by Taylor, Alan
Voyages carried the refugees around the Atlantic and beyond, sometimes to reap a surprising prosperity. Jacob G. Parker learned that his former house servant Jacob, “a bright mulatto,” was “retained by some officer of the British Navy as his servant during the war” and subsequently moved to Cadiz, Spain, as the servant “of an English Gentleman.” From Halifax in 1827, Lewis Smith wrote to his former master, “I must inform you Sir that since I have left you that I have Travelled through, or over the Four parts of the globe and I am happy to have it in my power to State to you, that I have been, and still am in Such a Capacity of life, that I have hitherto and still am able to Save my Hundred pounds a yea[r].”73
Sailors and ships linked the Chesapeake to Trinidad, Bermuda, Nova Scotia, England, and Scotland: places that provided havens to runaways. With the postwar revival of trade, Chesapeake mariners ran into familiar former slaves on distant streets and docks. Many mariners agreed to take letters from the refugees back to relatives retained in slavery. In 1827, at Corotoman Plantation, Joseph C. Cabell reported, “The remaining slaves frequently receive messages of kindness and affection from their relatives in the British Colonies.”74
In 1820 John Massey captained a vessel carrying corn to Halifax, where he recognized many blacks as former slaves who had visited his store in King George County, Virginia. Massey reported that these refugees “were particularly earnest & anxious in making enquiries after persons & affairs in King George.” He returned home with “several letters from runaway negroes in Nova Scotia to their Masters & Black relatives,” but he accepted only letters that conformed to his rules: “that they must be particular in their style of writing & not be insulting to their Masters.” To make sure, Massey read their letters before sealing them.75
In writing to former masters, some refugees sought to buy their freedom in Virginia or Maryland so that they could return home as free people to relatives trapped in slavery. Judging from the surviving documents, these bids failed. In 1813 Peter Charles escaped from Northampton County, settling after the war in Nova Scotia. Three years later, his former master received “a letter from the said negro Peter in Cannada, proposing to return, provided he could do so without being reduced to slavery.” The refugee longed to reunite with his enslaved wife and children in Virginia, but evidently the master refused, for he later received compensation from the government for Peter Charles.76
Seven precious letters from Chesapeake refugees survive because a master filed them to support his case for government compensation. The refugees wrote six of the letters, with the seventh drafted by the daughter of an employer. In three cases, the writer directly addressed a master. Even in the other four, meant primarily for a relative, the author usually had to send it through the master, who first read the letter. Often the writers asked the master to read the letter to an illiterate relative and to write a reply. Addressing his mother, Archibald Clark appended a postscript meant for his former master: “Mr. W[illia]m Berry, I would be very Happy to hear from you that you are all well and write her answer to this Letter.”77
The letters ask after relatives left behind. In July 1816, from Leith in Scotland, Archibald Clark wrote to his enslaved mother, seeking news of his son, who remained trapped in Maryland, and from his wife, who had escaped separately and gone to parts unknown. However, he had to trust that his former master would read the letter to his illiterate mother and write her reply. If he did, we cannot know, for any reply had no value for a master seeking money for a runaway, so it would never end up in the compensation file that alone preserves Clark’s words.78
Toby Forester wrote to update his parents on his escape after departing from them on August 27, 1814, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Then aged sixteen, Forester left with two other young men by following the British army retreating from Washington, D.C., to the Patuxent River. On January 5, 1819, Forester wrote from London, “When I left Home I st[ee]red my corse to molbro {Marlborough] from molbro to nottingham not knowing whear I was goin. My brother sandy was the last I saw at molbro. I took leave of him telling him whear I expected I should go but not noing for a sertenty . . . and we resided at Nottingham two days, from Nottingham we porseded for benedick. At benedick we took [British] shipping.” Becoming a servant for a naval officer, Forester participated in the attacks on Baltimore and the Northern Neck. His ship then sailed to Jamaica to join the fleet that assailed New Orleans in early 1815. At war’s end, he visited Havana, Cuba, before proceeding to Portsmouth in England. Thrown out of work, he initially struggled “in a strang contry” but eventually found a patron: “a gentleman in London that behaved remarkable well to me.”79
