Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (23 page)

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Authors: Midori Takagi

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BOOK: Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865
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bonuses, slave workers devised new ways to gain greater control of their labor and lives. Often they took the privileges and rewards offered and used them to their advantage. For some slaves this meant asking to be hired out and clearly indicating their job preferences. Thomas Woodson's slave Bob, for example, let it be known that he wished to be reunited with his wife and work as a wagoner in Richmond. Amos, another hired slave, wanted to remain in the city for the following year and not to return to his owner's farm. To boost his chances, Amos persuaded his employer, Mr. Green, to write to his owner, Edward Garlick, before other plans had been made. Amos's plan worked well. According to Garlick's reply, it was not his "intention to have hired him [out] this year," but Green's offer persuaded him to do otherwise.
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Court records on a slave named Ambrose suggest how far some slaves went to get their way. Ambrose had been approached by Robert Brooke to work as a house servant but told Brooke he was too ill to work. As Brooke described their discussion, "Yesterday I saw your man Ambrose and asked him whether he wished me to hire him for the ensuing year or not. I often repeated this question to him, and he as often told me he was sick and could do no body any good. I therefore told him I would have nothing to do with him."
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In spite of Ambrose's claims, his master forced him to work for Brooke. Ambrose responded four weeks later by running away from both Brooke and his master.
In comparison to the power that owners and employers possessed, slave workers had little leverage and few ways to effect their desires. Yet more often than not, owners and employers did heed slaves' requests, largely because ignoring them often proved costly. Although many owners voiced paternalistic concerns about slaves' welfare, having a slave mistreated or seriously injured also meant the owners lost revenue or saw their property's value diminish. It was chiefly for these reasons that Richard Carter, the owner of Sam and Daniel, immediately removed them from the factory and placed them in new jobs when they complained about the working conditions. Initially, Carter may not have had any reason to believe the two youths and could have easily rejected their claims. Yet he did listen to them and upon further investigation discovered the boys had indeed been neglected by Patterson.
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Sometimes, however, this method backfired. Isaac, who was hired to Curtis Carter, attempted to return to his owner, William Bowles, because he did not like the working conditions. Isaac complained that he was sick and that Carter had sent him home because an ill slave was of no use to him. Bowles doubted his slave's claim and sent word to Carter asking if Isaac's employment had been terminated. Carter replied no. "Having been informed," Bowles then "drove him [Isaac] off his plan-
 
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tation & directed him to return to the complainant." Moses suffered a similar fate when he left his employer, Meacon Green, and returned to his owner, Thomas Stanton. When Moses turned up at his master's shop, Stanton demanded to know why he had returned. Moses replied that "he had ranaway from Mr. Green [and] that he could not live with Mr. Green because he was too severe a task master, and required him to do more work than he was enabled to do." Stanton's response was to "reques[t] his brother Elihu Stanton to take Moses home to his then master."
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Perhaps the most common manner in which slaves took advantage of the city environment with its attendant working conditions and privileges was through social and leisure activities. After working hours and even during the day if time permitted, slaves met one another at places such as Mrs. Sydner's corner store for conversation and perhaps a hand of "five corns . . . at two cents a game."
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Jamerson's grocery was another popular spot until he was charged with "harboring and entertaining in his shop . . . an unlawful assembly of slaves nine in number . . . without the knowledge or consent of their respective masters or owners." Those with some extra money were able to patronize local taverns and grogshops. One popular spot among slave, free black, and white residents was a tavern run by Mrs. Mary Martin. In fact, several of her more famous clients helped Gabriel Prosser plan his famous revolt in 1800.
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Not all slaves drank or gambled. Instead, many went visiting when they had the chance. Depositions from court cases indicate that slaves often went to one another's home (or the owner's home) to chat, share a meal, or exchange goods or services. Historian U.B. Phillips indicated that this was a popular form of entertainment among slaves within the cities: "The home of a . . . well-to-do townsman was likely to be a `magnificent negro boarding house,' at which and from which an indefinite number of servants and their dependents and friends were fed. In town the tribe might increase to the point of embarrassment."
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Although owners were concerned about the times slave workers went unattended, they apparently believed it not to be a significant problem and viewed it as one of the many growing pains of the new urban and industrial slave system. Nor does it appear that owners were overly anxious about the gambling games or social parties so long as these activities did not interfere with work. Perhaps their relative lack of concern over these activities was justified; the social parties did not pose a major threat to the daily work routine, and the number of slaves who could "lose time" were few in 1800. Furthermore, owners knew if they did try to discourage their slave workers from socializing without supervision, their warnings would have been taken lightly.
 
