Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (39 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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Page 98
considered "breeding grounds of disease."
8
The fact that the highest number of deaths from cholera occurred in this area attests to the poor sanitary conditions.
9
The tenements were of the most "miserable kind" with "fences unrepaired [and] walls crumbling into ruinous heaps."
10
Yet limited funds, the need to live near the factories, and ''white pressures to keep blacks out" of other neighborhoods largely confined slave workers to these dilapidated and dangerous residences.
11
While access, convenience, and cost initially drew as well as pushed slave workers to the Shockoe Creek area, family, friends, and economic and social institutions kept them there and encouraged other bond men and women to move in. In the midst of these poor housing conditions, slave residents managed to create a community that offered comfort, solidarity, protection, and entertainment.
The architecture of the Shockoe Creek area contributed much to the creation of this new community. Many of the tenements surrounding the factories were in alleys behind or beside businesses and could be accessed only through passageways.
12
Hidden from the public eye, these tenements provided slaves a physical and psychological space that allowed them a degree of separation from owners and employers that was not generally found in rural areas. Unlike most plantation and household slaves, tenement residents did not live within sight of the "Big House" and were not exposed to an overseer's prying eyes after work. Occasionally curious white residents would visit the alleys, and there were infrequent police raids; but generally this slave community was allowed to exist unmolested. No doubt the privacy that slaves enjoyed within these relatively isolated alleys gave them a sense of separation from the outside world and an opportunity to let their guard down, enjoy one another's company, or simply be alone.
The city's architecture brought black Richmonders closer together while the boarding system and financial pressures often forced them to share dwellings. Hired slave workers frequently roomed together or shared a house in order to reduce costs.
13
This was certainly the case for Moses, Jack, and Walker, who not only worked together at Quarles's brickyard but lived together in a nearby tenement.
14
Sharing residences was not limited to slave residents, however; slave and free black residents commonly roomed together as well. When Ann Eliza Ellis, a free black woman, found herself without a home, her friend John Sims, a slave, put her up in his boardinghouse room for several weeks.
15
Because of high rents and low cash payments, single free black and slave mothers frequently shared households. Although documentation is scarce, one study indicates that "taking in children or doubling up households" became an important method of making ends meet.
16
 
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Of greater impact on the development of the slave community than architecture or economic need, however, were the networks based on family and kin. United through marriage and by blood, family ties constituted an important part of the slave community and in many instances tied not only the slave but the slave and free black communities together.
Such bonds were possible because of the relatively large number of slave men and women in the city that resulted from urban and industrial labor demands. In 1850 the ratio of men to women was 115 to 100. By 1860 increased demand for male slaves pushed the ratio to 131 to 100. These figures differed markedly from those of other southern urban centers such as New Orleans, where female slaves outnumbered males 100 to 67 by 1860.
17
The age distribution of Richmond's slave community also points to a high potential for marriage and families. Census data show a significant number of men and women of compatible ages; in 1850 there were 2,333 slave men and 1,755 women between the ages of twenty-three and fifty-four, and by 1860 there were 2,852 men and 2,084 women within that age bracket.
18
A high birthrate among slave women offers additional evidence that there were many slave couples. Census materials indicate there were 368 slave children under the age of four for every 1,000 slave women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four in 1850. In New Orleans this figure was 271 children per 1,000 women. By 1860 Richmond's ratio increased to 393 per 1,000, while that of New Orleans remained static.
19
While high slave birthrates in Richmond do not prove the existence of many slave couples, it seems likely that the rates resulted at least in part from the relatively even numbers of adult men and women. (Other causes for the high birthrate also include the rape of black slave women by white slave owners).
Admittedly the presence of men and women of similar ages does not mean slave workers married. But evidence from church records, court documents, newspaper accounts, and slave owners' journals indicate that Richmond slaves frequently did join in matrimony. Parish registers from St. John's and St. James's churches indicate that clergymen often were called upon to perform slave marriages.
20
Slave Richmonders Edmund Watkins and Emily, for example, were joined together in 1857 by J. Peterkin, the officiating minister of St. James, as were a number of other couples.
21
Records from the First African Baptist Church show a good number of its slave congregants were married couples. In fact, much of the deacons' time was spent counseling married parishioners.
22
Further evidence of slave marriages can be found in the legislative petitions that newly freed slaves filed to remain in the commonwealth. One of the most common reasons listed for wanting to stay in Virginia was family ties. Philip Robertson's petition filed in 1840 is a good ex-
 
