Half-white Slaves of Aristocratic Masters

This blog began, initially, to describe a search for descendants of 'Uncle' Monk, slave name Estill, the man who saved the life of my 4x-great-grandfather in 1782 and subsequently became the first slave freed in what is now Kentucky. I want to know more about the brave fellow who carried James Berry (1752-1822) 25 miles to safety, following the Battle of Small Mountain, or Estill's Defeat.

During my investigation, I came upon a family history researcher who had valuable data on a half-brother of Berry's grandson and namesake, James Berry Turner (c1820-1867, my 2x-great-grandfather). I was stunned to discover my new correspondent is African American by appearance and identification. Born where I was born; nearly my age, my new source is trying to prove she descends from a union between the half-brother (Major Squire Turner, 1793-1871) and one of his slaves.

From Madison County: 200 Years in Retrospect, by William Elliott Ellis, H. E. Everman & Richard D. Sears; Madison County Historical Society, 1985, page 216:

“We can only speculate about the white families of most of these people [former slaves graduating from Berea schools], but there is a great deal of evidence that many blacks of Madison County, including those who attended Berea, were descendants of very distinguished white families.”

The corresponding footnote reports:

“In 1860 Madison County had a population of 6,118 slaves, 980 of whom were mulattoes (16%). The Slave Census listed 881 slaveholders – 357 of whom owned sets of slaves including at least one mulatto (but sometimes as many as ten): about 40 percent of slave sets were ‘mixed’ (so that partly-white slaves were very widespread without being particularly numerous). But of the 110 elite slaveholders in Madison County (those owning 15 slaves or more), 70 owned at least one mulatto (most owned many more, of course …). The large-scale slaveholders, the wealthy and prosperous, were much more apt to have mulattoes among their slaves then [sic] were their poorer neighbors. Whether or not the half-white slaves of aristocratic masters were also their children is, of course, another (and usually unanswerable) question.”

The 1860 Slave Schedule for Madison County, Kentucky, (below) reports Squire Turner in possession of 27 souls. Seven are listed as Mulatto: nearly one in four. An 18-year-old male qualifies to be Jeremiah Turner (c1840-1917) my new cousin's direct ancestor. If our suspicions are correct; we both descend from 'Trading Tom' Turner (1764-1847), father of both Squire and James Berry Turner.

Puzzling over the realization that I share DNA with folks who look so obviously different, it was suggested I investigate a fellowship (Coming to the Table), where descendants of slaves are in dialogue about race with descendants of slave-owners. I have traveled to meet my new cousin and my harvest includes the fruits of warm companionship and a shared appreciation for researching family history.

It has proved difficult to describe the almost unfathomable relationship between between the white supremacist, pro-slavery, strict constitutionalist, Squire Turner and an enslaved woman who may have born his child. The Madison County text employs terms such as 'slavewife' and  'slavefamily.'  Edward Ball, in The Sweet Hell Inside, uses 'concubine,' once a long-term relationship has been established. Referring to today's standards, I initially referred to offspring of a 'slave rape.'

Descendants of slaves, shrugging off the idea that a single drop of Negro blood put one in the race of African Americans, are identifying themselves as Irish, or Scots, or whatever they discover in their family history. I explore coming to grips with pigmentation here.

Squire Turner may have wanted to contribute accurately to slave schedules; the record documents him as in the propertied the elite of a county in which the lawyer had grown wealthy. The nameless records, however, are far from definitive. The only earlier slave schedule (1850) lists a mulatto boy of 9, which may be a younger Jeremiah. I've found no record of Turner's human possessions, circa 1840, but 2 women in 1850 (ages 38 & 35) qualify. Unless she has become 60 years old, ten years later, neither candidate for Jeremiah's mother remain in the record as Turner's property.

Two Cases for High-Tech, Racial Identity

Hypodescent is the societal practice of assigning children of mixed union to the ethnic group which is perceived by the dominant group as being 'subordinate.'

Appearances can be pretty deceiving, I figure. I was raised on Nazi stories, describing how white supremacists hunted down anyone with A SINGLE DROP of Jewish blood. As a kid I heard that a Negro was any person who had a single drop of black blood. One drop and, no matter what you looked like, you were in that other race. Well, not just ‘another’ race: you were in a race that wasn’t as good as people who were all white.

