Slaves in the Family

by Edward Ball

  two hundred barrels of rice … eaten up by troops: Account Book, 1780–84, BP-Duke.

  “I am in a very dirty condition”: John Ball to Elias Ball, 28 May 1779, BP-SCL.

  London, a thirty-six-year-old Gambian: List of males at Comingtee, 1777, in Account and Blanket Book, 1720–78, BP-SCHS; John Ball to Elias Ball, 4 Jun 1779, BP-SCL.

  fifty-one people … fled from Kensington: Fifty-one people: A fair list of the Negroes that is gone from Kensington [1780], and misc. note, 1 Jun 1780, in Account Book, 1780–84, BP-Duke; ages: A list of male slaves from sixteen to sixty at Kensington with each Negroes age to the best of our Knowledge, 8 Mar 1780, BP-UNC; newspaper: Royal Gazette, 21 Mar 1781; petition: Terry, “ ‘Champaign Country,’ ” 352; 12,000: Ralph Izard to Mrs. Izard, 7 Oct 1782, quoted in Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 158.

  the visits he made followed a careful etiquette: Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780–1783 (New York, 1902), reprint (New York: Russell & Russell, 1969), Appendix B, 746–47; Irving, Day on Cooper River, 40 ff., 170.

  The dead from both sides were buried: McCrady, Revolution, 331–40; Marion: quoted in Ferguson, Uncommon Ground, 77.

  the company tried to corral the unarmed blacks: Cross, Historic Ramblin’s Through Berkeley, 257; Robert Stansbury Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists in the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1987), 243.

  “[R]ice and corn [were] supplyd my Negroes contrary to my positive order”: Elias Ball, aboard ship for St. Augustine, to Elias Ball, Charleston, 5 Jun 1784, BP-SCL.

  fifty-two former Wambaw workers, consisting of nine families, were … sold: Account of sale of estate of Elias Ball of Wambaw (22 Jun 1782), 20 May 1786, BP-SCHS.

  As fugitive blacks … their destiny would not be sweet: Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 177.

  Wambaw Elias was given £12,700 sterling: Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists, 38; Memorial [claim] of Col. Elias Ball, late of the Province of South Carolina, 20 Mar 1784, private collection; Decisions of Loyalist Claims Commission for South Carolina, 1784–88, AO 12/68; Claim of Elias Ball Sr., AO 12/50, Public Record Office, London.

  An American-born painter … Benjamin West: “American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain,” by Benjamin West, oil on canvas (1783), Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware.

  “we are in general lookd on as black sheep”: Militia Officers at Present Refugees in Charleston, SC, 4 Jun 1782, in Clark, Loyalists in the Southern Campaign, I:419; Lambert, South Carolina Loyalists, 292; Elias Ball, Limerick, to Elias Ball, Bristol, England, 15 May 1784, BP-SCHS.

  123 workers belonging to the brothers: List of Negroes the property of Elias Ball made the 12th day of May 1784, BP-SCHS.

  “[I am] plagued almost out of my life with the negroes”: Quoted in Deas, Recollections of the Ball Family, 116–17.

  a list of the runaways: Boston King, Frank Symons, Polly Shubrick: Inspection Roll of Negroes Book No. 1, New York City, 23 Apr–13 Sep 1783, Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–89, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Graham Russell Hodges, ed., The Black Loyalist Directory (New York: Garland, 1996) compiles all of the so-called Inspection Rolls; Frank Symons’s owners: Indenture, John Bryan and Lydia Simons of Charleston, and Benjamin Simons and John Ball, 25 Jan 1783, BP-SCHS; Polly Shubrick’s owners: Smith, Baronies of South Carolina, 153.

  The fate of … New York fugitives. Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 173, 179–81.

  Boston King … arrived on the western shore of Africa: Names of Settlers Located on the 1st Nova Scotian Allotment (1792), Sierra Leone National Archives, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

  12: THE WIDTH OF THE REALM

  Leviticus … the old Mosaic law: Leviticus 18.

  an uncontrolled swelling in one hand: Jane Ball to John Ball Jr., 24 Feb 1800, John Ball to John Ball Jr., 29 Dec 1799, 18 Mar 1800, BP-SCHS.

