JEFFERSON'S DAUGHTERS by CATHERINE KERRISON : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

This book was outstanding!

It's a biography of three of Jefferson's daughters.  They were Martha and Maria, by his wife Martha Wayles, and Harriet, by Sally Hemings, who was his mistress or common-law wife but also his slave. The man who became 3rd President of the United States (1801 -1809) had a long marriage-like relationship with Sally but could not lawfully marry her if he wanted to because she was also his slave. Martha, his daughter, lived a long life and had thirteen children. Her descendants were the ones to refute that Jefferson had children with Hemings. Maria, his younger daughter, died young also due to pregnancy.  

Early in the book we are presented with a genealogy chart. I always love to reference these charts in books and it is the beginning of surprises.  If you, like me, thought of Sally Hemings as isolated, well, we were wrong.  The Hemings family were all special among slaves, brought into the Jefferson family as "House" slaves, often given special educations that not only helped the family but provided useful skills for them to earn their living should they be free.  Initially they were brought in as belonging to his wife Martha Wayles, who he dearly loved and lost young because of childbirth.

No other book I've encountered does such a good job of showing how Sally Hemings was not sequestered in a secret room adjacent to his or a secret at Monticello.  Though as he retired and entertained fewer visitors his private life could remain fairly private, what the slaves of Monticello knew was that the Hemings family were special.

Sally Hemings was significantly of European DNA (i.e. "White,") and so their daughter Harriet was 7/8ths "White," but still enslaved.  Since relationships of various sorts between European descent and African descent people occurred before and after the American Revolution, the question of who was or was not  ever a slave or a free person or who had bought their freedom from slavery was something up for discussion and legal determinations.  Surprisingly, Sally's sister lived as the known common-law wife of another man not far away - and apparently they were not given grief over this. 

This book also showed that Jefferson himself must have aided Harriet (as well as his sons) in leaving slavery and that Harriet might have had to go through her life as a free White woman, married to a White man who had to keep her secret and might not have ever seen her parents or siblings again.  (There is no evidence to refute this, but my guess is that there was some channel of communication, for her older brother who could have been freed three years earlier, waited until she was 21 and he was 24 before they left together. Testimonials of where she went and so on came down in history from other of her children who were freed.)

Harriet's special skill was to be weaving.  She not only learned the traditional skills but Jefferson also had her trained on the latest more commercial contraption showing foresight that she might have to work to support herself.

Much to my delight - and increasing my respect for author Catherine Kerrison, was to learn the extensive genealogy she did in order to locate Harriet.  She had about 48 possible Harriets (supposing she only changed her surname when she left, or perhaps married soon after leaving estate) in the Washington D.C. area, which is where family history says she went to, at least right after leaving. She eliminated them one by one and came up with two strong candidates, or maybe just one, but this was inconclusive.  (It seems to me that some day some genetic link could be established if Harriet has living descendants.)

As a result, I will be excerpting this book through the next several weeks bringing to you some key points that I think will be of interest to anyone interested in American History, and especially African-American History.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN REGISTRY presents THE HEADRIGHT PROPERTY SYSTEM IN AMERICA

THIS IS A HISTORY - EDUCATIONAL WEBSITE that is searchable by topic including by names.

AFRICAN AMERICAN REGISTRY ORG - SEARCH FOR TOPIC  

I tried the words ATLANTA and ACTIVIST

Excerpt:  Slavery and the headright system

Plantation owners benefited from the headright system when they paid for the Middle Passage. This, and the increased amount of money required to bring indentured servants to the colonies, contributed to the shift toward chattel slavery. Until 1699, an enslaved person was worth a headright of fifty acres. According to records, in the 1670s, over 400 enslaved people were used as headrights in Virginia.

This number increased in the 1680s and 1690s. Many families gained power in the colonies by receiving large tracts of land when they imported enslaved people. For example, George Menefie purchased sixty enslaved people and received 3,000 acres in 1638. In 1699, it was decided that a headright would only be granted to free citizens and that transporting indentured laborers or slaves would no longer be a guarantor of land. 

Issues with land patent records

According to records, there was a large discrepancy between the number of headrights issued and the number of new residents in the colonies. This gap may be explained by the high mortality rates of Blacks and the inhumane conditions they endured crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the colonies. Landowners would receive headrights for the dead; thus, the gap would widen between population growth and the number of headrights issued. Another explanation suggests that the secretary's office that issued the headrights grew laxer. There were few regulations in place to keep the headright system in check. Because of this, several headrights were claimed multiple times, and people took advantage of the lack of governance.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY RECORD CIRCA 1880 SHOWING PROGRESS IN FREEDOM

I love the Before and After the Civil War of the African American farm family illustrated in this chart, which is held by the Library of Congress Collection.  It was produced by Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's a chromolithograph and is circa about 1880, about fifteen years after the slaves were freed.

BEECH

Image From Graphics Fairy

 

HEADRIGHT LAND GRANTS BEGAN IN THE COLONIES WITH THE VIRGINIA COMPANY

What was the incentive for a person to leave Europe and immigrate to a new country across the Atlantic Ocean? Transportation was on a wooden sail ship - small - called a bark (a bark had three or more masts) and rugged.  One might not survive the trip or leave family behind, never to be seen again.

