THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702070291
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: OLDE TOWNE JOURNAL
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: 100 lines
What looked like a dry well for area blacks researching family histories back to their 18th and 19th century slave ancestors has turned into a gold mine of information thanks to Norfolk County's early will books.
It may be somewhat of an irony, but one of the best sources for the names and locations of former slaves lies within wills written by slave owners from 1752 through 1802. Published in 1986 by members of the Norfolk County Historical Society, one of the original intentions of the publication was to help those interested in genealogy trace the family trees of the wills' authors.
Fortunately, for those researching black history, the compilers of the original records also included slave names in the property lists attached to the bottom of the wills. Thus, slave names appear as property for farmers as well as city dwellers. Using the will books as a tool to research, black history might indeed provide new insight about who the slaves were, how they lived and what their relationship was with their white owners.
There are also many examples of wills containing manumission clauses that legally freed the slaves after the death of a master. Some owners even directed beneficiaries to provide for the education and well-being of freed slaves.
Since it was the custom of slaves to take the last name of their owners, these records contain indexes from which one might go to the exact time and place where a black family member is first mentioned in this area. For example, as early as 1755 we know that Norfolk's Christopher Gardner passed on his slave, Murrier, to his oldest son and namesake John Jr. Slaves Olive, Nancy and Robb, along with a table and chest, went to daughter Eunice. Also, slaves Will and Britain along with gold studs, silver, shoe, knee and stock buckles, gun, bed and other articles were passed to Gardner's youngest son, Charles Rolfe Gardner.
The same was done in Matthew Godfrey's 1755 will. From the will, large parcels of 500-acre tracts of Norfolk County land are promised to his son and namesake along with a number of slaves, including Little Jack and Newport. Godfrey's wife, Dinah, inherited slaves great Jack, Jack Conner, Africa, Rose and Begatee to maintain the family homestead.
Unfortunately, the larger the farm, the longer the lists of slaves. Thus, to make room in the will, some slaves are omitted altogether. This was especially true of Norfolk County plantation owner William Happer, who in 1757 left his wife ``use of both plantations, that on which I live and the upper plantation; all cattle, horses, sheep and hogs; all utensils; Negroes, Jemmy, Tom, Quash, Shadwell, plus 19 other Negroes; Books of Divinity.''
James Wilson's 1756 will grants his wife, Dinah, use of the plantation along with the slaves unnamed. The wills also contain brief notations about slaves being sold at the death of the owner to pay off debts. Entire slave families' destinies were only known to them after the will was read, as was the case of Benjamin Ball, a Norfolk County plantation owner. Ball's 1756 will directed the sale of slave Jeffrey, separating him forever from his sisters, Nan and Phillis.
There were, of course, also numerous special clauses in the wills that guaranteed that slavery would be perpetuated in a family household, directing particular slaves to be handed down from one generation to the next. Norfolk County's John Maning asked in his 1758 will that his grandson, William, be given ``Negro Sukee when he reaches 21 years of age, if he should die, his father, Mathew Maning is to have Sukee.''
The same was true of mariner Alexander Bayne, who for a seaman owned a large number of slaves. His 1759 Norfolk will mentions ``use and profit of Negroes Cadar, Tom, Cudjo, Sandy, George, Young Tom, Nancy, Harry, Old Nancy, Hannah, Phillis, Dinah, Sophia and Betty,'' for his wife, Elizabeth, ``during her widowhood and afterwards to be equally divided among all my children.''
Naturally, with the purchase of a farm or plantation, the slaves generally came with the property. Fortunately, the Norfolk County will books also include details and slave names mentioned in property transferals. For example, the 1760 will of Norfolk County's William Porter leaves to his son and namesake William the ``plantation I bought of Edward Joyce about two miles from Great Bridge; plantation bought from Thomas Corprew on Pocaty Road, 6 negroes, Sharper, George, Betty, Phoebe, Nancy and Toney, with their increase; feather bed and furniture.''
Acts of kindness and generosity toward slaves also are mixed with the cruelest of all actions - the selling of a young child away from his or her mother. James Wilson's 1761 will for his property in Norfolk County is a case in point. As an item at the end of the will he writes, ``My Negro man, Afra and Nell his wife, are to have the use of half of my plantation and land during their lives. Negro Robin, he is to be payed four pounds Virginia money yearly and find him clothes and pay his Levy. If Negro Nell should have another child, I desire that George Coats should have it.''
Of course, freedom was the greatest inheritance of all. On occasion, the will books carry examples of what all slaves no doubt prayed for every day. Portsmouth physician David Purcell wrote in his 1772 will that, ``First, I hereby fully manumit and make free all my Negroes: Belinda and her children Rachel, Cleopatra, Rebecca and Ned; Jane's young child lately Baptized by name of Anne or Nancy; my Negro man Caesar. I pray that my executors take care of my Negroes (and they) are not sold or hired out but be freed.
``The expense of freeing them to be taken out of some part of my estate real or personal and send them directly to England or Ireland by taking out a license here for freeing them and sending them with proper certificates of freedom to any other Provinces on the Continent, giving them respect as gentlemen, men of humanity and honest men.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Local slaves come in from the fields with the sacks of cotton they
picked that day.