And what is 'all white,' anyway? I got to thinking how best to categorize people, based on race.

An African-American cousin and I were discussing 'octaroons' and 'mulatto,' and the whole idea of race sorta collapsed on me. I was trying to figure out how pigmentation will be handled after racism has faded from our consciousness: I had this vision where we’d each be rated by a specific, pertinent number; no longer categorized 'Non-Hispanic White' or 'Caucasoid' or whatever. I figured science would give us a number (or a code, for those embracing complexity). I thought that number or code might come from DNA research, but maybe it will be a number generated by a densitometer.

The Reflective Qualities of Melanin

But then I realized I change pigmentation throughout the year (I discovered Blacks darkened after a couple weeks in Hawaii.), so we’d each have to be a range numbers. Then, I realize I have moles and sometimes scabs like what I got from scratching chigger bites while down in Kentucky … heck I’m a vast array of skin tones!

Lighting Directors and Color Corrections Specialists, when producing close-ups for television, know that each face – from the blackest African to the tawniest Asian and pinkest Anglo – reflect essentially the same range of colors. The pigmentation we reflect is more similar than we realize.

Amelia (Turner) Leer c1872

My whole concept of white superiority took a hit when I helped produce a radio program about skin tone. Not only does my coloration change, the rules for being the 'best' color have also been in play. Heard the term ‘blue blood?’ It meant the subject came from a fine family (wealthy, and in some way related to someone in power). Blue blood referred to the veins visible in a White person’s arms. The French introduced powders, even hideous looking, lead-based ointment, to make themselves whiter than humanly possible. My great-grandmother (left) employed a parasol to ward off the sun, presumably because she did not want melanin granules to expand among her skin cells.

Then, swept in by the Industrial Revolution, most workers left the fields and took jobs indoors … laboring in factories. They got pale. Whites with means responded by sporting sun tans. The rate of skin cancer shot up in their class, but at least one could tell by looking at their bronze skin, that they were better resourced than most of the rest of us.

While analyzing racial profiling data, a new concept of pigmentation dawned on me. Portland, Oregon police had been ordered to ascribe racial categories to drivers stopped. Consult Hardesty analyzed those statistics by racial categories. African Americans were stopped more frequently than Hispanics and both were stopped about twice as often as Anglos. I realized that, if cops supplied densitometer readings, the frequency by which these people were subsequently searched would fall out on a line: the blacker the driver they have accosted, the more likely it is that Portland police officers will search them. (Plot spoiler: African Americans were half as likely to be carrying contraband or have outstanding warrants, even though they were stopped twice as often, and then searched twice as often as those that police identified as White.)

Coal black folks get worse interactions than ‘high yaller’ ones, I suspect.

What a weird world. Like pigmentation has anything to do with anything else: criminality, intelligence, ability to love.*

Hapalogroups Unite!

It came to me that geneticists can give us a number ... or some sort of solid, identifying code that will evoke racial heritage. I'll admit that I'm not sure how informed we are when we speak of the Hispanic or Jewish race. And I'm not sure what advantage that knowledge supplies, but where our genes came from seems important to classifiers.

And then I heard that DNA research has confirmed that all human genetic material originated in Africa. No matter how White you are, your people were at one time Black.

And what of the term 'Caucasian Male?' Instead of a point of origin, categorizing in this way makes it important that our genes parked for a time in a certain geographical location (like the Caucus Mountains).

Like the vector scope analysis (top), my haplogroup data set becomes meaningless when we understand that most people's genetic material, over the expanse of human history, has largely traversed a mesh of similar circuits. Imagine the vast web that would connect all the places your ancestors inhabited as they led up to your parents. Would a code describing this web actually distinguish you any more accurately than the label 'Scots-Irish?' Besides, if your DNA tests don't take you back to the Yoruba or a neighboring tribe in Africa, then I would hold those results as suspect. They may be shielding you from your true humanity.