  “I was too fat before”: John Ball to John Ball Jr., 5 Aug 1801, BP-SCHS.

  he had a companion in a slave woman named Nancy: Will of Elias Ball [III], 6 Dec 1809, Charleston Wills; memorandum by Isaac Ball, “Limerick, April 1822, paid Free Nancy $100 agreeably to my uncle’s will,” Plantation book, 1804–90, BP-UNC.

  to lend it out at interest or to “buy Young Slaves”: Will of Elias Ball II (1772), BP-SCHS.

  “A Short History of the Family of the Balls”: “A short history of the family of the Balls since my grandfather settled in South Carolina, wrote by John Ball for the satisfaction of the posterity of the Balls, wrote in August 1786,” BP-SCL, printed in Deas, Recollections of the Ball Family, 174–82.

  John and Third Elias divided “their people”: Division of the Negroes belonging to Mrs. Judith Ball’s Estate, An Inventory and Appraisement of the Estate of Mrs. Judith Ball, deceased, 31 Mar 1783, A list of Negroes the property of Elias Ball made the 12th day of May 1784, and Appraisement and Division of the Negroes late the property of Elias Ball, 22 Jan 1787, BP-SCHS.

  In 1790, the first census: 1790 population: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 115th ed. (Washington, D.C.: 1995); slave and slave-owning population: Jessie Carney Smith and Carrell Peterson Horton, eds., Historical Statistics of Black America (New York: International Thomson Publishing, 1995), “Population: Slave and Free, 1790–1860” and “Slaveholding and Non-slave-holding Families: by State, 1790–1850.”

  “strive to make the bitter portion of slavery … comfortable”: John Ball to John Ball Jr., 6 Oct 1801, BP-SCHS.

  trained doctors brought … cures: Jane Ball to Isaac Ball, 18 and 24 May 1802, BP-SCL; John Ball to John Ball Jr., 14 Oct 1801, BP-SCHS; Account book of John Ball, 1796–1817, throughout, and Bill for services, Alexander Garden to John Ball, 6 May 1806, BP-Duke.

  John Coming Ball … opened an account with a physician: Samuel McCormick in a/c with John Coming Ball, 23 Apr 1785, BP-SCHS.

  the Ball slaves had alternative medicines: James Simons to Frenau & Williams, 6 Sep 1803, BP-SCHS; John Ball Jr., Estate Account Book of John Ball Sr., Pimlico plantation, 1810–29, BP-Duke.

  small clay pots … to prepare medicines: Ferguson, Uncommon Ground, Appendices 1–3.

  “I am to pay Robin … for curing Hagar of the venereal disease”: Memoranda, 21 Dec 1795, 5 Jan 1799, 26 Jan 1818, Account Book of John Ball, 1788–1818, BP-SCHS.

  tidal rice farming: Technique: Gray, History of Agriculture, I:280–81; drawing: reproduced in Kup, Sierra Leone, 34.

  “I strongly recommended it to you”: Joseph Purcell, A plan exhibiting the shape and form of a body of land called Limerick (1786), SCL; John Hardwick, A plan of Limerick, a plantation belonging to Elias Ball, Esquire (1797), SCDAH; Elias Ball, England, to Elias Ball, South Carolina, 25 Jun 1787, BP-SCL.

  six million cubic feet of earth: Rice banks: Ferguson, Uncommon Ground, xxiv; exports: Edward A. Pearson, From Stono to Vesey: Slavery, Resistance, and Ideology in South Carolina, 1739–1822 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992), 293.

  “the enormous sum of … £1365”: Clothing: Invoice of Sundry Merchandize … by order of Col. Elias Ball, Bristol, and addressed to Mr. Elias Ball Jr. (South Carolina), 2 Jul 1787, BP-SCL; purchase of workers: Pocket account book, 1795–1808, BP-SCL.

  build new housing: Floor: Directions for making a tar floor by E. Ball & J. Ball, 20 Jul 1794, BP-SCHS; whitewash: Composition for white wash to be put on outbuildings [ca. 1794], BP-SCL, and Deas, Recollections of the Ball Family, 150; houses: South Carolina Gazette, 11 Jun 1792, CLS; carpenters: memoranda, 1786–90, in Account book of John Ball, Back River plantation, 1786–1803, private collection.