While regretting separation from loved ones, the writers delighted in their new freedom. From Halifax in December 1816, William Whiddington assured his mother, “Thanks be to God, I arriv’d in this place safe and have had no cause to repent coming away—though I was very sorry to leave you, and all my relations.” He counted on an eternal reunion in heaven: “though I may never see any of you again, my dear Mother, yet I shall always think of you and love you and I hope I shall act so honestly and soberly in this World that when I die I may meet all my Friends in a happy state of Eternity.” Two years later from Halifax, Jeremiah West wrote to his former master: “Thank God i can enjoy all comforts under the flag of old England and Here i Shall Remain til [it] please god to call me out of the world.”80
The writers also dwelled on the material benefits of freedom, reporting good wages or thriving businesses, money saved, and the respect of gentlemen earned. Clark assured his mother, “I have been very well off these two years last past. I have had 20 Guineas and all my Cloth[e]s,” working as a gentleman’s servant in Scotland. Whiddington assisted a Halifax doctor and assured his mother, “I am a sober, well behaved Lad. I get six dollars a month and am now comfortably cloathed and live well.” From Halifax, Jeremiah West wrote to his former master: “i am a doing well at my Trade. i am well furnished with tools and the Gentlemen gives me great encouragement in my Trade.” From London, Toby Forester reported, “I ham in the ocapation of a dentist and as my busones is so urgent that I ham often out of London you will Direct [your reply] to Wm Johnaston being my assistant.” Able to employ another man, Forester had excellent prospects: “as soon as I make my fortune I intend to com home for I ham in a very fare way.”81
Although vetted by the mariner John Massey, the letter from Bartlet Shanklyn expressed the most defiant tone. Addressing Abraham B. Hooe, his former master in Virginia, Shanklyn contrasted his prosperity in freedom with his suffering in slavery. Thriving as a blacksmith at Preston, he felt that Hooe should know, “I have [a] Shop & Set of Tools of my own and am doing very well. When i was with you [you] treated me very ill and for that reason i take the liberty of informing you that I am doin as well as you if not beter. When I was with you I worked very had and you neither g[ave] me money nor any satisfaction but sin[ce] I have been hear I am able to make Gold and Silver as well as you.” By writing so bluntly, Shanklyn claimed equality with Hooe—if not superiority—as measured by making and saving money. No slave could safely say so to a master, but Shanklyn was no man’s slave any longer.82
The other refugees made a similar point more discreetly by writing to former masters as if they were equals in friendship. Jeremiah West addressed David P. Davenport as “My Dear Friend,” while “Hopeing that these lines may find you enjoying all [the] comforts of life.” After earnestly soliciting a reply, West concluded, “i Rema[i]n your Friend.” But West also made clear that he would never return to slavery in Virginia, so any reunion in this world had to be on his terms: “If in case you Should ever come to Halifax I shall see you, if not we will not see each outher till we meet Either in Heaven or Hell.” By including Hell as an option, West subtly warned Davenport to pay heed to his soul’s future by doing right by others.83
The letters reveal the great emotional complexity to the master-slave experience. While proud of their accomplishments in freedom, some writ
ers missed their personal relationship with a former master. William Whiddington assured his mother, “I wish also to hear how my Master and Mistress and my Young Masters are—particularly Master Clement and I beg you will remember me to them all—and to all enquiring Friends. I wish to know where Mr. Clement is and how he does for I feel a great love for him.” The master’s son, Clement, had grown up beside the enslaved Whiddington in Maryland.84
The letters often seek an equality of friendship never truly possible so long as one remained the slave and the other a master. If so, the masters handled the letters with far less sentiment and respect than the writers expected and deserved. In Halifax in 1827, Lewis Smith felt pleasantly surprised suddenly to receive a letter from his former master, Thomas Griffin of Yorktown: the same master who had solicited Patrick Williams’s deposition alleging that the British had sold the runaways. In November 1813, at the age of twenty-one, Smith had escaped with four younger Griffin slaves: Bob, Billy, James, and Jack, aged fourteen to seventeen. They last saw Griffin a few days later when he visited HMS Dragon to plead with them to return. A witness reported, “They were then asked if they would return to their homes with their master. They were much agitated and at last replyed that they could not—weeping at the same moment.” Evidently, the runaways felt mixed feelings in forsaking their master: pulled back by familiarity but ultimately pushed away by slavery.85
