This is the fourth of four blogs focusing on African American history in antebellum Virginia. We first look at social history in small plantation slavery in Virginia’s Appalachia in “The African-American Family”, and then at the mid-sized and large plantations of Loudoun County in “Life in White and Black”.
Antibellum mix-race liaisons and families are considered in “Notorious in the Neighborhood”, and examples of their progeny are studied in “John Mercer Langston”, “George Teamoh” and “The Hairstons”.
The blog African Americans in Antebellum Virginia part one reviews books on the institutional and legal structures of slavery in the time and place. Part two looks at books concerning the domestic slave trade and the rise of free black communities there. Part three presents books about slave resistance by revolt and escape. Part four discusses titles related to African American families in Virginia 1820-1860 and beyond.
These books are all used in bibliographies found in peer-reviewed surveys of Virginia history of scholarly merit. Additional insights are used from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
The African-American Family
Wilma A. Dunaway wrote The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation in 2003. It is now available in paperback. The system of American slavery in the Appalachian South among small plantations took away much of slave agency in making and sustaining their families. Fully one-third of the marriages among slaves were broken up by selling spouses away; the lucrative domestic trade was often locally taxed. Women were systematically exploited for reproduction and the practice of hiring out slaves separated spouses for long periods.
Profit-making led to the informal slave economy becoming a form of “super-exploitation”. Many slave owners took advantage of the Union’s permissive slave-holding policies for border states, held slaves in bondage well into 1866, and released them in mid-winter only after the crops were in. Learn more to buy “The African-American Family” here for your bookshelf.
Life in Black and White
Brenda E. Stevenson wrote Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South in 1996. It is now available in paperback. Stevenson investigates Loudoun County, Virginia from the mid-1700s through the antebellum period before the Civil War. The first half addresses marriage and family formation of whites, focusing on the elites. The second half looks at blacks, both enslaved and free.
Many slaves did not have a “core” nuclear family; a majority of enslaved children did not come of age in two-parent households. Free blacks, though dependent on the good will of whites not to be deported after 1806, made a place for themselves by maintaining reputations of strong moral character and commercial usefulness. Learn more to buy “Life in Black and White” here for your bookshelf.
Notorious in the Neighborhood
Joshua D. Rotham wrote Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787-1861 in 2003. It is now available in paperback. In antebellum Virginia, nearly all Virginians were aware of discrete interracial relationships. In Richmond City there was a zone where interracial liaisons were countenanced. But biracial families found life harder when they lived openly under the same roof, and after 1850, legal controls tightened amidst growing intolerance for racial mixing.
Rotham focuses on behavior rather than values, beginning with Jefferson and Hemings, and continuing with other family case studies. The final chapter traces the experience of “mixed bloods” from 1785 to the 1850s. Learn more to buy “Notorious in the Neighborhood” here for your bookshelf.
John Mercer Langston
William Cheek and Aimee Lee Cheek wrote John Mercer Langston and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1829-65 in 1989. It is out of print but available online new and used. John Mercer Langston returned to Virginia after the Civil War to prominently advocate for higher education for freedmen and to become the first elected Congressman from Virginia. This book develops his early life and times in Virginia and Ohio before his return to Virginia.
Son of a wealthy Virginia planter and his emancipated mother, Langston was twice orphaned at four and again at the death of aristocratic white guardians at age nine. He was then nurtured by his brother in the free-black community of Cincinnati. Following an education at Oberlin College, Langston became a prominent Abolitionist and the first African American official in the U.S. Learn more to buy “John Mercer Langston” here for your bookshelf.
George Teamoh
Richard L. Hume and Rafia Zafar edited God Made Man, Man Made the Slave: The Autobiography of George Teamoh in 1990. It is out of print, but available online new and used. Born a slave and raised in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Teamoh was hired out to the caulking trade in the naval shipyard. Following the selling away of his two older children in the 1840s, Teamoh made his escape to freedom in New England, then after the Civil War, returned to unionizing activity in Portsmouth and elective politics.
Becoming a leader in the Reconstruction era Republican party, he was first elected to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867 enfranchising blacks, and then as a multi-term State Senator beginning in 1869. Learn more to buy “God Made Man, Man Made the Slave” here for your bookshelf.
The Hairstons
Henry Wiencek wrote The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White in 1999. It is now available in paperback. The white Hairston patriarch owned ten thousand slaves and forty-five plantations in four states, mainly Virginia and North Carolina. The black Hairston matriarch was Chrillis, the daughter of Robert Hairston.
In 1840 Robert left his wife in Virginia to expand his plantation holdings in Mississippi. On his death in 1852, Chrillis disappears from historical record after she failed to inherit the property left in her father’s will. Overcoming racial prejudice and even an execution, black Hairstons became scientists, composers, military officers and educators. Learn more to buy “The Hairstons” at Amazon.com for your bookshelf.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.