A Deliberately Forgotten Woman

I am researching Maj. Squire Turner (1793-1871) for the 1849 campaign my great, great grandfather's half-brother ran, as he sought to represent Madison County in a Kentucky State Constitutional Convention. Any nugget of information seems particularly valuable, for Turner is not well represented in today's historical record. It is not as if my 3x, great-grandfather's son didn't leave a paper trail: having organized the direct election of all state officials, and reigned in the legislature's authority to go into debt; Turner became the guiding light behind a massive effort to subsequently codify all of Kentucky's laws into a single document. Through his legislation and law practice, Squire Turner created mountains of paperwork. Eastern Kentucky University has lost track of a collection of Turner's papers. Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, has no record of his acceptance speech, nor any institutional knowledge as to why they venerated Turner with an honorary law degree. Barely an obituary survives into the digital age.

Squire Turner was adamantly pro-slavery. Hewing to the nation's founding compact, Turner was a property-rights man. Though the actual wording should be attributed to someone else, Turner would no doubt agree with a report made after the 1850 Constitution massaged Kentucky's legal relationship with slavery: Turner is often credited with 'enshrining the rights to property (slaves) as higher than divine law.'

I recently found this link to a Kentucky Gazette report of a Turner voting in the Kentucky House in 1819. It was not 'my' Squire Turner, but his uncle (and mine) Cornelius Turner (1770-1835), from Warren County, Kentucky, who served from 1816-1820 before being elected to the Kentucky Senate. The Gazette reported that - after the state senate deadlocked - Cornelius Turner voted in the Kentucky House to send Col. Richard Mentor Johnson (c1780-1850) to the U.S. Senate.

Ever heard of Richard Mentor Johnson?

He was already nationally renowned in 1819, having been credited with killing Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (1768-1813) at the Battle of the Thames, during the War of 1812. His 1819 appointment to the U.S. Senate was a stepping stone: in 1837 the Senate elected Johnson to be the ninth Vice-President of the United States. Johnson played a nominal part in Martin Van Buren's first administration.

It seems Johnson, like Squire Turner, has not fared well in remaining current in historical chronicles. Both were popular men later judged ignominious. Both held views on race that were considered disturbing. Both were slaveholders ... yet Johnson held his slaves perhaps more closely.

By the time of his appointment to the U.S. Senate, Johnson had fathered two daughters by Julia Chinn (1780-1833). Sometime after his father died (1815) Johnson had inherited Chinn from his father's estate.

From Wikipedia:

"As his prominence grew, [Johnson's] interracial relationship with Julia Chinn, an octoroon slave, was more widely criticized. It worked against his political ambitions. Unlike other upper class leaders who had African American mistresses but never mentioned them, Johnson openly treated Chinn as his common law wife. He acknowledged their two daughters as his children, giving them his surname, much to the consternation of some of his constituents."

Johnson gave his daughters more than just his surname. He gave them land. His 1834 biography (propaganda including lyrics to a drinking song designed to popularize the 'gallant patriot's' bid for the Vice-Presidency) makes no mention of Julia, or daughters Imogene Malvina and Adaline Chinn Johnson. A wedding announcement in the Lexington Observer and Kentucky Reporter (based in Fayette County) addressed the sensitive issue after Adaline married Thomas W. Scott in 1832:

"This is the second time that the moral feelings ... of the people of Scott County have been shocked and outraged by the marriage of a mulatto daughter of Col. Johnson to a white man, if a man, who will so far degrade himself; who will make himself an object of scorn and detestation to every person that has the least regard for decency, for a little property; can be considered a white man."

"How long will the people of Scott County - of Kentucky - permit such palpable violations of the laws of their state to be committed with impunity? How long will the moral and religious part of the community suffer such an indecent and shocking example to be set for their sons and the rising generation, before they put their veto upon them? Before they consign to private life at least, if not to infamy, those who encourage such violations of the laws both of God and of man? The laws of Kentucky forbid, under heavy penalties, a white man's marrying a negro or mulatto, or living with one in the character of man and wife."