I am not the only American to be intrigued by the categorization of people by skin color. Certainly more so than, say, eye color. I know my countrymen have put a lot of energy into discriminating epidermal hues , cranial constructions, nose flanges, etc., and mostly so one pigmented group can declare itself superior to another. So that one group can dominate (take advantage) of another. I can't see what racial analysis based on, though.

I can see that, while the original, race-based cause for such degradation is probably meaningless, the history of racial oppression is all too real.

Our history of slavery … I think that DOES have an impact on things, even today. I know from my work among Native Americans that deep, psychic pain courses through communities who identify in this way. I cannot imagine the ache that still reverberates, knowing one’s ancestors felt either the repression of repeated attempts at genocide, or endured four centuries of enslavement. To me, the horrors at Abu Ghraib are immense … and they only lasted a few years. I cannot imagine, generation after generation, suffering this kind of torment. I cannot imagine thinking that there is no way out ... even for your children's children.

Some ambitious peoples wanted to be in a group that dominated others. I guess it was easier than doing all the work yourself or compensating for legal title to land. Those with an enduring history of success chose not to define themselves by height, or eye color, or muscle tone ... but by skin color. And they assigned subordinate roles to children who were not precisely in their dominant parents' color range.

Some folks say that Thomas Jefferson's red-haired, African American son was quite intelligent. Yet Jefferson held hypodescent practices. Slave Tom was prevented from living his life to the fullest. Why would a man do that to his son? Martha Washington never freed her half-sister. Ann Dandridge Costin and all of Martha's nieces and nephews were treated as property, to be divided up according to Martha's 19th century will.

Yes, this race thing is tricky. The true racial identity of my olive-skinned grandmother was likely shielded from me. Maybe I'm a quintroon, but pass as high yellow. My second wife was as Black as a Queen of Spades ... but guess what? With the vagaries of genetics, her heavy pigmentation might deceive you into thinking she's closer to her African roots. For all I know, of the millions of our ancestors who have not yet made it into paper-trail databanks at ancestry.com ... more of mine may have been recently African than hers.

And I guarantee you: we are all of African descent. The amount of melanin we bear has as much to do with deservedness as nostril hairs. We have simply chosen a methodology of valuing one another. Our methodology of assigning values has no useful or meaningful measure. It fails any test of reason. Racism derives its authority from mere convention.

I assume it will not be a Herculean task to simply develop new conventions and put an end to race-based attempts at domination.

*UPDATE: Researching James Berry (1752-1822), great-grandfather to the above Amelia (Turner) Leer (1852-1915), I discovered Berry's peers using the term "yellow devils" to describe Native warriors. Those Kentucky pioneers had not yet been inculcated to use racial descriptor "red."

What's in a Slave Name?

Through my family history research I've come to know (virtually) my cousin Ardis. We met when I found someone online researching Squire Turner (1793-1871). I'm keen to know as much as I can about this gr-gr-grand uncle who worked so hard to defeat emancipationists as Kentucky gathered for a Constitutional Convention in 1850. It surprised the heck out of me to discover an African American woman was looking into this character.

Ardis is likely descended from a rape by Turner of one of his many slaves. Ardis and I have chosen to be 'related by slavery.' We likely both descend from 'Trading Tom Turner (1764-1847).

It's a difficult thing to prove.

What I did not appreciate, as I busied myself with collecting, sorting through and making sense of data pulled from court records, published family histories, and actual historical texts in some cases, is how easy I have it. Sure, I'm working with tiny and frustratingly incomplete data sets, but I'd never really considered how sparse slave records are.

Some of you might have seen Ron Allen's piece, Priscilla's Story, on NBC. (It includes an interview with Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family.) Allen claims Priscilla's is the only story documenting lineage from a free child stolen from her people in Africa ... all the way to contemporary, living Americans.

Could such documented history really be so rare? Given the psychic scars left among torn-apart families, a compelling desire to know and to heal must have produced a body of complete and extensive accounts.

Consider how difficult it is to research slave ancestry. Family units were fractured by slave auctions of individual family members as well as capricious, unreported murder or (like Martha Custis Washington) a complete unwillingness to acknowledge a person's own kin ... living in squalor a hundred yards away on Slave Row. Whether a mother was worked to death, died of disease, or was sold off; her children may never have realized they did not descend from the woman who raised them.

