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Anita Talks Genealogy is a show about, Genealogy. Host Anita Wills is an author (Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family. She also Speaks and Lectures on writing Family History Books, Free Persons of Color, and How To Research and Document your Multi-Racial Ancestors.
Anita Wills
12 Minutes UNTIL SHOW
Category: History
Call-in Number: (347) 324-5846
DNA Testing can be a powerful tool in Genealogy Research. We will explore the Pros & Cons of DNA testing as a tool in tracing your ancestors. Tune in while Author Anita Wills shares her expertise in this important research tool.
Upcoming Episodes
12/5/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
12/12/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
12/19/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
Date / Time: 6/20/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Category: Books
Author Anita Wills, gives excerpts from her newly released book, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family (Wills, Anita L., Booksurge, May 2009). Segment will include excerpts from the book, and tips for those who interested in researching and documenting their family history. Ms. Wills will share some of the stories of her ancestors, whose stories are in the book. Over a twenty year period she was able to document her family lines. The book is written from a Historical and Genealogical Perspective. The segment will include, topics such as, The Underground Railroad, Free Persons of Color, Indentured Servants and The Civil War.
Original Air Date: 7/20/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 7/18/2009 7:32 PM UTC
After Mary Bowden's birth in 1730, there was another court case, this time against Mary Monroe. She was charged with Bastardy (having a child outside of marriage), and summoned to appear before the Westmoreland County Grand Jury. The case against Mary was thrown out by the Judge who cited the ambiguities of the laws, which did not allow Whites and Mulattoes to marry. It is possible that William Monroe Senior was behind the dismissal.
In 1737 William Monroe Senior died, as did Mary Monroe. It is not clear where William Monroe Junior was at that time. Mary Bowden was now living with Thomas and Jemima Cook-Chilton. They were relatives of the Monroe's, and took the child in. The Westmoreland County Court intervened and the child was determined to be a Mulatto, and sentenced to a thirty-year Indenture. She was seven years old, when taken to Popes Creek, the Washington Family Plantation. It was not that far from the Monroe house, but the main players in the child's life were no longer there. Mary spent nearly forty years at the Washington Family Home, due to her frequent attempts to escape. At one point, she spent four years in Essex County, before the Washington's located her. When her daughter Patty was born in 1750, the Washington's immediately received her Indenture. When Mary escaped in 1752 she did not take Patty, since she had no legal rights as a mother.
The laws Mary Monroe, Mary Bowden, and Patty Bowden were under, were aimed at the Mulatto children. The Washington Plantation also housed about seventy-five slaves. Like slavery, Mary and Patty's indentures were forced, therefor different from the voluntary Indentures served by Europeans.
John Washington, the Great Grandfather of George Washington was the first Washington at Popes Creek Plantation. Although the work of building Plantations is credited to the owners, they did none of the physical labor. The slaves dug the foundations, and built the and maintained the Plantations.
In 1999 when I visited George Washington Birthplace, we visited a Grave out in the woods. That is where the slaves of George Washington Birthplace were buried. No Markers, no fence, nothing to mark their lives or passing. Males and females, young and old are laying in that graveyard. I believe Patty Bowden's father, and some of her paternal relatives are in that grave. He would be my ancestor through Patty, and his parents may be there as well. However, access to that Grave has been denied by the owner of the property, a descendant of the Washington's. It is as if they are still slaves, and still owned by the Washington Family.
The home that George Washington was born in was built by slaves. The slaves also worked the tobacco fields, and mines owned by the Washington's. George Washington was born at Popes Creek February 22, 1732, two years after Mary Bowden was born. Patty Bowden was a Personal Servant to George Washingtons' niece, Elizabeth Washington-Spotswood (the daughter of Augustine Washington Junior, and his wife, Ann Aylett). Patty's indenture ended when she turned thirty-one, and she was living with the Spotswoods in Fredericksburg. After completing their Indentures, Mary and Patty settled in Fredericksburg, and remained there the rest of their lives.
