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Richard Pace⁽⁴⁾ of Bertie Precinct sells land to a free black man

(and other information about early black history in America)

Webmaster's note: I taught high school history for 31 years. Black History was a special interest of mine. As the following article will clarify, there is a lot of misinformation about slavery and black history in the media and in high school textbooks. Let me first give you my slant. The article following will give more, with a link to the full longer article. This article includes information on Richard Pace⁽⁴⁾ of Bertie Precinct, of the fourth generation of Paces in America (often called Richard Pace III as the third Richard Pace in America) selling land to a free black man.

Free African Americans of
North Carolina and Virginia

by Paul Heinegg

Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia is a collection of genealogies about African American families living in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Garnering the American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award in 1994, it is a resource well-worth investigating for any individual tracing families from these locations and time periods.

Here at Family Tree Maker Online, you can get a taste of Paul Heinegg's research and writing through the Introduction he wrote for this book. Even if you are not researching families from these locations and time periods, you will find that the Introduction provides you with an interesting look at African-American life during this time period. Specifically, he shows how the social status of many landowning African-American families changed so much over the years that "by the 20th century they had no idea their ancestors had been free." It is lengthy, so you may prefer to print it rather than reading it online. Footnotes for the Introduction are included at the bottom of this page. However, to get information about citations shown in square brackets ( [ ] ), please refer to the complete book.

Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia will be available from the Genealogical Publishing Company/Clearfield Company Books beginning on March 15, 1997. This 700-page book costs $55.00 plus $3.50 shipping (Maryland residents add 5% sales tax and Michigan residents add 6%). Call 1-800-296-6687 or 410-837-8271 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. ET (2:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time), fax 410-752-8492, or mail your order to 1001 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. The Genealogical Publishing Company accepts checks, Visa, and MasterCard.

Introduction

These genealogies, comprising the colonial history of the majority of the free African American families of Virginia and North Carolina, reveal a facet of American colonial history previously overlooked by historians:

• Most families were the descendants of white servant women who had children by slaves or free African Americans.
• Families like Gowen, Cumbo, and Driggers who were free in the mid-seventeenth century had several hundred members before the end of the colonial period. They were descended from slaves who were freed before the 1723 Virginia Law which required legislative approval for manumissions.
• Very few families descended from white slave owners who had children by their slaves, perhaps as low as 1% of the total.
• Many free African American families in colonial North Carolina and Virginia were landowners.
• The light-skinned descendants of these families formed the tri-racial isolate communities of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

Virginia

Most of the free African Americans of Virginia and North Carolina originated in Virginia where they became free in the seventeenth and eighteenth century before chattel slavery and racism fully developed in the United States.

When they arrived in Virginia, Africans joined a society which was divided between master and white servant - a society with such contempt for white servants that masters were not punished for beating them to death [McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council, 22-24]. They joined the same households with white servants - working, eating, sleeping, getting drunk, and running away together [Northampton Orders 1664-74, fol.25, p.31 - fol.31; McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council, 466-7; Hening, Statutes at Large, II:117].

Some of these first African slaves became free:

• John Geaween (Gowen) "a negro servant" was free in March 1641 according to the Virginia Council and General Court Records [VMH&B XI:281].
• Francis Payne of Northampton County paid for his freedom about 1650 by purchasing three white servants for his master's use [DW 1645-51, 14].
• Emanuell Cambow (Cumbo), Negro, was granted 50 acres in James City County on 18 April 1667 [Patent Book 6:39].
• John Harris "negro" was free in 1668 when he purchased 50 acres in York County [Deeds 1664-72, 327].

Many were free on the Eastern Shore. There were at least 40 taxable African Americans in Northampton County in the 1670s who were free or later became free, representing one third of the taxable African Americans in the county.

The Nickens and Weaver families came from Lancaster County where Black Dick (Richard Nickens), his wife Chris, and their children were freed by the 1690 will of John Carter [Wills 1690-1709, 5].

