Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (26 page)

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Authors: Midori Takagi

Tags: #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #test

BOOK: Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865
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passes, and seditious speeches" would be punished with thirty-nine "stripes" or burned on the left hand with a poker.
114
Overall the new regulations passed just before 1800 were designed to clamp down on the lower classes, both free and slave, within the growing urban environment. Although Richmond authorities recognized slave residents to be potentially more threatening than white residents, they did not display a particularly heightened concern toward them. In fact, Richmond authorities were somewhat more concerned about the white male population; prior to 1800 white men appeared before the court for alleged criminal activities more often than anyone else. During the last decade of the eighteenth century, it appeared the law enforcement efforts were working because the number of arrests decreased.
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But if city officials developed a sense of confidence, it was a false one. The discovery of Gabriel's plot in the summer of 1800 revealed the flaws of their approach and the potential for much worse problems in the urban environment. There was an inherent difficulty in trying to maintain a secure, tightly controlled slave institution within a loosely monitored city setting. It was this problem that plagued city officials not only during the early nineteenth century but throughout the antebellum era.
City authorities were not entirely clear on how to secure slavery in the city. Unlike slave owners and employers, local officials had few ways to reward slaves to promote good behavior. Worse yet, punishments meant little in an environment in which detecting illicit slave activity was difficult, if not impossible. As a result, the period between 1800 and 1840 was spent restricting and eliminating the activities and practices believed to have enabled Gabriel to plan his plot and, later, to have helped Nat Turner carry out his rebellion in Southampton County in 1831.
Once again, ordinances and laws banned many of the unusual working and living practices. The ban on self-hiring, for example, was reaffirmed in 1801 and 1808 and sporadically throughout the antebellum era.
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Other regulations prohibited slaves from meeting one another in groups of five or more and from gambling and drinking. In addition, slaves could not meet for religious purposes without a white person present. In direct response to Nat Turner's rebellion, authorities additionally banned black Richmonders (free and enslaved) from "preaching, exhorting, conducting or holding any assembly" under any circumstances, including performing burial rituals.
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Furthermore, at least once a month, slave homes were subject to inspections by local guardsmen to prevent any type of illegal activities and "unlawful assemblies of slaves." Slaves caught roaming the streets after 9 P.M. received a lashing administered by the night watchmen unless their owners rescued them first. The new laws further limited slave mobility by prohibiting bond men
 
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and women from riding on railroads or horse carriages or crossing bridges without written permission and threatened slaves found on board boats without owners' consent with an immediate "39."
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In addition to attacking these activities, city council members and state legislators attempted to limit interaction between the free and enslaved populations particularly slave and free black inhabitants because they believed such associations only led to danger. Authorities contended based on little concrete evidence that free blacks enticed slaves to rebel and escape. As proof, lawmakers looked no further than the rumors implicating several free black residents and two Frenchmen as participants in the aborted revolt of 1800.
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For additional "proof," lawmakers pointed to the discovery of David Walker's
Appeal
a pamphlet written by a northern black resident calling on slave workers to rise and kill their owners in the possession of certain slave Richmonders.
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But even though there was evidence that free persons had not assisted Gabriel or Nat Turner, the mayor and his council were convinced that any contact with free blacks planted in "their weak minds a spirit of discontent, tending to insurrection."
121
State and city legislation passed between 1800 and 1840 attacked slave-free black associations from a variety of directions. Some of the new laws sought to separate the groups by preventing them from meeting. Unsupervised gatherings between the two, for example, were prohibited. Free black workers who traveled into slave-populated areas were required to keep their distance. Black watermen or bateaumen had to stay close to their boats when traveling the river and could not to venture into the center of the city or visit friends. A more severe measure required all black persons freed after 1806 to leave the commonwealth within twelve months of their emancipation or else face reenslavement.
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While these laws may have prevented certain transactions from transpiring between free black and slave residents, they could never completely separate the two. Free black and slave residents continued to worship, celebrate, and raise families together in spite of the increasing restrictions against such interaction. The new ordinances passed after Gabriel's aborted rebellion, for example, did little to hinder free black barber Reuben Morton from marrying Clara, a slave woman, and raising four children.
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Nor did the new restrictions squelch all impulses for the two to meet. Christopher McPherson, one of Richmond's more colorful free black residents, purposefully flaunted the new laws when he advertised the opening of his new school for the "people of colour" offering classes in reading, writing, and arithmetic, among other subjects. But McPherson's institute never opened as promised; white resi-
 