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ample of these strong family bonds. In his plea to the court he explained that "he is connected by the strongest affection to a wife and children who are slaves, & that a separation from them would tear asunder some of the strongest ties which bind the human heart."
23
The existence of slave marriages is also evident in the records of the mayor's court. Of course, when a slave couple came "before His Honor," it was typically because relations were a bit rocky or even abusive. One married couple, Caroline and Henry, had to appear in court after the husband was arrested for beating his wife.
24
Slaves married not only other slaves but free blacks. The potential for such relationships to develop was high because slave and free black residents lived in the same neighborhoods, frequently rented houses together or boarded with one another, and worked in the same factories. The opportunity for slave-free black households to develop was further enhanced by the growing discrepancy between the number of slave men and women. Even though Richmond's slave population was more evenly balanced in terms of sex than that of New Orleans or other cities, there were still many more men than women.
25
So it was not unusual for slave men and free black women to join together even though these relationships might be torn apart through sale or the loss of hiring privileges. Such risks did not deter slaves such as Henry Robertson, who found companionship with Caroline, a free black woman, during the year he was hired to a Richmond business. Nelly Hoomes, who was free, similarly threw caution to the wind when she married her slave husband Bartlett Hoomes and raised four children, in spite of the fact that Bartlett could not live with the family.
26
Such relationships grew stronger and more stable during the late antebellum years as an increasing number of free black residents became the legal owners of slave family members. In 1840 the personal property tax lists showed that only one free black Richmonder was able to purchase his family from an owner; but by 1850 there were thirteen free black slaveholders (nine men, four women) who purchased and retained ownership of their slave families so that they might stay together in Richmond, according to Virginia laws.
27
Extended family networks also served to join the slave community as urban industrial labor demands occasionally brought siblings and other relatives from various counties and reunited them in the city. Minsey, a hired domestic slave, was able to rejoin her kinfolk when her uncle and aunt came to the city as hired household servants. Moreover, because of these family connections, Minsey's relatives were able to secure a position for her as a chambermaid in the same household.
28
A similar situation occurred for Michael Valentine when he was forced to move to Richmond with his owner. Although saddened to leave his wife behind,
 
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he was pleased to be reunited with his brothers and sisters, and their wives and husbands, whom he had not seen for years.
29
Networks connecting city slave residents were further enhanced through social activities and business transactions played out within the tenements and alleyways, cookshops and marketplaces. Weekly gambling games played in the alleys continued to be an important social activity bringing together male slave residents. On Friday and Saturday nights, as many as a dozen bondmen came to a specified alleyway to play games such as faro for pennies and nickels.
30
Grogshops and cookshops hidden in the alleys or near the factories also served as forums for male community members to meet, talk, and develop friendships. One such location was Aaron Atkinson's snack house on Broad Street, a popular gathering place for slave and free black males until the police closed it for "selling ardent spirits."
31
Grocery stores owned by white and free black residents living in the area also became important social spots for local slaves. In these corner-store hangouts bondmen swapped stories, passed gossip, and played board games in their free time. During the 1850s a slave tobacco hand could always find conversation and a game of checkers at Barney Litman's grocery, for example. Going to the races became a popular group, if not community, activity. As the local newspaper pointed out, "Negroes from the city and county congregate in that vicinity [the Fairfield Course] every Sabbath to the number of one or two hundred, and spend the day in gaming and drinking."
32
While alley gambling games and corner-store hangouts catered primarily to slave men, cookshops became a vital social institution for both sexes. There men and women met, discussed interests, debated issues, and voiced opinions without white supervision and outside the confines of church. Furthermore, cookshops served a particularly useful social and financial function for the slave women who ran them. While preparing and serving food, slave women (some of whom were domestic servants during other hours) were able to socialize, provide an important service to fellow slaves, strengthen neighborhood ties, and earn money.
Dinner parties and dances were important social events that brought slave men and women together and became an important part of courtship rituals. Generally these parties were small, informal gatherings (most likely to avoid detection by the night watchmen) in a slave's room or tenement, where neighbors would gather to sing and dance.
33
Other gatherings consisted of small dances in the evenings when single men and women, hoping to meet a potential marriage partner, would come together. Fields Cook met his wife, Mary, at one of these dances. In spite of the fact that there were eight to ten other comely women in the room,
 
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Cook immediately spotted Mary because she had the "modesty of an angel," and "her winning coyness fire[d] my soul."
34
Some parties, however, were grandiose affairs that required planning and funds and brought together many community members. One such party was the grand ''Subscription Ball" held in the basement of the Washington Hotel and attended by nearly one hundred slave and free black men and women "in full ball-room dress." Unfortunately, the party ended almost before it began; just as the dancing was about to start, a "posse of watchmen" entered the premises and began arresting the partygoers for meeting illegally. But if the ball failed to provide entertainment, the ensuing court trial certainly did, and it became a major community social event in itself. The next morning as the ninety or so arrested ballgoers were led to court, the streets filled with concerned friends, relatives, and curious neighbors. One newspaper account described the scene: "The trifling circumstances of removing from the cage a few blacks, accused of being in an unlawful assemblage the night before, called into the streets and around the Mayor's office, thousands of idle slaves who had been permitted to leave their homes, at a busy hour in the morning, merely to gratify their idle curiosity, and hundreds of them remained for hours, congregated around the City Hall."
35
With one exception, the partygoers were released because much to the mayor's chagrin they possessed passes from their owners and employers giving them permission to attend the ball.
Parties were not the only times the community came out. There were more solemn moments that drew them together as well. The regular baptismal services held in the James River to initiate new members of the African Baptist Church brought fellow congregants and friends to witness the rebirth and to give their blessings. This ritual was an extremely important event and was well attended, as this description suggests: "Within sight of the water, we beheld the banks covered with thousands of blacks of both sexes. . . . near the river [were the] numerous candidates for baptismal regeneration, clad in linen trousers and a shirt. They were led into the stream, and received by the officiating minister and his assistants, who . . . plunged them deep beneath the water. Before the immersion the assembled multitude sang at the top of their voices spirit-stirring hymns."
36
The hundreds of black Richmonders who stood on the riverbanks came to show their support for the people emerging from the cool waters and to reaffirm the many ties that bound them together as family, lovers, coworkers, neighbors, and church members. While most of these bonds were formed without coercion, maintaining them under the system of slavery was never easy. Slave sales always threatened to tear apart

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