison owned over 350 acres, and more than 900 by 1860.
He raised
mostly cotton, with a small acreage set aside for cultivating
foodstuffs to
feed his family and slaves. In 1840 he owned 30 slaves, and by
1860 he owned
63. His sons, who lived in homes on the property, owned an
additional nine
slaves. They were trained as gin makers by their father. They had
spent time
in Canada, where many wealthy American Negroes of the period sent
their
children for advanced formal education. Ellison's sons and
daughters married
mulattos from Charleston, bringing them to the Ellison plantation
to live.
In 1860 Ellison greatly underestimated his worth to tax assessors
at
$65,000. Even using this falsely stated figure, this man who had
been a
slave 44 years earlier had achieved great financial success. His
wealth
outdistanced 90 percent of his white neighbors in Sumter
District. In the
entire state, only five percent owned as much real estate as
Ellison. His
wealth was 15 times greater than that of the state's average for
whites. And
Ellison owned more slaves than 99 percent of the South's
slaveholders.
Although a successful businessman and cotton farmer, Ellison's
major source
of income derived from being a "slave breeder." Slave
breeding was looked
upon with disgust throughout the South, and the laws of most
southern states
forbade the sale of slaves under the age of 12. In several states
it was
illegal to sell inherited slaves. Nevertheless, in 1840 Ellison
secretly
began slave breeding.
While there was subsequent investment returns in raising and
keeping young
males, females were not productive workers in his factory or his
cotton
fields. As a result, except for a few females he raised to become
"breeders," Ellison sold the female and many of the
male children born to
his female slaves at an average price of $400. Ellison had a
reputation as a
harsh master. His slaves were said to be the district's worst fed
and
clothed. On his property was located a small, windowless building
where he
would chain his problem slaves.
As with the slaves of his white counterparts, occasionally
Ellison's slaves
ran away. The historians of Sumter District reported that from
time to time
Ellison advertised for the return of his runaways. On at least
one occasion
Ellison hired the services of a slave catcher. According to an
account by
Robert N. Andrews, a white man who had purchased a small hotel in
Stateburg
in the 1820s, Ellison hired him to run down "a valuable
slave. Andrews
caught the slave in Belleville, Virginia. He stated: "I was
paid on
returning home $77.50 and $74 for expenses.
William Ellison died December 5, 1861. His will stated that his
estate
should pass into the joint hands of his free daughter and his two
surviving
sons. He bequeathed $500 to the slave daughter he had sold.
Following in their father's footsteps, the Ellison family
actively supported
the Confederacy throughout the war. They converted nearly their
entire
plantation to the production of corn, fodder, bacon, corn shucks
and cotton
for the Confederate armies. They paid $5,000 in taxes during the
war. They
also invested more than $9,000 in Confederate bonds, treasury
notes and
certificates in addition to the Confederate currency they held.
At the end,
all this valuable paper became worthless.
The younger Ellisons contributed more than farm produce, labor
and money to
the Confederate cause. On March 27, 1863 John Wilson Buckner,
William
Ellison's oldest grandson, enlisted in the 1st South Carolina
Artillery.
Buckner served in the company of Captains P.P. Galliard and A.H.
Boykin,
local white men who knew that Buckner was a Negro. Although it
was illegal
at the time for a Negro to formally join the Confederate forces,
the Ellison
family's prestige nullified the law in the minds of Buckner's
comrades.
Buckner was wounded in action on July 12, 1863. At his funeral in
Stateburg
in August, 1895 he was praised by his former Confederate officers
as being a
"faithful soldier."
Following the war the Ellison family fortune quickly dwindled.
But many
former Negro slave magnates quickly took advantage of
circumstances and
benefited by virtue of their race. For example Antoine Dubuclet,
the
previously mentioned New Orleans plantation owner who held more
than 100
slaves, became Louisiana state treasurer during Reconstruction, a
post he
held from 1868 to 1877 (10).
A truer picture of the Old South, one never presented by the
nation's mind
molders, emerges from this account. The American South had been
undergoing
structural evolutionary changes far, far greater than generations
of
Americans have been led to believe. In time, within a relatively
short time,
the obsolete and economically nonviable institution of slavery
would have
disappeared. The nation would have been spared awesome traumas
from which it
would never fully recover.
Source: The Barnes Review, 1(13) 1995 , pp. 17-22.
Charles Harris comments that many of the Confederate Generals
were slave
owners.
true, but Union General U.s.. Grant owned 4 slaves. At the
outbreak of the
war,
he gave them to his wife. Mrs. Grant kept the after the so-called
"Emancipation
Proclamation", which actuall did not emancipate a single
slave.
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