Week 17: Sale of Children

The will books housed in the Shenandoah County Circuit Court Clerk's stacks are also useful in understanding more about American material culture and property through the Inventory and Appraisement recordations. Prior to the American Civil War, enslaved Africans and African Americans were incorporated into these lists. Generally referred to with a first name - and sometimes  just by their gender and age - and deemed as property of landowners, they too were inventoried in county records along with the recently deceased property owner's material goods (such as furniture, harvested supplies like flax or hemp, tools, etc) and animals. Sometimes, this is the only historical record our communities have for enslaved individuals, since their last names (if they were given last names) were not usually preserved.

Here are some examples:

Will Book V, p. 132
"1 negro boy named Wesley" who is listed along with a road "waggon," hay ladders, tomahawks, and similar tools, supplies, and property. On page 142, payment is received "for hire of Wesley," which demonstrates the presence of slavery as a viable and real part of our county's economical practices.

Will Book V, p. 149
"1 Negro Man 25 years old... 750.00
1 Negro boy, 6... 300.00
1 Negro boy, 5... 250.00
1 Negro girl, 3... 200.00
1 Negro woman & child (boy)... 100.00"
These nameless enslaved individuals are given worth according to gender and age during this inventory in 1839. These human beings are listed in between a quantity of flax and "hackeled hemp" and deemed as property that could be sold or hired out to pay off debts.

Will Book V, p. 154
"Negro man Benjamin... 300
Negro woman Charlotte... 450
Negro man Alfred... 800
Negro girl Milly... 400
Negro boy Charles... 400
Negro girl Sarah... 300
Negro boy James... 250
Negro boy Frank... 200
Negro boy Richard... 150
Negro girl Lindy... 50"
The total inventory worth of this property included enslaved individuals, which made up 70% of the total assessment: $4,706. Over half of this Shenandoah County resident's property was invested in slavery. And as we see in a little while, the government of Shenandoah County benefitted from hiring out these enslaved individuals to extract payment for debts the deceased property owner's family owed.

Will Book W, p. 140
"1 Black man named George
1 Black man named James
1 Black Boy named Harry
1 Black Girl named Betsy"

In Will Book V, p. 200, we see an Inventory of slave hire, recorded by the county to pay debts from a deceased property owner:
"... Negro man Alfred... 90.00
... Negro boy Charles... 25.05
... Negro man Ben... 50.00
... Negro girl Milly... 25.30
... Negro girl Sarah... 8.75"
Following this listing and on the same page there is another recordation of the Inventory & valuation of the slaves belonging to a county resident in 1839 from page 154 and listed above. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, "for many enslaved African Americans in Virginia, being hired out was a more common experience than being sold, and one that could occur at multiple points in their lives, causing repeated disruption." This, too, is true from what we learned in the narrative of Bethany Veney. If an enslaved person was going to be sold, they were often kept in a jail until transportation could be arranged or the sale took place.

Will Book W, page 179 has the following property intermingled on cursive-script lines as follows:
"1 Barrel tar $2   1 Coloured boy Isaac $180
1 Coloured man Jim $350   1 d[itt]o woman (Betty) $100
1 Coloured woman Charlotte $1
3 sacks 50 cts.   1 pair of pumps $1.25   2 pair choppers $0.75"
In this instance, notice the mention of Charlotte. Based on historical research, she is most likely an old woman past child-bearing age. Someone who can no longer contribute to the plantation through work. According to the inventory, she isn't even worth a pair of pumps according to the county assessor. What does that say about how many in our county deemed worth, and not just from an economic practice?

In Will Book V, pages 231, 237, 317, 325, 328, 330, and 331, the Shenandoah County government recorded and followed the inventory, appraisement, and sale of the enslaved of a recent Mount Jackson-area property owner that had passed away in the late 1830s. The 1 April 1840 sale of the Slaves and personal estate for this individual include the following information:
"Jim Parister (a slave) 46 years old
Hannah   43
Fannah   12
William   10
Sally   3
Minty   25 years old
Nancy   6
Ben   5
John   2
Harriet   16
Morriky   17
& George    1/2
Andrew (Young)    15"
The total income from this sale was $2875.00. In this sale, three would be considered legal adults today. The remaining ten - Fannah, William,  Sally, Nancy, Ben, John, Harriet, Morriky & George, and Andrew (Young) - would be considered children by today's standards. Our community benefited from the sale of children when they should have freed them, educated them, and provided them with a better way of life. If any of their descendants still live in the Mount Jackson area, they would attend Mountain View High School today. And this is precisely why the name of that school matters! 

There are myriad more pages that list these sorts of inventories and appraisements in our Shenandoah County records. It is important to be familiar with these primary source documents, because they reveal a lot about the economic practices in our county before the American Civil War, as well as how our society and our government viewed enslaved individuals in terms of value and status. A community that has this as part of its history needs to make decisions in the future that validate every individual. 

Messages of inequality, especially those attached to names related to the Confederacy, which was founded on the concept of inequality and further establishing its economy on slave labor, have no place in America's public spaces, today or in the future. This is particularly true for Confederate leaders that died during the American Civil War, with their last breaths not used for freeing the enslaved people they owned nor in showing remorse for yoking their faith and future with establishing a government, tyrannical to anyone deemed "negro," "mulatto," "coloured," or "black" - but still in oath to the Confederate States of America, not the United States of America.