How to profile a complex slave/slaveowner relationship

Question

In my tree, there is a great great ... aunt and uncle in Georgia who were childless. The uncle was the last to die, in 1883, and in his will he bequeathed his farm to be split between two young women referenced in the will as "whom I raised". I would consider adding in the profile an adopted relationship between the two women and this couple, but in this case it's more complicated, because the two woman are African American, and the evidence suggests that they were originally slaves of this couple who were around 10 years old when slavery ended. After the end of slavery, they remained with the couple. The relationship between the two women and this couple was more than just slave/slaveowner, and I don't think employee/employer captures it, but given the situation, I'm not totally comfortable using the adoption template. I'm looking for ideas on how best to add these profiles (I haven't added them yet) that captures the relationship, but is sensitive to the fact that the relationship began in slavery. Is the only option to just describe it in text in each of the profiles?

Answer 1

I’d describe the situation on the relevant profiles, and not add the girls as non-biological children- just because it appears that they did have a mother.(in the 1860 slave schedule) You can link their names in the great aunt/uncle profile bios. Also, can you reply here with the profile ID? I’ll make sure the proper categories are added. You are doing a great job describing the situation with accuracy (with the current info available) and compassion. Perhaps descendants will show up who can add more to their stories.

Answer 2

This may have already been done, but have you checked the slave census particularly the 1860 census to see if the couple had slaves that might fit a parent of the girls? A thought - maybe the mother was a slave of the couple, died and they finished raising the girls.

Hopefully, someone else will reply and give thoughts on the adoption angle. If you add a tag for USBH and slavery it will get the attention of that project and they are terrific with such situations.

Comments

In the 1860 slave census, the couple have 5 slaves, a woman in her twenties and four children, two of whom are of ages that they could be the two girls named in the will. However, in the 1870 census none of those 5 are found in or near the couple's household. There are two black woman with the same surname living next door to the couple in 1870, but their ages and names don't match the two women named in the will. In the 1880 census, one of the women in the will is in the couple's household, listed as "servant", and the other is married, living next door. I can't make sense of them missing in the 1870 census other than thinking that they were in the household, but they were not mentioned to the census taker.

Answer 3

Interesting situation!

Do you have information about the biological parents of these two young women? If so, their profiles should be created as children of those parents, and the profiles of the white couple should discuss the children and link to their profiles. I described a situation a bit like this one in the profile of my great-grandfather; an unrelated teenage girl lived in his household for several years after her mother's death and was (as I understand it) essentially a part of the family, but never adopted.

If you have no evidence for the parents of these girls and no expectation of finding such evidence, you might want to connect them to the couple as "nonbiological" children -- but with the hope that parents will be found for them sooner or later.

The US Black Heritage Project is likely to have additional advice.

Answer 4

The situation you have is more complicated, because of the slavery, but I have an ancestor who was raised by foster parents and never formally adopted. She even appears in some records with that last name. She was named in her foster father's will as "a girl who was raised in our family."

I added information about all of this in her bio with links to the foster parents. If that approach is helpful to you, you can read how I did it on her bio: Rose King aka Ham Keep in mind that there is no potentially adversarial relationship there.

USBH has recommendations on how to add profiles for enslaved people and link them within the text. You could do this and present the information you have with the analysis you presented here. I think it's okay to not necessarily have a final answer and just say 'this is what we know or think, so far.'

Comments

Roselia is my 8c4r per connection finder. Cassious Clay, aka Muhammad Ali, is somewhere about the same. Somewhere, I have read my 3rd Gr Grandpa brought with him to Missouri one slave. His name was not stated but it was said he lived with the family. The reason was said to be two fold. The enslaved man was trusted and respected and was a fine cobbler. At the time, Missouri was on the edge of civilization and shoes were a necessity and hard to come by. I know of at least three other similar situations where the enslaved were treated more like family than property. Probably not overly common but, probably more common than is reflected by history. Why else would a "slave" be buried in a family cemetery of whites? I think it was Thomas Sowell who said the truth is often very simple, concealing it is much more complicated. It is highly probable we will never have a final answer, only what we think or know so far.