From the records of the Hustings Court of Richmond may be gotten the account of a suit for freedom begun by Sarah, a slave, against Mary Quickly, a free black woman of the city. It is worthy of note that no claim was made by the plaintiff that Mary Quickly, being a black woman, had no right to own a slave. The grounds for the suit had no relation whatever to the race or color of the defendant, Mary Quickly.[12]
The only evidence at hand of the kind of relations that existed between black masters and their chattel slaves is supplied by the word of old men who remember events of the last two decades before the war. All that have been heard to speak of the matter are unanimously of the opinion that black masters had difficulty in subordinating and controlling their slaves. William Mundin, a mulatto barber of Richmond, seventy-five years of age, when interviewed, but still of trustworthy memory and character, is authority for the statement that Reuben West, a comparatively wealthy free colored barber of Richmond, went into the slave market and purchased a slave cook, but because of the spirit of insubordination manifested by the slave woman toward him and his family he disposed of her by sale. James H. Hill, another free colored man to whose statements a good degree of credence is due, corroborates in many points this story about Reuben West as a slaveowner. His statement is that Reuben West was a free colored barber of some wealth and the owner at one time of two slaves, one of whom was a barber working in his master's shop on Main Street. So much of these statements has been confirmed by reference to tax books and court records that the entire story may be accepted as true.
A Truly Benevolent Slavery
The type of black master represented by Reuben West or Anthony Johnson must be distinguished from the colored slaveowner who kept his slaves in bondage, not for their service, but wholly in consideration of the slaves. A very considerable majority of black masters, unlike the examples above cited, were easily the most benevolent known to history. It was owing to a drastic state policy toward freedmen that this unusually benevolent type of slavery arose.
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century slaveowners in Virginia possessed unrestricted powers to bestow freedom upon their slaves. Under such circumstances free blacks became instrumental in procuring freedom for many of their less fortunate kinsmen. They frequently advanced for a slave friend the price at which his white master held him for sale and, having liberated him, trusted him to refund the price of his freedom. A free member of a colored family would purchase whenever able his slave relatives. The following deed of sale is a striking example of such a purchase:
Know all men of these presents that I David A. Jones of Amelia County of the one part have for and in consideration of the sum of five hundred dollars granted unto Frank Gromes a black man of the other part a negro woman named Patience and two children by name Phil and Betsy to have and to hold the above named negroes to the only proper use, behalf and benefit of him and his heirs forever.
David Jones (seal)[13]
Phil Cooper, of Gloucester County, in 1828 was the chattel slave of his free wife. Janette Wood of Richmond was manumitted in 1795 by her mother, "natural love" being the only consideration named in the legal instrument. John Sabb, of Richmond, purchased in 1801 his aged father-in-law Julius and for the nominal consideration of five shillings executed a deed of manumission.[14]
Purchases of this kind before 1806 were usually followed immediately by manumission of the slave. Scattered through the deeds and wills of Virginia County records in the quarter century ending with 1806 are to be found numerous documents of which the following is an example:
To all whom these presents may come know ye, that I Peter Hawkins a free black man of the city of Richmond having purchased my wife Rose, a slave about twenty-two years of age and by her have had a child called Mary now about 18 mo. old, for the love I bear toward my wife and child have thought proper to emancipate them and for the further consideration of five shillings to me in hand paid ... I emancipate and set free the said Rose and Mary and relinquish all my right ... as slaves to the said Rose and Mary.
Peter Hawkins (seal)[15]
Indeed the kindness of free Negroes toward their friends and relatives seeking freedom afforded such an accessible avenue to liberty that those vigilant white citizens who desired to preserve the institution of slavery deemed it necessary to put obstructions in the way. A law which required any slave manumitted after May 1, 1806 to leave the State within the space of twelve months was passed in 1806 and remained in force until the war rendered it obsolete. Forfeiture of freedom was the penalty for refusal to accept banishment. From this act dates the beginning of this benevolent type of slavery. Free Negroes continued to purchase their relatives but held them as slaves, refusing to decree their banishment by executing a deed or will of manumission.