| [162] | Will Book No. 1, p. 57, Clerk's Office, Fairfax County, Virginia. Mr. Fitzhugh was the maternal uncle of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. |
XVII
Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves (Concluded)
SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860
The deeds and wills during the period from 1833 to the Civil War made increasingly large provisions for the removal and colonization of the freedmen. It may be also noted that arraignments of slavery became very rare during that period. The same influences which almost hushed the voice of anti-slavery orators in Virginia, were effective in banishing from the deeds and wills of emancipators expressions which might give aid and comfort to the men who were daily denouncing the civilization and morality of the state. Though these arraignments might almost stop the discussion of slavery in Virginia, yet they could not destroy the sentiment in favor of emancipation. The liberation of slaves continued without diminution down to the outbreak of the Civil War. It may be also noted that these instances of emancipation go far to disprove the charge that the Virginia friends of negro colonization were inspired simply by a desire to remove the free negroes from the state in order to make more sure the tenure by which they held their slaves. John Randolph of Roanoke, General Blackburn, Bishop Meade, William Henry Fitzhugh and George Washington Parke Custis were all leaders in the colonization movement, and all of them emancipated their slaves.
Extract from the will of Samuel Blackburn of Bath County, dated the 30th of October, 1834:
"That all the slaves of which I may die seized and possessed, without distinction of age or sex, be, and they are hereby, declared free and forever emancipated, &c.... And as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made by my executors they shall be transported to the American Colony in Liberia and the expense of transportation be charged upon my estate, real and personal. It is, however, expressly and implicitly understood that if any of my slaves aforesaid refuse to accept this boon it will be the duty of my executors and they are hereby requested so to do, to sell to the highest bidder in terms of the sale all who thus refuse and persevere in refusal, as slaves for life. And here let me admonish and warn these people how they let slip this golden moment of emancipating themselves and their posterity forever from that state of slavery and degradation in which I found them and in which many of them have long served me."
By a codicil the testator provided that with respect to any slaves who might refuse to accept their freedom upon condition that they be transported to Liberia, his executors should not sell them separately but in families and by private sale to considerate masters.[[163]]
Extract from the will of Carter H. Edlow of Prince George County, dated the 20th of March, 1838, and admitted to probate the 13th of August, 1844: