George Washington’s will freed his slaves; Martha Washington actually freed them (though other slaves at Mt Vernon weren’t freed). What happened to them after? What kind of options were available to them?
Kimstu
February 17, 2014, 11:34pm
2
This brings back memories of childhood reading of the juvenile biographical novel Amos Fortune, Free Man
Anyway, sez here that Washington specified post-manumission assistance for at least some of his slaves:
He freed all the slaves he held in his own right (123 in number) after his wife’s death. He did not free them during her lifetime, he explained, because many were married to dower slaves, (of whom there were then 153) who would feel “the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences” from seeing their family members freed. He provided for those slaves too elderly or too young to support themselves. Young children, bound as apprentices until age 25, were to be educated. Washington expressly prohibited the sale or transportation of his slaves out of Virginia. He gave “his Mulatto man William (calling himself William Lee),” perhaps then the most famous slave in America, immediate freedom and an annuity of 30 dollars during his lifetime. He also freed in graduated fashion thirty-three slaves belonging to the estate of Bartholomew Dandridge (his wife’s brother) who had become his property in 1788 in return for a debt.
Kimstu
February 17, 2014, 11:58pm
3
More dox on “free blacks” and ex-slaves:
Freedom papers and certificates of freedom were documents declaring the free status of Blacks. These papers were important because “free people of color” lived with the constant fear of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Freedom Papers proved the free status of a person and served as a legal affidavit. Manumissions and emancipations were legal documents that made official the act of setting a Black person free from slavery by a living or deceased slaveholder.
It was prudent for Blacks to file papers attesting to their free status with the county deeds office in order to protect them from slave catchers and kidnappers. Antebellum America, including Western Pennsylvania, was hostile territory for a person of African descent. There are records of Blacks being held in local jails because they were suspected of being fugitive slaves. […]
Amos Sisco of Washington County was a free Black man who, as the certificate of freedom says, was “about descending the Ohio river on a Steamboat in the Capacity of a Cook.”
From some of the “freedom papers” at that site:
[…] the bearor William Johnston, a man of color, was born on Bunkers Hill near Boston, Massachusetts, of free parents, that there are two scars on his forehead, and one on his left cheek, that he is about twenty=four years of age, - about five feet nine and a half inches high, and that he is about to descend the Ohio River in the capacity of a fireman on a Steamboat. […]
Know to all mend by these presents that I, William Croghan late of Louisville Kentucky have manumitted & set free from slavery my negro girl Matilda Richarsdon born in Kentucky and now aged about thirteen years. On consideration however that the said Matilda do forthwith bind herself by indenture good and sufficient in law and faithfully & honestly to serve me or my assigns until she shall attain the age of twenty-eight years. […]
This Indenture Witnesseth, That a Negro girl, named Sally, born in Virginia and now aged Six Years, nine months and eighteen days, and who by the Laws of Virginia was a Slave for life to Thomas Woods, of Ohio County and State of Virginia, and manumitted by said Thomas Woods on the Nnth day of October in the Year of Our Lord One thousand Eight hundred and twenty-five, in consideration of her serving John McKee of the City of Pittsburgh (Hatter) he being a citizen of the State of Pennsylvania) and his heirs and Assigns as an indented Servant untill she arrives at the age of Twenty-eight Years. […]
Chester Pennsylvania, Nov. 17 — 1818 — The bearer hereof, James Bayly, a coloured man son of Levin Bayly of Dorset County in the state of Maryland, was bound to me by his Father before Robt. Wharton Esq. Mayor of Philadelphia on the 13th May 1808, to serve until twenty one years of age, and being now free and on his way to visit his father in the neighborhood of Baltimore I have given him this certificate and delivered up his Indentures by which the above facts will appear. His intention is to go to sea but in whatever capacity he may offer himself I can recommend him for honesty and sobriety