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What owners did not realize, however, was how these activities influenced by the unusual privileges sowed the seeds for future resistance by enabling certain slaves to gain skills and nurture beliefs that would threaten the ideological foundations of slavery. With the ability to self-hire, live apart, voice employment preferences, and even pursue independent economic activities, slaves were placed in a position to judge their own working situations based on cash payments, tasks, and exertion required, and even safety standards. In these cases, slaves' opinion had a direct impact on their lives and offered them a few of the fruits of their labor. In essence, they gained a small amount of leverage. Although slaves' power was minuscule compared with that wielded by an owner or employer, it held great importance to them. On a practical level this leverage enhanced slaves' bargaining position when negotiating employment or dealing with merchants, tavern keepers, and landlords. They could reject potential hirers and exercise certain rights as customers and consumers. Of greater significance, however, the privileges and the activities they encouraged opened the door to slave self-determination. The ability to set the terms of employment and secure living necessities provided some tools to defy owner domination. In the early 1800s this newfound power posed only a small threat because so few slaves had the opportunity to explore the full potential of their privileges. Owners and employers remained confident that they held a fairly tight rein on slave workers. But by 1840, when thousands of city slaves had secured privileges as well as new skills, ideas, and ambitions, the threat became more evident and left many owners wondering if they had somehow helped slaves launch a sort of rebellion.
Not all Richmonders were as shortsighted. Some residents were considerably more concerned about slave activities and the threat they posed in the short and long term and worked hard to control and eliminate them. Instead of using physical coercion or privileges and benefits as incentives, however, these residents offered spiritual salvation. Armed with sermons, catechisms, and the promise of equality in God's eyes, Richmond clergymen, particularly Baptists, struggled to stop slave workers from drinking and gambling and sinning altogether. But pastors, like owners and employers before them, quickly discovered they could not dominate slave congregants. And ironically, the very tools used to control slaves became weapons in slaves' battle for religious freedom.
"Christ's Freemen . . . Christ's Slaves"
While fear, arrests, or religious apathy may have slowed the spread of organized religion and "visible" churches among black Virginians during the late eighteenth century, such forces did not stop black Richmond
 
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residents from receiving the Word of God.
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In fact, even the hint that the new evangelical religions possessed radical messages of equality and may have encouraged a group of slaves led by a young man named Gabriel to plan a revolt in 1800 did little to stop clergymen's rigorous efforts to bring city slaves into the fold.
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The desire to Christianize and "civilize" bond men and women ran strong and deep among the religious leaders of the city. As a result, by the turn of the century black Richmonders, slave and free, had an enviable choice of religious services to attend, including those at Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Baptist churches, as well as a Jewish temple.
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During the early nineteenth century, the most popular and fastestgrowing church among black residents was the First Baptist.
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Initially about 200 residents (150 blacks and 50 whites) joined the church in 1800. By 1824 Baptist membership had increased to 800, and by 1840 there were more 2,000 members, (1,708 blacks and 387 whites).
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No other church could match these membership figures; few black residents joined any other institution. Records from the Catholic and Episcopal churches, for example, show only a minuscule number of slave Richmonders as members during the nineteenth century. And the First Presbyterian Church had only about 60 black members on its rolls by 1843.
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Key to the popularity of the Baptist religion among slave and free blacks was the church's liturgical message of egalitarianism. Because the Baptist religion stressed the individual's efforts for rebirth and conversion, rather than infant baptism, black and white, slave and free members were equally reproached for the sins they committed and were offered an equal opportunity to be saved. It comes as no surprise, then, that among the members of the church were "not many wise . . . not many mighty."
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Because Baptist preachers had little doubt of slaves' capacity to understand and embrace the conversionary experience, slaves found themselves taken as seriously as free black and white members.
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In God's eyes they were the same, or as one pastor described it, if slave they were "Christ's freemen, if free, as Christ's slaves."
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Bond men and women also were attracted to the Baptist religion because of its accessibility, even to those who could not read. Baptist preachers expressed sin and salvation in physical terms: the weight of sin, the burning fires of hell, and the cleanliness and purity of conversion. As a result, literacy and education were not necessary. Even the Reverend John Courtney the church's first full-time minister was known to have "lacked the advantages of [an] education."
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Anglican and Catholic churches, by contrast, were far less visual and tended to impart religious values by way of a written discourse that included the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer.
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Even if these churches
 
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ceased to depend on the written text, it is doubtful slave men and women would have found these religions appealing. According to Luther Porter Jackson, the nonevangelical religions' "greatest handicap" was their "lack of emotionalism and a spirit to fire the masses."
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The popularity of the Baptist church was further enhanced because of the leadership opportunities it offered. The church selected a committee of black deacons to administer to black congregants and regularly ordained free and enslaved blacks and allowed them to preach to both black and white congregants. Although other separatist sects appointed black preachers, historians find that a large portion of selected speakers were from the Baptist church.
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This is largely because Baptist churches, unlike the Presbyterians or the Methodists, were autonomous and did not have to abide by a larger governing authority; as a result, members of an individual church could appoint or remove preachers without approval from any external organization.
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This flexibility encouraged members of the First Baptist in Richmond to ordain free black and slave members such as Lott Cary, Colin Teague, Joseph Abrams, and John Jasper, all of whom became important religious figures precisely because of those opportunities.
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For these reasons, among others, the Baptist church was considered an oddity and was watched by the Richmond public with great curiosity. The outdoor baptisms on the riverbank drew gawking visitors, as did the large associational meetings that were held in Richmond on occasion. Even the pastors were followed with interest. Within his first few years of service, John Courtney was dubbed by white critics as a "haranguer among Negroes."
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While the general public saw the Baptist church as flashy and wildly attractive to overly emotional dissenters, a panderer to blacks and poor whites, and a possible instigator of slave rebellions, members of the First Baptist saw themselves as part of a serious organization dedicated to saving souls. To carry out their evangelical mission, local Baptists made extraordinary efforts to attract and convert Richmonders from all walks of life. In the early 1800s prayer meetings run by and for women were established under the guidance of the Female Missionary Society. In 1815 the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society was formed, marking the beginning of the church's efforts to "aid [the] unhappy kindred in Africa." By the 1820s the church could boast of missionary efforts in India as well as among various Native American tribes.
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The same year missionary efforts to Africa were started, Deacon William Crane, a shoemaker by trade, opened a school within the church to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Bible to anyone interested, including free black residents. In the 1820s members of the First Baptist

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