Free African Americans were beginning to be assimilated into colonial Virginia society. Many were the result of mixed race marriages:

• Francis Payne was married to a white woman named Amy by September 1656 when he gave her a mare by deed of jointure [DW 1655-68, fol. 19].
• Francis Skiper was married to Ann, an African American woman, before February 1667/8 when they sold land in Norfolk County [W&D E:1666-75; Orders 1666-75, 73].
• Peter Beckett, a "Negro" slave taxable from 1671 to 1677 in Northampton County, Virginia, married Elizabeth Kettle, a white woman servant of John Tilney [Orders 1664-74, fol. 114; 1674-79, 75, 191; Orders 1683-89, 68, 246; OW 1689-98, 190-1].
• Hester Tate, an English woman servant in Westmoreland County, had several children by her husband James Tate, "a Negro slave to Mr. Patrick Spence," before 1690 [Orders 1690-98, 40-41].
• Elizabeth Kay, a "Mulatto" woman whose father had been free, successfully sued for her freedom in Northumberland County in 1690, and married her white attorney, William Greensted [WMQ, 3rd ser., XXX, 467-74].

As the percentage of African Americans increased, so did tension between free African Americans and slave holders. In 1666 Bastian Cane, "Negro," was punished by the Northampton County Court for harboring, concealing, and trading with Francis Pigott's "Negro slave" [1664-74, fol.29]. And as more and more slaves replaced white servants, the Legislature passed a series of laws which designated slavery as the appropriate condition for African Americans:

• In 1670 the Virginia Assembly forbade free African Americans and Indians from owning white servants [Hening, Statutes at Large, II:280].
• In 1691 the Assembly prohibited the manumission of slaves unless they were transported out of the colony. It also prohibited interracial marriages and ordered the illegitimate, mixed-race children of white women bound out for 30 years [Hening, Statutes at Large, III:86-87].
• In 1705 the Assembly passed a law which all but eliminated the ability of slaves to earn their freedom by ordering that the farm stock of slaves
• shall be seized and sold by the church-wardens of the parish wherein such horses, cattle, or hogs shall be, and the profit thereof applied to the use of the poor of said parish [Hening, Statutes at Large, III:459-60].

• In 1712 all fifteen members of the Anderson and Richards families were freed and given 640 acres in Norfolk County, Virginia, by the will of John Fulcher, creating such a stir that the Legislative Council on 5 March 1712/3 proposed that the Assembly
• provide a Law against such Manumission of Slaves, which may in time by their increase and correspondence with other slaves may endanger the peace of this Colony [McIlwaine, Executive Journals of the Council, III:332].

In an effort to "prevent their correspondence with other slaves" Fulcher's executor, Lewis Conner, by a deed dated 20 March 1712/3, swapped their land in Norfolk County with land on Welshes Creek in Chowan County, North Carolina [Chowan DB B#1:109].

In 1723 the Assembly prohibited the freeing of slaves except in cases where they had rendered some public service such as foiling a slave revolt. Also in 1723, the Assembly amended the 1705 taxation law to make female free African Americans over the age of sixteen tithable [Hening, Statutes at Large, IV:132-3].

Despite the efforts of the legislature, white servant women continued to bear children by African American fathers through the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century. From these genealogies, it appears that they were the primary source of the increase in the free African American population for this period. At least sixty-five of the families in this history appear to be descendants of white women. Many of these white servant women may have been the common-law wives of slaves since they had several mixed race children. Thirty-six families appear to be descended from freed slaves. It is likely that the majority of the remaining families were also descendants of white women since they first appear in court records in the mid-eighteenth century when slaves could not be freed without legislative approval, and there is no record of legislative approval for their emancipations.

The replacement of white servants with African slaves, begun in earnest in 1660, continued for more than a century. African slaves had still not completely replaced white servants by 17 October 1773 when the jailer in Prince William County advertised in the Virginia Gazette that he had caught a runaway white servant man:

Committed to Prince William gaol a certain William Rawlings, who says he is the property of Francis Smith of Chesterfield. The owner is desired to pay charges, and take him away.

and he advertised in the same edition that he had jailed a runaway white servant woman:

Committed to the gaol of Prince William a servant woman about 26 years of age, named Mary Richardson; has on a short printed cotton gown, and striped Virginia cloth petticoat [R 17Oc73:33].

Racial contempt for African Americans did not fully develop as long as there were white servants in similar circumstances. It was during this period, as late as the end of the eighteenth century, that free African Americans were accepted in the white community.