Often it was the promise of land by HEADRIGHT or of employment.  Back in Europe those who were not in line to inherit, because they were not first sons, thought the idea of owning land despite the risks was the only way to get ahead.  But what if you were already here and experiencing a labor shortage?  You could import a laborer and become entitled to land!  Head in the term headright refers to ONE PERSON and that person might come as an indentured servant or as a laborer.  Many American Ancestors came this way.  The system spread from 1618 in Jamestown, Virginia  - from The Virginia Colony (which was the same as the Virginia Company) to other states such as Maryland, Georgia, and the Carolinas. For those who imported a laborer, the grants away usually fifty (50) acres per HEAD.

The system, which spread also to the Plymouth Colony, is controversial also because the indentured servant might spend about seven years paying off their voyage costs to the person who imported them, but then slaves were also brought in this way.  In a future post we'll look at the implications of that practice.

If you're searching for Colonial American Ancestors, consider learning the history of the region you find them and also look for documentation of land ownership or grants.

HERE is a link to AMERICAN HISTORY CENTRAL

Excerpt: 

1. In 1618, the Virginia Company approved the “Charter of Orders, Lawes, and Privileges” that implemented the Headright System. The system provided an incentive to wealthy investors to send more workers to Jamestown and the Virginia Colony.
2. Most of the workers the investors paid for were indentured servants or enslaved people.
3. The investor retained ownership of the land they received for each worker.
4. The system contributed to the growth of the population in the colonies, especially Virginia, along with the expansion of the lower class and chattel slavery.
5. The Headright System was modified in 1699 so investors could not receive land for indentured servants or slaves.

FARMSTEAD

 

INTERNET ARCHIVE presents an ONLINE RED BOOK of American State, County, and Town Sources

Ok, it's twenty years old and things have probably changed but this RED BOOK should give you some idea of what's available and you can always run searches for new addresses and contact information.

Internet Archive : RED BOOK (2004) Red book : American state, county & town sources

Excerpt: provides updated county and town listings within the same overall state-by-state organization ... information on records and holdings for every county in the United States, as well as excellent maps from renowned mapmaker William Dollarhide ... The availability of census records such as federal, state, and territorial census reports is covered in detail ... Vital records are also discussed, including when and where they were kept and how"--from publisher description

INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF KNOT TYERS

Tall ships need knots.  You might instead want to make an animal or a doll.  Went to a tall ships festival and learned about THE INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF KNOT TYERS.

Here's how to learn more. https://www.igkt.net

Excerpt: We have about a thousand members world-wide, from all walks of life, including academics, surgeons, sailors, sportsmen and women, scouters, magicians, farmers, miners and accountants.  Membership is open to anyone interested in knotting (whether expert of simply hoping to learn from others).

and https://igktna.org  NORTH AMERICA

Excerpt:  The purpose is to promote the art, craft, and science of knotting, its study and practice.

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by ISABEL WILKERSON : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

 

This is a wonderful book, a collection of stories - mini memoirs almost - of three African-American  people from the Southern states who migrated to the Northern or Western Cities.  One leaves Mississippi for Chicago in 1937.  Another who left Florida for Harlem in 1945.  Another who left Louisiana in 1953 and traveled to San Diego and Los Angeles.  It's a story of how being in a different cultural environment made them change too. 

Other Black people were not always helpful or understanding of the new comers.

Excerpt page 287 :  In the receiving cities of the North and West, the newcomers like Ida Mae had to worry about acceptance or rejection not only from whites they encountered but from the colored people who arrived ahead of them, who could at times be the most sneeringly judgmental of all.

The northern-born colored people and the long-standing migrants, who were still trying to keep their footing in the New World, often resented the arrival of the unwashed masses pouring in from the very places some of the old-timers had left.  As often happens with immigrant groups, some of the old timers would have preferred to shut the door after they got there to protect their own uncertain standing.

The small colony of colored people already in the New World had made a place for themselves as an almost invisible minority by the time the migration began.  Many were the descendants of slaves the North had kept before Abolition or slaves who fled the south on the Underground Railroad or were among the trickle of pioneers who had migrated from the South in the decades after the Civil war.

A good portion were in the servant class - waiters, janitors, elevator operators, maids, and butlers to the wealthiest white families in the city.  But some had managed to create a solid though tenuous middle class of Pullman porters, postal workers, ministers, and businessmen who were anxious to keep the status and gains they had won.  The color line restricted them to the oldest housing in the least desirable section of town no matter what their class, but they had tried to make the best of it and had created a world within a world for themselves.

***

Some of these people, even in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles experienced being unwelcome and a different version of outright prejudice.

When writing our family history stories, we need to include the testimonials of relatives as those stories are told, even if what we hear or learn makes us uncomfortable.  We are here not to rewrite history but to be as accurate as we can.  Our references to documents must be titled as they are titled in the archive. When or if we come across conflicting stories, we can include them both, and let the reader know there are conflicting stories - opinions - or viewpoints that differ.  Research can add to or prove or dismiss a story, but I say that telling it as it was told to you helps us also understand that person's life, as they lived it.

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FOURTH OF JULY 1876

This image is held by the Library of Congress.  It is identified this way.  The flag that has waved one hundred years - A scene on the morning of the fourth day of July 1876. ( In Washington D.C.) Fabronius; E.P. and L. Restein's oilchrome, Philadephia : National Chromo Co publication  Philadelphia. A chromolithograph by Dominque C. Fabronius.

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