  The Balls took back their lifestyle as rice barons: Tax Return of Elias Ball for the year 1790, BP-SCHS; Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, South Carolina (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908), 31.

  “I hope thos
e French dogs will be thoroughly humbled”: Elias Ball, Bristol, to Elias Ball, South Carolina, 19 Jan 1793, BP-SCL.

  “tied up and sorely whipped”: Patrol Command, 26 May 1792, BP-SCHS; R. Matthews to John Ball, 13 May 1817, BP-Duke.

  A modest school had been incorporated in Charleston: George C. Rogers Jr., Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina, 1980), 98.

  a trip up the East Coast: Adonis, valet: Henry Laurens Jr. to John Ball, 31 Jul 1786, BP-SCHS; chronicle of trip: Account Book, 1796–1817, BP-UNC.

  “We met the President riding on horseback”: Isaac Ball to John Ball, 18 Oct 1806, BP-SCL.

  Letters of recommendation … [and] good money: Dr. Purcell and George Buist letter, Charleston, 15 Sep 1798, John Ball to John Ball Jr., 30 Sep 1798, BP-SCHS.

  John Jr. [in] Massachusetts: “My education … neglected,” A short history of the family of the Balls, BP-SCL; “rank and fortune,” John Ball to John Ball Jr., 9 May 1802; “you might have enter’d higher,” 17 Jun 1799; “respectable young gentlemen,” 15 Aug 1799; “the infamy of the family,” 12 Aug 1798; “the fair sex of the north,” Jane Ball to John Ball Jr., 28 Aug 1799, all BP-SCHS.

  William James Ball [in] Edinburgh, Scotland: Brothel: William James Ball, Edinburgh, to John Ball Jr., South Carolina, 26 Jul 1806, 7 Jan 1807; “You ought now to get a plaything”: William James Ball, Edinburgh, to John Ball Jr., South Carolina, 25 Jan 1805, BP-SCL.

  liberal education had had no deranging effect: “your family … made beggars,” John Ball to John Ball Jr., 29 Sep 1799; homecoming: John Ball to John Ball Jr., 24 Jun and 1 Jul 1802, BP-SCHS.

  used the money to expand operations: Limerick mill: Receipt, Jonathan Lucas to Elias Ball, 10 Feb 1795, and Jonathan Lucas Jr., receipt for repairing and furnishing material for a mill at Limerick, 23 & 28 Jan 1801, BP-SCL; Pimlico and Kecklico: Ann Shreve Norris, Pimlico Plantation: Now and Long Ago (Mt. Pleasant, S.C., 1994), 28; Midway: John Ball to John Ball Jr., 19 Mar 1799, BP-SCHS; Belle Isle and Marshlands: Thomas Slater to John Ball, sales offer for Cat Island plantation, 13 Jan 1810, W. H. Gibbes to John Ball, 16 Jul 1810, BP-Duke.

  Africans flooded onto the Ball lands: Resumption of slave trade: George C. Rogers Jr. and C. James Taylor, A South Carolina Chronology, 1497–1992 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina, 1994), 70; “new Negroes”: memoranda, Jan 1804 and Oct 1805, in Plantation record book, 1779–1817, BP-UNC; Misc. memorandum, 11 May 1804, BP-Duke.

  tax return … five hundred people: Elias Ball, tax return for the year 1805, private collection.

  One person … known as Jew: List of Negroes at Limerick, 25 Mar 1806, BP-SCHS.

  a pair of child slaves: Jane Ball’s illness: Jane Ball to John Ball Jr., 16 Jul 1800, John Ball to John Ball Jr., 19 Aug 1801, 7 Sep 1801, 21 Sep 1801, BP-SCHS; gift of four children: “two twins for my daughters,” List of Negroes at Pimlico, 6 Feb 1810, and Deed of gift, John Ball to Caroline Olivia Ball and Martha Angeline Ball, 17 Oct 1806, BP-Duke; shoes: Copy of order for plate by Mr. Thos. Naylor, 5 Jun 1806, BP-SCHS.

  Parliament tried to outlaw the international trade: Sierra Leone: Christopher Fyfe, ed., “Our Children Free and Happy”: Letters from Black Settlers in Africa in the 1790s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1991), 19; “prime windward coast slaves”: Charleston Courier, 4 Jan 1808, CLS.

