Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (42 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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morning on July 19 the Williamses crept into the Winstons' private chambers, where Joseph and Virginia and their nine-month-old child slept in the same bed. The Williamses then began to strike all three repeatedly with a hatchet. Mrs. Winston and the child died, but Mr. Winston survived with severe cuts and gashes to his head.
The city sergeant and watchmen, who were among the first to arrive, immediately began inspecting the house and all the rooms. They also began questioning the four slave servants who lived on the lot: Joe and Nelly Scott and Jane and John Williams. During their investigation of the house, the city police discovered a hatchet with traces of blood in a bucket of dirty water, some hair and mucous membrane floating in the water, and a frock with spots of blood on the upper right-hand sleeve and on the bodice in Jane and John Williamses' sleeping quarters. On the basis of this evidence, the city watch arrested the Williamses on suspicion of murder.
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In the following months the couple went to trial, and the Hustings Court found them guilty and sentenced them to die on the gallows.
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Of the two cases, the Jordan Hatcher incident evoked a more visible public response even though it was the less gruesome of the murders. This is largely because Hatcher's case did not end the way white residents expected: he did not hang. Twenty-four hours before Hatcher was to be executed, Governor Joseph Johnson delayed the hanging, and he later reduced the sentence to "sale and transportation beyond the limits of the U[nited] States" on May 6.
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Johnson's action was not without precedent or prompting. Previous governors often had reduced slave sentences to sale and transportation. Only twenty-eight slave Virginians had been executed between 1804 and 1865, but 377 slave Virginians had been sold and transported from the state between 1816 and 1842, so Johnson probably did not think twice.
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Furthermore, immediately following the trial, Johnson had received a petition urging him to grant Hatcher clemency because Jackson's death was neither premeditated nor desired. As historian Harrison M. Ethridge surmises, "Governor Johnson must have been impressed" by this petition which was endorsed by some of the most prominent residents in the city. Among the sixty signers were Joseph Anderson of Tredegar Iron Works, William H. Macfarland, president of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, and a number of lawyers and clergymen. Although Johnson also received a petition from a group of tobacconists demanding Hatcher's death, as an example to "all such offenders," clearly he was unmoved.
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Public response to Hatcher's reduced sentence was immediate and sharp. An angry crowd assembled outside of City Hall, and later Governor Johnson's mansion, to protest the lighter punishment. Partici-
 
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pants in this "Indignation Meeting" accused the governor of "abat[ing] the trust confided to him by the Constitutions" by giving slaves "encouragement to insubordination and crime" and of secretly being a New York abolitionist, which he was not. The atmosphere in Richmond became so tense that the General Assembly briefly considered moving its meetings out of the city until the furor died down.
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Eventually the commotion diminished, but only after Governor Johnson defended his actions in two separate speeches, was investigated by the Committee for Courts of Justice, and was maligned by both fellow Democrat and Whig opponents. Still, Hatcher was not executed, and on June 16 he and sixteen other slaves were purchased by Garland P. Ware and transported out of the United States.
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Public outcry against Johnson's decision reveals the deep fear that white residents had about slave resistance. What made white Richmonders particularly uncomfortable was the sense that urban industrial working and living conditions had helped produce Jordan Hatcher and the Williamses. All three were urban slaves who enjoyed a variety of privileges including hiring out, living apart, socializing without supervision, and cash bonuses. White Richmonders believed these privileges encouraged the slaves to be rebellious. Hatcher had been a hired tobacco hand who lived apart from both owner and employer. Although his employment may have been negotiated by Pamela Godsey, his owner, she had little knowledge of his comings and goings and little control over his activities because she lived in Chesterfield County.
John Williams shared some of the same working and living conditions as Hatcher. Although John belonged to the Winston household, he worked at the docks for John Enders during the day. Like most hired slave workers, John could move about the city before and after working hours with no supervision. He also probably received cash from his earnings and could earn extra by performing overtime work. John was not required to live in the Winstons' house but chose to in order to be with his wife. Jane, on the other hand, was directly owned by the Winstons and most likely did not enjoy the same privileges as her husband. But she was able to move about in the city making trips to the market, did socialize with other slaves and possibly free blacks, and was well aware of the privileges and expectations of hired slaves including her husband.
White residents came to believe that these factors encouraged slaves to act violently by planting within them "the germ of rebellion." One influential Richmonder, Joseph Mayo (who later became mayor), attributed the "glaring evils" of the slave population to "the system of board money . . . [and] the assumptions of equality exhibited by the blacks in riding in carriages contrary to law, and in dress and deportment." In-
 