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dents immediately brought charges against him for being a "nuisance" to the white community.
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Other state and local ordinances appeared to acknowledge that slave and free black residents would meet and simply sought to defuse the dangers of such interaction. Free blacks were prohibited from selling or giving ardent spirits to slaves, writing passes, or teaching any literacy skills (religious or otherwise).
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To prevent slaves from obtaining guns and goods, the new laws also banned free blacks from keeping firearms without a proper license or loading any goods onto or off boats without written certification from some "respectable white person."
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While the dangers of slave-free black associations weighed heavily on legislators' minds, they were not blind to the potential problems that slave and white resident interaction presented. Among those most aware of these dangers was the mayor of Richmond. In his court, on a daily basis, the mayor was presented with cases involving theft, gambling, and selling and receiving stolen goods between slave and free white inhabitants. These cases included the charges against John McKenna, a white resident, for knowingly purchasing a cart of stolen iron pipes from two slaves, Nelson and Spencer Burch. And the case against white resident Thomas Stubbs, for writing passes for Richard Cooper, a black slave, thereby allowing him to pass as a free man. And the case concerning Oakly Philpotts, another white resident, and Harry, a black slave laborer, who were charged with conspiring to revolt. Both parties were brought up on charges of insurrection after three witnesses swore they had overheard plans for rebellion. Although none of the witnesses heard any specific details of an attack, one witness swore he heard Philpotts say to Harry "that he came of Adam & Eve, & he knew not why they should not have their freedom & drink their wine too."
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Philpotts and Harry were subsequently found innocent of any wrongdoing, but the incident likely confirmed officials' belief that relations among the three groups needed to be limited and strictly supervised.
To limit interaction between slave and white persons who were not their owners or employers, authorities placed severe penalties on the latter should they assist the former to escape, to read and write, to gamble, to board a ship, or even to cross a bridge. Infractions of these laws resulted in high fines and jail time. Punishment for "counseling, advising, plotting or conspiring" with a slave or free black resident to rebel had even more dire consequences; free persons, black or white, found guilty of this crime would automatically "suffer death by hanging."
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Other activities banned even included trading and selling both illegal and legal goods. Slaves, for example, were prohibited from selling "eatables" to white, free black, or slave residents and were prohibited from
 
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owning shops.
129
Restrictions were placed on white merchants as well. In 1802 grocers and other residents were prohibited from purchasing or selling goods to free black and slave residents on the Sabbath day.
130
Later on, no merchant or resident was able to buy, sell to, give, or receive goods from a slave on any day without written permission.
131
Ostensibly these bans were to reduce the trade in stolen property, but they were also geared toward reducing contact between slave and free residents.
City officials anticipated resistance from slave and free black residents to these new regulations, but they did not expect resistance from white Richmonders. Much to their surprise, owners and employers willfully ignored many of the new regulations, finding them to be a nuisance and to conflict with their economic interests. The ban on slaves hiring themselves out and "going at large," for example, not only infringed upon the slave owners' authority over a slave but also hampered local businesses' ability to obtain slave laborers. Some owners were dependent on this labor system as a way to motivate slave workers while others needed it to generate income. Local businesses and individuals were equally dependent on this system to meet their short-term labor needs. Because the ban conflicted with owners' and businesses' economic interests, it was widely ignored. Slaves continued to hire themselves out with both owners' and employers' consent. In fact, this law produced an unlikely coalition of slaves, owners, and employers conspiring to actively resist slave laws.
Despite the ban on self-hiring, workers such as Iris, Titus, and Will continued to look for their own employment with their owners' written consent. Nelson Hylton received both his owner and his employer's consent to hire himself out. This was somewhat unusual because Hylton had already hired himself to Charles Holt for the year but was still looking for additional work.
132
The slave laws created other unusual alliances as well. Slaves and the proprietors of small eating and drinking establishments frequently found themselves partners in crime as city officials attempted to ban slaves from consorting with free persons. Flouting the regulations, slaves with extra cash continued to patronize local grogshops and cookshops, and small shopkeepers continued to serve them. The new laws did not seem to bother the consciences of shopkeepers such as M.P. Shop or Jamerson who continued with business as usual. It was a common occurrence to see both slave and tavern keeper in court with the former charged with "going at large" and the latter charged with "selling spirits and permitting negroes to gamble in his establishment."
133
Tavern keepers were not the only ones who continued to serve the
 
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slave clientele. Dozens of white Richmonders, including shoemakers and clothiers, refused to stop selling goods to, or trading services with, slave workers. Although many of these merchants probably agreed with lawmakers that slave discipline needed to be bolstered, few saw the harm in selling a pair of shoes or a hat to a bondman.
134
The new regulations of the early nineteenth century and public response (that is, of slave owners, employers, shopkeepers, and slave workers) to the new laws reflect some of the confusion that residents felt about slavery and its role in the city economy and society. City businesses, owners, clergymen, local officials, and slaves themselves all struggled to determine exactly how and where slavery fit into the emerging urban and industrial milieu. Predictably, each group advocated practices that suited its needs best, and often these practices conflicted.
This confusion was not limited to the local level, however. During this same period representatives from across the state struggled to determine the future of slavery and its role in Virginia. Not surprisingly, the events of 1800 and 1831 (Gabriel's aborted plot and Nat Turner's Rebellion) sparked debates in the General Assembly and forced local residents to consider the future of the ''peculiar institution."
Although the issue of slavery was no stranger to the halls of the assembly, these events encouraged legislators to discuss the institution in ways different from previous debates. Haunted by the fear of future slave insurrections and moved by the desire to protect the lives and property of white residents, state representatives turned from issues such as taxation and suffrage topics that involved slavery to slavery itself. Even though the participants in, and the contexts of, the two debates differed greatly, during both periods legislators seriously entertained proposals that would significantly alter the future of slavery either by slowing the growth of the institution or by abolishing it altogether. But the strength of conservative Virginians proved too great as moderates and abolitionists failed to rid the state of slavery. By 1840, despite the apparent risks and difficulties slavery presented, nearly all groups except slaves themselves, of course were determined to maintain the "peculiar institution" in Richmond.
The period of 1800 to 1840, then, was one of experimentation with, and adjustment to, slavery in order to fit the new urban industrial setting. In every part of the emerging city in business, in church, in taverns, and within owners' homes slaveholders, employers, and local authorities struggled to find a way for slavery and city life to coexist. The result was a set of legal, working, and living arrangements that often crossed purposes and at times created chaos. But where others saw disarray or incongruity, slave residents saw a golden opportunity. In the

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