  “Mr. Ball’s character”: Charleston Times, 8 Jan 1810.

  one of the grandest residences in the city: Charleston County RMC, B8-346, A8-411; Isaac Ball in a/c Thos. Elfe Jr., 21 Mar 1811, Isaac Ball in a/c Robert Roulain, 10 Dec 1811, BP-SCL; misc. file, Isaac Ball house, SCHS.

  “I have got a sore leg”: John Ball, Charleston, to Thos. Slater, London, 8 Oct 1816, BP-Duke.

  The auction house of William Payne & Son handled the business: Inventory of Estate of John Ball, 14 Nov 1817–1 Jan 1818, Charleston District Ordinary Inventory Books, SCDAH; Sales on a/c of the Estate of John Ball, deceased … 8th & 9th February 1819, BP-Duke.

  “The nigger-trader got me”: H. M. Henry, The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina (Emory, Va., 1914), 56.

  a conspiracy to overthrow white rule: “An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection among a portion of the blacks of this city,” pamphlet (Charleston: Corporation of Charleston, 1822); Court Proceedings and Testimony Regarding the Vesey Rebellion, Governor’s Message to the General Assembly (1822), SCDAH.

  “saving us & our city from fire & murder”: Religious diary of Eliza Ball, entry for 28 Sep 1822, private collection.

  “insurrection and murdering of the Whites”: John Moultrie to Isaac Ball, 17 Mar 1823, BP-SCL.

  he was sentenced to death: Biography of Paris: Plantation record book, 1803–34, BP-UNC; Court Proceedings and Testimony Regarding the Vesey Rebellion, Petition of Kennedy, et al., re: Paris Ball, 24 Jul 1822, SCDAH; contemporary newspaper sources.

  Paris … aboard a cargo vessel in the harbor: Carolina Gazette, 26 Oct 1822.

  13: A PAINTER’S LEGACY

  Edwina Harleston Whitlock: Author’s conversations with Harleston-Whitlock and Fleming families, Georgia and California.

  “Uncle John and Uncle William Harleston, two old bachelors”: Mary Louisa Ball, “The Bluff,” three-page typescript, ca. 1910, private collection.

  Kate [at Elwood plantation]: Elwood purchase: Charleston County RMC, 19–77; Caroline Ball Laurens to John Ball Jr. 13 Feb 1828, BP-Duke; eighty-two workers: Schedule and appraisement of the plantations Mepshew, Pimlico & Kecklico, also of the negro slaves … 20 Jul 1830, BP-Duke; Elwood resold: Charleston County RMC, S10–248.

  of the … free black people in Charleston, women outnumbered men: Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark, eds., No Chariot Let Down: Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War (New York: Norton, 1984), Introduction; Bernard E. Powers Jr., Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822–1885 (Fayetteville: Univ. of Arkansas, 1994), 41.

  “William Harleston of the Hut plantation an able assistant”: Plantation record book, 1849–71, BP-UNC.

  The story of Edwin Harleston, painter: Edwina Harleston Whitlock, “Edwin A. Harleston,” in Edwin A. Harleston: Painter of an Era, 1882–1931, exhibition catalogue (Detroit: Your Heritage House, 1983), 9–29.

  14: THE CURSE OF BUZZARD WING

  a reputation … for frivolous spending: Copy of order for plate by Mr. Thos. Naylor, 5 Jun 1806, BP-SCHS; Mrs. [Martha C.] Ball in a/c with Ann Savage, 1812–16, BP-Duke; Bill of sale [for George, tailor], 30 Feb 1821, Misc. records, vol. 4V, p. 83, SCDAH.