Fourteen years later, Smith welcomed Griffin’s letter as a potential happy ending, that the runaways could enjoy both freedom and their former master’s good wishes and respect. In reply, Smith addressed “My Dearest friend” to report, “My happiness would be greatly increas’d to see you once more, and the Boys [feel] likewise.” But any reunion would have to be in Halifax, where they could remain free. Referring to Bob, Billy, Jim, and Jack as “the Boys,” Smith added, “You mention to me that you wish to hear from the Boys. They are all here and doing well.” But why, Smith wondered, in a friendly letter did Griffin fail to update him on “the State of your Family” or on whether any of Smith’s “Family were living with you or not”? And why did Griffin ask Smith to have his reply notarized by a magistrate?86
Perhaps Smith guessed Griffin’s real purpose in writing: fishing for evidence to strengthen his legal case for compensation for the five runaways. Although Smith refused to have his reply notarized, Griffin submitted it to the compensation commissioners after coldly inscribing, “The above named Lewis Smith is one of the slaves seduced from my Service by the British during the last war.” By replying, Smith had tried to claim the mutuality of friends, but Griffin cashed that letter in as a commodity worth $280 for each of the five runaways. He did not really care that Smith and the boys were prospering and healthy—just that he could prove that they had left with the British and gone to Halifax.87
At least Griffin’s greed assured that readers today know the success story that Smith so longed to tell: “I have Dropt Anchor and have Five Children who can eat their allowance and attend their School regular. . . . I have purchas’d a Town lot, and Built two Houses thereon, one of which I make my own Residence, keeping a Grocery shop therein, and the other commands me a handsome Rent.” The “Boys” had prospered as men with surnames—their first acquisition in freedom. Bob had become Robert Griffin and Jim was James Goosley: “Robert Griffin has Buil[t] a Very fine House, directly opposite to Me, and is doing Well, following the Occupation of a Truckman, and [James] Goosley has done the Same.”88
Christian and bourgeois in their values, these seven letters resemble those of middle-class white folk proud of material success but attentive to their eternal souls. We do not expect to find runaways building and owning houses and thriving as dentists, blacksmiths, and truckmen. Their accomplishments refute the misunderstanding, which persists in some histories, that the refugees were ruined by slavery and so ill suited for freedom that they could find only poverty and misery in Nova Scotia.89
But how representative were these seven writers of the many refugees? Former house slaves and artisans, the writers were the best prepared to become literate and succeed in the broader world. In one delicious irony, Archibald Clark could write a letter, but his former master, James Pumphrey, could not even sign his own name. Most of the refugees were poorer and less literate than the writers, but the letters warn of what we lose when we seek the typical at the lowest common denominator. The writers revealed the broad range of consequences for the runaways, with more of them experiencing material success than depicted in the records of officials who fixated on complaining about the poor. From Halifax in 1815, Augustine Neale assured Monroe that the refugees were doing surprisingly well: “But, sir, from a candid investigation into the condition of the Fugitives in this province [Nova Scotia], it is fair to conclude, . . . that the far greater portion of them are in situations much easier & have prospects far better than I could have supposed.” Just as slavery was diverse and complex, so too were the experiences of runaways who visited the four corners of the globe.90
Horrid Massacre in Virginia. In this woodcut published in 1831, a Virginian condemns the rebels of Southampton County and celebrates the white men who fought them. The rebels appear as brutes killing white women and children and as cowards in flight from the militia. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
12
FIRE BELL
[The Richmond Fire Bell] always produces a very great alarm in this Country . . . on account of the apprehension that it may be the Signal for, or Commencement of, a rising of the Negroes.