I felt compelled to blog about this when I read a well-intentioned white man, chiding fellow genealogists for using secondary sources in their research; implying that their labor was less significant for their failure to cite more of the official record. I found myself writing:

"Our whole endeavor is speculative: I don't for a moment think that, just because a government put it in a document, a fact has more veracity than if it came from a lyric in a folksong - especially if the dominant culture has a vested interest in deceiving its populace."

And I got to thinking about the deep desires among our cousins, to know as much of their Africa-to-America history as they can, and of the tremendous odds of having that curiosity fully quenched. What an ache.

Whether it was through arrogance or shame or simple neglect, my ancestors did little to record the lives of slaves they'd forbidden to become literate. I suspect my people were breeding some of their slave stock for brute strength, docility and low intelligence. I assume they contemplated no future where free men and women would one day be curious about their lineage. While they were keen to document the lineage of the finest mules they bred, my ancestors did less to publicize the name of a child's father, brought in from a neighboring farm to serve as a stud. How difficult is genealogy for descendants of children who were kept from ever touching their parents?

Genealogy angel Dr. William L. Smith drew my attention to a 4-page tool, The Historical Biographer's Guide to the Research Process. Mill's Identity Triangulation Model encourages even certified smart people believe identity is more than a name on a federal form.

"It is every known detail of a human life. Identity is determined by triangulating three things: persona, relationships, and origin."

Whether you and I are busy mining databases running on huge computer farms or thumbing through musty leaves stored in granite courthouses, we benefit from men and women who taxed themselves to build vaults and employ archivists over intervening generations. Great social endeavor went into preserving many of the records I have discovered.

Was it more than benign neglect that kept the record of millions of slaves so sparse?

If we are to live soundly in the present, we would do well to acknowledge the reality of our past. We may owe a debt of gratitude to people like my cousin Ardis, who labor under tremendous disadvantages when re-creating ancestors' identity. Brothers and sisters, calling for reparations after the inter-generational horrors of slavery, have sensitised me to appreciate how emotionally difficult this search must be.

My cousins know with certainty that identity is more than a name. The surname they bear could have been imposed by men who treated their ancestors as property. A slave name burns in a way that simulates the branding iron my ancestors likely employed as a right of ownership, as a means of establishing identity.

Looking for Monk's People

In an earlier post, I allude to the fact that Monk (slave name, Uncle Monk Estill) saved my 4x-great-grandfather's life after Wyandot warriors shot James Berry (1752-1822) in the thigh at a skirmish called Estill's Defeat, or the Battle of Little/Small Mountain. 22 March of this year will be the 230th anniversary of this 1782 event.

I was able to interest the Madison County Historical Society in printing the following article in their newsletter, Heritage Highlights.

Partly inspired by the group Coming to the Table, I seek to build relationship with Monk's descendants. Estill's heirs freed Monk for his valor during and after the battle. I contend that not only was Berry's consciousness changed by the debt he owed a slave, but that Berry's grandson (my 2x-gr-grandfather) James Berry Turner (c1820-c1867) also believed freed slaves capable of self-determination. Turner attended an Emancipation Convention in 1849. This deviant behavior - of contemplating a means to free slaves - outraged his in-laws and strained relations with Turner's own family.

Here is the article as submitted.

20 March, 1880 - “The court-house was crowded to overflowing today with the best people of the county to witness the exercises of the Estill Centennial,” reported the Courier-Journal about this grand Madison County event. “A century ago Captain James Estill, with twenty-four men, fought a party of Wyandotte Indians on a small branch of Hinkston Creek, near where Mt. Sterling, in this State, now stands, and Estill was killed. From the fact that a large artificial mound stood near the spot, the fight is known as the battle of Little Mountain or Estill's Defeat.” 

Much had been done in preparation. H. C. Krell’s marble relief, on the flank of Estill’s monument in Richmond Cemetery, is dated 1879. The frieze of Joseph Proctor, aiming his rifle - and our attention - to the moment before Estill was impaled, was likely unveiled as part of the Centennial. 