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creasingly, white city dwellers began to wonder if they had been in the words of one resident "rearing wolves to our own destruction."
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Elite Richmonders, however, were not sure which aspect of urban industrial slavery enabled slaves to resist and therefore called for different solutions. Some residents believed slave discipline to be too lax and asked for stricter laws, a larger police force, and the arming of officers with revolvers. Another group called for limiting the number of slave passes to prevent slaves from "going at large."
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One person, seeing how bond men and women had "become corrupted by the vices of the city . . . [and by] associating indiscriminately with each other and the refuse of the white population," wondered if slaves should even remain in the city.
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Slaves workers were not sent out of Richmond, but immediately after the events of 1852 and during the next five years, they were bombarded by new restrictions including some that eliminated long-standing privileges. In addition to bans on smoking, carrying canes (symbols of wealth), and preaching in public, slaves could no longer drive or ride in carriages without their owners' consent, visit with free black friends for longer than several hours (this also eliminated living with free blacks), hire themselves out, or remain outdoors after eleven at night.
Slave homes and neighborhoods came under attack as well. Mayor Joseph Mayo (who held office from 1853 to the end of the Civil War) called on city property owners to close off or pave their alleyways to reduce the number of slave tenements and to end "all intercourse between slaves and free negroes." The mayor believed this step would affect slave activities by "stopping board money, cook shops and eating houses the hiring of slaves by free negroes (a great evil) and the practice which prevails so extensively of standing masters for slaves."
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The capstone to these new restrictions, however, was the elimination of the unsupervised board system (living apart) in 1857. Slaves could still live apart from owner and employer but could no longer choose the location. Instead, owners were required to arrange room and board for slaves as a way to keep tabs on their activities a change that, in theory, would severely limit slave mobility.
For all the fears of Richmond's elite, there is no concrete evidence that the number of crimes committed by slaves increased during the late antebellum era. The high number of slave arrests for "going at large" in 1852, for example, could reflect the fervency with which the Richmond police executed the law rather than how frequently slaves violated it. Conversely, the significant drop in arrests for the same crime by 1854 might indicate the futility of enforcing this law, rather than a decline in the number of slaves "going at large." In addition, the assistance many
 
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slaves received from certain white Richmonders in evading the new regulations raised doubts about exactly who was challenging the law.
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As in the past, owners, employers, and shopkeepers continued to encourage and help slaves to break the law when it conflicted with personal and economic interests. Few free Richmonders were willing to give up practices that saved them money or encouraged slaves to work hard. The 1852 ban on "going at large" did little to change the behavior of slaves Alexander, Council, and Colin Scott or their owners. In fact, much to the horror of the city council and local newspaper, Alexander who was among the first to be arrested under the newly enforced laws had been "working at almost any place he chose for the last six months."
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Alexander was hardly an exception. Throughout the 1850s court records were filled with similar cases of slaves illegally hiring themselves out and living apart. One city resident told the newspaper there was so much widespread disregard for the laws restricting slave activities, it was not surprising that bond workers could escape from the city with ease. Urban slaves, he explained, "are enabled to effect their plans of escape more easily [by] being permitted to act as their own masters, and until the owners and hirers of slaves determine to comply with the law in relation to `going at large,' they need never hope to put an end to their continual escapes."
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Although most owners and employers helped their slaves evade the law simply by ignoring the new legislation, a few such as owner Isaac Goddin aggressively fought the law. In response to charges brought against his slaves by officer Daniel Boze, Goddin lodged a complaint against the officer for harassing and threatening his bondmen. According to court records, Boze had been walking his beat one night when he spotted several slaves "cutting up shines in the street." Boze chased the men, but they ran onto Goddin's property and hid. The officer then knocked at the door and awoke Goddin, to inform him of his servants' activities, and then threatened to shoot the bondmen the next time he caught them. Rather than agreeing to discipline his slaves, Goddin reported Boze to the city council and demanded Mayor Mayo reprimand the officer for harassment.
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Slave owner J.S. Tinsley also challenged the law when his slave Albert Anderson was charged with "severely assaulting a free negress named Ellen Rebecca Ellett." Finding the defendant guilty, the court sentenced Anderson to receive twenty-five lashes. Tinsley, however, appealed this decision and hired four lawyers to defend his slave. The attorneys cross-examined witnesses and gave lengthy speeches until the mayor, exhausted and outgunned, rescinded Anderson's punishment.
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Newspaper accounts suggest that grocers and other small shopkeep-
 
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ers likewise showed little respect for the laws, even if it meant stiffer penalties. Henry Mangle, a grocer with a store on Brooke Avenue, ignored the ban on slave loitering rather than jeopardize sales to these customers. Willie Ann Smith, a free black woman, continued to run her "house of ill fame" and to sell liquor and food to free black and slave patrons because it was her only means of sustenance. Shopkeeper M. Francis broke several laws by continuing to sell cakes and liquor to slave and free black customers, even on Sundays.
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Since Richmonders, black and white, frequently ignored the new regulations, and city officials experienced great difficulty enforcing the law, there are not enough data to prove that slaves were committing acts of resistance at a higher rate. But an examination of the kind of acts committed suggests that tobacconists and other nervous white Richmonders were not entirely mistaken. It seems that a "spirit of insubordination" or more accurately, a spirit of equality did exist and became stronger and bolder over time. Incidents of domestic slaves boldly defying their employers and of slaves demanding their freedom were becoming more common. White residents were correct in their belief that urban industrial working and living conditions negatively affected the slave system. The board system, self-hiring privileges, cash bonuses, and crowded marketplaces did help slaves resist and rebel. Slave workers were able to slip away and meet with friends, drink, and trade fenced goods while ostensibly running errands for their owners and employers. But what white Richmonders did not realize was that city conditions helped slaves to challenge slavery in ways more damaging than drinking and gambling. Each successful challenge slaves launched against owners, employers, and authorities became the foundation for larger and more politicized forms of resistance. The cash that slave workers earned through the hiring and bonus systems, for example, frequently was used to fund institutions that emphasized self-reliance and confidence and to underwrite underground organizations that helped slaves escape. Local authorities saw the act of earning cash or trading goods for money as a threat but did not see that the way those funds were spent could present a much greater danger. Even if authorities had fully recognized how city conditions and privileges were undermining the slave institution, there was little they could have done; the very success of the industries and businesses based on slave labor depended on the unusual living and working conditions of urban slavery. In short, to end the "spirit of insubordination" would have meant destroying the urban slave system as it had developed in Richmond.
Nearly every aspect of the urban and industrial slave system encouraged or enabled slave workers to resist. Negotiating and terminating

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