Like the newly freed white servants, the first free African Americans moved to the frontier which was then the southside counties of Virginia, the county of New Kent, and the northeastern part of North Carolina, where land was available to anyone who could pay the taxes and was willing to brave frontier conditions.

By 1790 free African Americans were concentrated in these areas, representing about 10% of the free population of the Eastern Shore, 6% of New Kent, 8% percent of the free population of twelve southside Virginia counties, and 17% of the free population of York County [Heads of Families - Virginia, 9].^{Note 6} The total "other free" population in Southampton County alone exceeded the total "other free" population in 22 other Virginia counties.^{Note 7}

Many originated in or moved to Surry County, Virginia, where their deeds, marriage bonds, and wills were recorded in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. They were the Banks, Blizzard, Byrd, Charity, Chavis, Cornish, Debrix, Jeffreys, Kersey, Peters, Scott, Sweat, Tann, Valentine, Walden, and Wilson families. Descriptions in the Surry County, Virginia, "Registry of Free Negroes" in the late 18th and early 19th century read:

Armstead Peters a Mulatoe man, ...aged about 56 years, born free of a yellowish complexion... (6 October 1794).

James Williams a Mulatto man, pretty dark complexion, born of free parents residents of this county, 35 years old ... (11 May 1797).

Joseph Byrd son of Joseph and Nelly Byrd free Mulatto persons & residents of this county 20 years old, 5'5" high, bright complexion, short thick hair, straight & well made (27 September 1798).

William Tan, a mulatto man and son of Jemima Tan, a white woman late of this county. He is of bright complexion, has straight black hair, pretty stout and straight made, aged 21 last September (3 December 1801) [Back of Guardian Accounty Book 1783-1804, nos. 1, 21, 35, 136].

Many baptized their children in Bruton and Middleton Parishes, James City and Charles City Counties between 1744 and 1767. They were the Allways, Armfield, Ashby, Banks, Bartley, Chavis, Cooper, Flowers, Freeman, Gillett, Grimes, Jameson, Jones, Lewis, Maclin, Peters, Redcross, Roberts, Rosarios, Tann, Wallace, and Williams families who came from as far away as Southampton County [Bruton Parish Register, 4-35].

Ester Gouin was among nine free "Negroes and Molattoes" who came by boat to Norfolk County from Maryland in August 1692 [Norfolk DB 5, pt.2, 265].

Since so many free African Americans were light-skinned, many observers assume that they were the offspring of white slave owners who took advantage of their female slaves. Only one of more than 280 families in this history was proven to descend from a white slave owner. Jean Lovina, the slave of John Nichols was probably his mistress since he called her his "Negro Woman" and her children "my two Molattos" when he gave them their freedom and left them 350 acres by his 11 November 1696 Norfolk County will [6:fol.96, in McIntosh, Lower Norfolk County Wills, 161-162].

[This is a long document. The following portion shows the sale of land by Richard Pace III of Bertie Precinct to a free black man]

The McKinnie family, originally from Isle of Wight County, Virginia, was one of the leading white families in the area around the Roanoke River. Barnaby McKinnie, member of the General Assembly from Edgecombe County in 1735, was witness to many of the early Bass, Bunch, Chavis, and Gibson deeds. John McKinnie called Cannon Cumbo his friend when he mentioned him in his 28 February 1753 Edgecombe County will. Other leading white settlers who sold them land adjoining theirs and witnessed their deeds were Richard Washington, William and Thomas Bryant, Richard Pace, and William Whitehead. Arthur Williams, member of the General Assembly for Bertie County in 1735, and John Castellaw, (brother?) of James Castellaw, a member of the Assembly from Bertie County, had mixed-race common-law wives, Elizabeth and Martha Butler [Saunders, Colonial Records, IV:115 and the Butler history].

[The rest of this very long document can be seen at http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/12_heing.html]

Although it is not specifically a Pace document, I have placed an interesting article on the Pace Network about a black history museum being opened in Ash Grove, MO.  Since some Paces were slave owners, I feel articles of this type can give all of us a better understanding of our history.  Click here.

Important links:

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Golden Love on FortuneCity http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/cern/1343/  or http://www.nav.to/compu-tutor1

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Mirror site on Schnakenet at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schnake/HistoryInInk.htm
Mirror site on Pace Network http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pace/HistoryInInk.htm