On the University campus one hundred guns were fired. Students and schoolchildren marched in procession to the courthouse, which was decorated for the occasion. Nearly a dozen dignitaries had prepared orations, prayers and a benediction.

The names of some of the defeated can still be found on a marker that the Col. George Nicholas Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected near the battlefield.

Killed
Adam Caperton (1753-1782), John Colefoot/Coltfoot, Capt. James Estill (1750-1782), Unknown (perhaps George) Forbes/Forbis, Jonathan McMillan, Unknown McNeely & John South (The Younger, 1745-1782)

Wounded
James Berry (c1752-1822), Ensign David Cook (c1756-1825) & William Irvine (1763-1819)

Others Engaged
James Anderson (perhaps 1757-1831), Henry Boyer(s)/Bowyer(s) (perhaps 1763-1821), William Cradlebaugh (c1744-aft 1832), Benjamin Dunnaway/Donway (perhaps 1757-1830), Whitson George (1766-1843), William Grim (likely William Grimes, b 1740), John Jameson (perhaps James Madison Jameson, c1741-1827), Unknown Johnson, Beal Kelly (1750-1837), David Lynch/Linch (1761-1826), Lt. William Miller (1747-1837), Rev. Joseph Proctor (c1755-1844), Reuben Proctor (c1753-c1804) & ‘Uncle’ Monk/Munk, slave to James Estill (D 1835) 

Boys
Peter Hacket(t) (B 1763) & Samuel South (c1769-1832)

To this list we must add young Jennie Gass (c1769-1782), daughter of David Gass (1732-1806) who was killed at the outset of hostilities.

To the DAR we can be grateful for specifying the most likely date of the battle: 22 March 1782. Others were involved in Col. Logan’s callout of the militia that March. The George Rogers Clark Papers in the Virginia State Archives report that in September 1783 the General ordered eight men compensated for horses lost at Estill’s Defeat: John Berry (1753-1811), David Crews (1740-1821), Stephen Hancock (c1744-c1827), Robert Harris (1749-1833), Benjamin Martin (1758-1838), John McDowell (perhaps 1757-1835), John Moore (1748-1825) & Page Portwood (1740-1779). Other evidence indicates William Hancock (1738-1818) and the Proctor brothers Benjamin (1760-1850) and Nicholas (1756-1835) may have been in the pursuit as well.

It is not clear where the Boones were during the attack. Alexander Robertson (1748-1802) was recuperating there when Estill’s station was attacked. Cotteril cites, in his History of Pioneer Kentucky that a (perhaps Charles) Hazelrigg was sufficiently knowledgeable about the battle to have given a subsequent deposition. He may have been on the burial detail of 40-50 men, which included John Harper. The primary native combatant has been referred to as Sourehoowah.

More than a hundred members of the Estill Family were to have attended the 1880 event; four of whom, Jonathan P. Estill, Maj. Jonathan T. Estill, Peter Estill, & Col. Clifton R. Estill, were living on their shares of Capt. Estill’s preempted land. Family members arrived from Missouri. They included Robert Estill, Jr. of Howard County, reportedly ‘one of the wealthiest citizens of the state;’ Robt. G. Estill of Kansas City, ‘for ten years a commission merchant’ of St. Louis; Benjamin Estill and wife of Kansas City; & T. K. W. Estill of Roscoe.

Other descendants of the ‘Heroes of Little Mountain’ addressed those assembled: William M. Irvine, then President of the Second National Bank; Judges William B. Smith and W. C. Miller; Hon. Thomas J. Scott and Hon. James B. McCreary; Col. James Caperton & Stanford attorney Wallace E. Varnon.

22 March 2012 will be the 230th anniversary of what the Richmond Register called the ‘Fiercest Battle Known.’ Recently, the freed slave Monk was honored by the 4th MCHS Walk of Fame plaque. Monk is to have sired 30 children by three wives, and a descendant of James Berry, the survivor of Estill’s Defeat whose life Monk likely saved, wants to acknowledge them. This MCHS member in Portland, Oregon is hoping readers can put him in touch with any of Monk’s known descendants. Mr. Hardesty is also soliciting all unpublished anecdotes pertaining to The Battle of Little Mountain and would like to hear from any descendants of those involved. Contact him via this page.