  Money was not a problem: Account of six per cent and other stock of the estate of John Ball, 1820–21, Schedule of bonds due the estate of John Ball, 1 Apr 1826, Tax for 1824, John Ball’s negroes, BP-Duke; Tax return of Isaac Ball’s property, 1824, BP-SCHS.

  to raise the young ones in proper style: Lawsuit: John Ball Jr. and Isaac Ball, executors of John Ball, deceased … 9 Jul 1819, Misc. records, vol. 4R, 244–48, SCDAH; Taveau marriage: Caroline Ball to John Ball, 30 Mar 1821, BP-SCHS; Taveau: “Guide to the manuscript collections in the Duke University Library,” Historical Papers of the Trinity College Historical Society, series 27–28 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1947), 223–28; lawsuits: “Taveau v. John Ball, esq., 4 Jan 1826,” in John Ball Jr., Estate Account Book of John Ball Sr., 1826–32, and Case of Augustus Taveau & wife vs. the Executors of John Ball, 19 Mar 1828, BP-Duke.

  the renting out of single workers, or whole families: Ball addresses: Negrin’s Directory for the Year 1807 (Charleston, 1807); An Almanac for the Year of Our Lord 1822 (Charleston); Guide to the Residences and Places of Business … City of Charleston (1829); renting out: John Ball Jr., Estate Account Book of John Ball Sr., 1826–32, BP-Duke.

  “Spanish flies,” an aphrodisiac: Inventory, 18 Mar 1819, articles of household and kitchen furniture received by Martha Caroline Ball of John & Isaac Ball, executors to the estate of John Ball Sr., deceased; Spanish fly: William Burgoyne in a/c Estate of John Ball, Feb–Nov 1827, Bills and Receipts, John Ball
Jr., 1823–24, BP-Duke.

  Alwyn Ball, Hugh Swinton Ball, and Elias Octavus Ball: Their education: Isaac Ball to Elias O. Ball, 19 Sep 1823, BP-SCHS; Hugh Swinton Ball to Isaac Ball, 1 Jan 1823, BP-SCL; John Ball Jr. to Capt. Alden Partridge, 20 Jul 1823; Misc. note, 9 Jan 1824; John Ball Jr., Charleston, to Thomas Crowder, Liverpool, 23 Oct 1824 and 27 Mar 1825; James Balfour and Thos. Crowder, Liverpool, to John Ball Jr., Charleston, 5–7 August 1824; John Ball, Charleston, to Alwyn Ball, Liverpool, 23 Oct 1824; Thomas Crowder, Liverpool, to John Ball Jr., Charleston, 1 and 9 Feb 1825; memorandum, Estimate of costs of Hugh S. Ball and Elias O. Ball, education in England (1824–25), all BP-Duke.

  the decline of the rice barons: Santee Canal: F. A. Porcher, “The History of the Santee Canal,” pamphlet (Charleston: South Carolina Historical Society, 1875); Virginia slave exports: Hugh Brogan, The Penguin History of the United States of America (New York: Penguin, 1985), 303.

  Caroline’s daughters … lived … to spend: Receipt, 23 Jun 1825, Peter Fayotte to John Ball, Esq., Account for Miss Catherine Ball and Account for Miss Lucilla Ball, Jul–Dec 1827, George Granniss, Richard McKensie to estate of John Ball, 10 Jan 1829, Receipt, James Peters to Lucilla Ball, Dec 1830–Jun 1831, BP-Duke.

  the three Ball brothers: Swinton in Charleston: Isaac Ball, Charleston, to Elias O. Ball, Liverpool, 1 Dec 1824, BP-SCHS; buying spree: Hugh S. Ball to John Ball Jr., 16 and 30 Nov 1824, 17 and 18 Dec 1824, BP-Duke; Elias O.: E. L. Roche in a/c Elias O. Ball, Jan. 1827–May 1828 (clothes), Elias O. Ball to John Ball Jr. 2 Jun 1827 (valet), BP-Duke; marriages: Elias O. Ball to John Ball Jr., 9 Oct 1825, Hugh S. Ball to John Ball Jr., 30 Aug 1826, 16 and 24 March 1827, BP-Duke; Alwyn’s nine slaves: Bill of sale, James Doughty, M.D., to Alwyn Ball, 25 Jan 1827, in Misc. records, vol. 5G, p. 10, SCDAH.

  “taking down the little whip”: Captain Nancy: Irving, Day on Cooper River, 127; Midway slaves: Ann Ball to John Ball, 4 Apr 1823, BP-SCHS; advice to sell, and auction: J. E. Holmes to Ann Ball, 30 Jan 1835, List of Negroes belonging to Mrs. Ann Ball purchased from the estate of John Ball (1834), BP-SCHS; whipping of Betty: Ann Ball to John Ball, 26 Nov 1823, BP-SCHS.