—ALEXANDER DICK, MAY 21, 18081
But this momentous question [of Missouri], like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. . . . But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, APRIL 22, 18202
DURING THE WAR of 1812, Virginians asserted their patriotic superiority over the New England Federalists, who had soured on the national government as they continued to lose elections and shrank into political insignificance except in the Northeast. When James Madison succeeded Jefferson to the presidency in 1809, the “Virginia Dynasty” seemed alarmingly perpetual to the Federalists of New England. Despairing of national power, they tried to consolidate their regional base by persuading local voters that the powerful Virginians meant to ruin New England’s mercantile economy, by imposing Jefferson’s embargo and Madison’s war.3
The Federalists denounced the Virginians as arrogant bullies corrupted by their power over abject slaves. In a letter to President Madison, a New Englander blasted, “[You] daily complain of G. Britain for pressing and enslaving a few thousands of your seamen, & yet you southern Nabobs, to glut your av[a]rise for sorded gain, make no scruple of enslaving some millions of the sons and daughters of Africa.” Trained to dominate, the slaveholders allegedly also sought to master the people of New England. In Congress, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts hyperbolically warned that the next generation of New Englanders were “destined to be slaves, and yoked in with negroes, chained to the car of a Southern master.” The Federalists developed this critique to score political points in New England rather than to free slaves in Virginia. Quincy conceded, “My heart has always been much more affected by the slavery to which the Free States have been subjected, than that of the Negro.” By applying the term slavery to the political marginalization of New England, Quincy cast the leading Virginians as the indiscriminate tyrants of white as well as black people.4
During the war, northern Federalists predicted military disaster for a South weakened by the need to guard slaves as well as a long coast. In Connecticut, a Federalist newspaper warned southerners, “We do not know what you would do, between an external invasion on the one hand, and the internal dread of your slaves on the other.” Federalists insisted that the southern states needed the protection of northern troops, which they threatened to withhold to punish the Repub
licans for declaring an unjust war. In Massachusetts a minister preached, “Let the southern Heroes fight their own battles, and guard their slumbering pillows against the just vengeance of their lacerated slaves.”5
Honor
Prickly about their honor, southerners resented attacks on their character and hated the insinuation that they depended on northern protection. They also claimed an exclusive right to discuss the internal enemy—and only among themselves. The Richmond Enquirer warned that northerners gave slaves “false ideas of their strength and prompts them to an attempt, which, with whatever horrors its progress might be attended, must inevitably terminate in their ruin.”6
Virginians privately obsessed about their danger from the “internal enemy,” but they wrote very differently when publicly refuting their northern critics. In April 1813, the National Intelligencer denied that the South risked a serious slave revolt: “The slaves in general are well-disposed. . . . We believe the negroes themselves, on the approach of an invading force, would, if permitted, gladly advance to repel it. The slaves in the South are, in general, a peaceable, inoffensive race content to do the duty to which they were born, and attached to the families from whom they respectively receive protection and support.” During the war and under the pressure of northern criticism, the South’s spokesmen developed the pro-slavery case that would blossom in future decades. Deemphasizing the threat of an internal enemy, the emerging pro-slavery ideology dwelled instead on the alleged stupidity, docility, and happiness of slaves protected by their paternalistic and superior owners. But the war did not allow the southern press to stay on that slippery message, for the next day the same newspaper warned that the British had just landed on Kent Island, Maryland, where “Several negroes had deserted to them and become pilots for them in plundering.”7