Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (50 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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Page 147

when his owner forced him to move to Richmond without his wife; the satisfaction Minsey experienced when she quit her position as a housemaid in the middle of her employer's Christmas party; the determination that James Allison, Charles Feggins, and Stephen Brown showed when they demanded equal voting rights for free and enslaved members within the church; and the pride of black Baptists when they won their own church.
⁴

I did not, however, want to focus on these victories and tragedies as isolated occurrences but rather as examples of a long tradition of resistance, hope, strong moral beliefs, and determination that fortified Richmond's black community then and continues to do so today. To accomplish this, I traced the development of Richmond's urban and industrial slave system, the architectural and landscape changes of the city, the unusual practices of self-hiring, living apart, and cash bonuses, and how bond men and women used all these factors to their advantage. By following these historical "threads" over an eighty-three-year period, I came to understand how the urban industrial milieu enabled slave residents to gain some control over their working and living conditions and subtly alter their relationships with owners and employers. It became clear that the city setting, and slaves' response to it, helped to create an unusually large and strong slave community.

I also came to understand how Richmond's slave system, in comparison to Baltimore's, "succeeded" and yet became increasingly flawed with an infrastructure that weakened over time. Richmond's success depended on giving slave workers more control over their lives and labor, a practice that went against what antebellum southerners believed was necessary to maintain a strong system of bondage. The conditions certainly allowed Richmond slaves to lead lives that were very different from what they would have experienced on plantations. But no matter how unusual the urban industrial slave system may have been, it was no less brutal, oppressive, or legally constraining than any other form of bondage. Richmond's slave system did, however, create certain opportunities for slave men and women not only to survive which in itself is extraordinary but also to build a rich, complex community supported by strong family ties, the African Baptist Church, and mutual aid societies, among other institutions. The existence of these organizations revealed the limits of the city slave system and slave workers' ability to severely test those limits, during a time when slave owner control and the ideology undergirding slavery appeared absolute.

Page 149

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

FABC

First African Baptist Church, Richmond

FBC

First Baptist Church, Richmond

The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Hustings Deeds

Richmond, Hustings Court, Deeds

Hustings Suit Papers

Richmond, Hustings Court, Suit Papers

Hustings Wills

Richmond, Hustings Court, Wills, Inventories, and Accounts

LVA

Archives, The Library of Virginia, Richmond

Museum of the Confederacy

Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond

Valentine

Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia

VHS

Virginia Historical Society, Richmond

Virginia Baptist Historical Society

Virginia Baptist Historical Society, University of Richmond

Page 150

Introduction

1. Wade,
Slavery in the Cities,
48.

2. Eaton, "Slave-Hiring in the Upper South"; Schweninger, "The Free-Slave Phenomenon"; Green, "Industrial Transition in the Land of Chattel Slavery"; Egerton,
Gabriel's Rebellion.

3. Douglass,
My Bondage and My Freedom,
147-48.

4. Goldin,
Urban Slavery in the American South;
Fields,
Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground,
7.

5.
Richmond Enquirer,
Sept. 13, 1831.

1. Inauspicious Beginnings

1. Ward and Greer,
Richmond during the Revolution,
8.

2. Charles de la Peña to John Adams Smith, Nov. 2, 1827, John Adams Smith, Esq., Papers, Valentine.

3. Albert, "The Protean Institution," 17.

4. Robert,
Tobacco Kingdom,
90-91.

5. Goldfield,
Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers,
16.

6. Peterson, "Flour and Grist Milling in Virginia," 105.

7. Lewis, "Darkest Abode of Man," 190-91.

8. Price, "Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns," 129-30.