In 2007, David Mills, writing in the Huffington Post, made some contemporary observations about Richard Mentor Johnson's position in family trees. It seems that many who descend from the nation's ninth Vice- President are unaware of their relationship to him: intervening generations of storytellers - wanting not to claim their descendancy from a woman of color - simply relinquished their claims upon a war hero and semi-successful political aspirant. (Time once voted Johnson the nation's forth-worst Vice-President in history.)

It's admittedly complicated, but their are reasons to admire Julia Chinn. An assumed descendant declared Johnson's captive chattel "an excellent Châtelaine for his home," as she is known to have wined and dined the aristocratic French revolutionary, the Marquis de Lafayette, when he visited the plantation in 1825. Chinn managed Johnson's business affairs during his absences in the nation's capital. Dedicated genealogists might be put off by the fact that, as miscegenation was then illegal, documentary proof of the marriage becomes problematic. Others may be put off by the fact that Chinn exercised a master's rights over slaves in her role as Johnson's plantation manager. Indeed, Johnson gave slaves as part of his daughters' dowries.

Admiration for Richard Mentor Johnson comes in a mixed bag as well. He educated his daughters, provided them with superior social graces and economic advantages. Mills declares them "bona-fide, fully vested white people." However, according to Johnson's official Senate biography:

"When Lewis Tappan asked the vice-president to present an abolition petition to the Senate, Johnson, who owned several slaves, averred that "considerations of a moral and political, as well as of a constitutional nature" prevented him from presenting "petitions of a character evidently hostile to the union, and destructive of the principles on which it is founded.""

More extraordinary, following his wife's death in 1833, Wikipedia reports Johnson began a relationship with another family slave. When she left him for another man, Johnson had her captured and sold at auction. He then began a relationship with her sister.

Johnson paid a political price for bearing an interracial family. New York papers ridiculed Johnson's domestic situation, and the Democrats' constituency as well.

A racist attack on Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Richard M. Johnson.



Johnson's lifestyle choices also bring into relief a side of Abraham Lincoln you may not be aware of. According to Clifton Porter II, blogging as Undercover Black Man, 'Honest Abe' exploited Johnson’s relationship with Chinn, to score points against Stephen Douglas during the legendary Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.

"Lincoln asserted, to the applause of his audience, that “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races… nor qualifying [Negroes] to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people…”"

Porter reports Lincoln saying:

"I do not understand that, because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife …

I will add to this that I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality - social and political - between negroes and white men. I recollect but one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be entirely satisfied of its correctness – and that is the case of Judge Douglas’ old friend Col. Richard M. Johnson." [Laughter.]

Johnson had died eight years earlier, months after Kentucky's new state constitution went into effect. One provision in the 1850 constitution provided that "no slave shall be emancipated but upon condition that such emancipated slave be sent out of the state." [See page 137.]

Johnson's daughter Adaline had died in 1836. Among first-degree family, only daughter Imogene survived Kentucky's gallant patriot. Although Johnson willed vast property to his daughter, Imogene was prevented from inheriting her father's estate: the Fayette County Court considered her illegitimate and without rights. Upon Johnson's death, the court ruled that "he left no widow, children, father, or mother living."

Julia Chinn is depicted as an octoroon, or 1/8 black (i.e., she had one black great-grandparent). If so, Johnson's grandchildren - also deemed ineligible for their inheritance - would have been 1/32 black. To connect those grandchildren to a black ancestor is to travel as far back in a family tree as I must go, to claim relationship to my 2nd great-grandfather, James Berry Turner (1820-1867), half-brother to the above Squire. While that relationship seems a long road into a distant past, and while white supremacists were willing to reach that far back to besmirch Julia Chinn and Richard Mentor Johnson, it is the same distance I must travel from the 21st century, to claim relationship to James Berry Turner, who - contrary to his half brother's agenda - sought to nominate emancipationists to Kentucky's 1849 constitutional convention.

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."