Patty had several children before marrying James Jackson, the father of James Junior, William, and Samuel Jackson. They purchased a house in Fredericksburg, where generations of the family lived. Mary had several children besides Patty, one of whom was named Dominic Tapscot-Bowden. They lived on Barton Street in Fredericksburg, not too far from Patty and James Jackson. Both lived well into their eighties, and are buried in Fredericksburg.
Original Air Date: 7/11/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 7/11/2009 1:38 AM UTC
As a child, I often heard the name Geechie and Gullah, in reference to my relatives. My father was born in Orangeburg South Carolina, as was his mother and father. Many of the blacks in our community came from South Carolina. My Great-Great Grandmother, Leah Warner was part of the Gullah community in Beaufort District SC. Enslaved at the age of twelve from Guinea West Africa; she was sold to Robert Ruth. She was his property from 1830-1857. By the time he sold her, she had bore him several children. She was sold to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, while her mixed raced children were sold to Savannah Georgia as House Slaves. She was there when the 54th Massachusetts came through, and confiscated the lands. By this time, she was married living with her husband, Jack Warner and their two children, Isabella and Georgy. Leah remained at Hilton Head until after the death of her husband and son. By that time her daughter Isabella was living in Savannah. It was then that her son, Samuel Ruth traveled from Pennsylvania, and moved her to his home.
Leah lived to be ninety-seven years old, and recounted the brutality of slavery, to her grandchildren. She spoke of the whippings by the overseer, and the hard work. She also spoke fondly of her children, and husband, who she referred to as Mr. Warner. There were stories of her life in Guinea, with her father, who she described as a King. She stated that she and the other children were kidnapped when they were panning gold at the River. This was a task that only the Royal children were given, and one that required great skill. The Gold may have been what the Kidnappers were seeking, and selling the children was an after thought. The guards who wanted control of the Gold may have set them up. Leah took the voyage away from her family forever, and into a life of slavery.
During slavery, my Baxter ancestors were owned by a man named Robert Baxter. He owned many slaves, and appears to one of the large Plantation owners in Orangeburg County South Carolina. Robert Baxter owned a Cotton Plantation, which was a high country crop. I do not know if they or their ancestors, cultivated rice or cotton. Many of the slaves in the area of the Ogeechie River were experienced in Cultivating rice. By the mid eighteenth century, rice culture, slavery, malaria and yellow fever were an integral part of life in South Carolina.
One of my favorite foods is Okra, fried with corn and tomatoes, sometimes a piece of bacon, or shrimp is used to spice it up. I recently learned that the Okra plant was a staple for slaves in South Carolina, and often boiled to make a tea or coffee substitute. Slave women also used okra to achieve abortions by using the slimy pods to lubricate the uterine passage. I also use okra in gumbo, to the chagrin of some family members.
A large plantation was not just cotton fields and a mansion, but many buildings. The smokehouse where meat was preserved, the henhouse where poultry was raised, stables where horses were tended, the barn where dairy cows and work animals were housed, and sheds and silos for tools, grain, and other farm necessities. In workshops scattered near the barnyard, slave artisans might craft barrels, horseshoes, furniture, and cloth for use on the plantation. Gardens were cultivated to supply herbs and vegetables. More commonly, large plantations included slave infirmaries and nursery facilities where older slave women tended the children of women who worked in the fields. As a safety precaution, almost all plantations had kitchen structures separate from the "big house," the main mansion that housed the planter family.
The name Geechie probably comes from the Ogeechie River, which runs through Columbia South Carolina and Savannah Georgia.
“Descendants of the slaves that worked in South Carolina's rice plantations (many along the Ogeechie River); the Gullah people are a distinctive group of African Americans that live in the Coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. They speak an English based Creole language that retains many elements of African language and culture. At least 100,000 people continue to speak Gullah today.
Through many generations, the Gullah (Geechee) people have held fast to their African cultural heritage more so than any other African-American group. This is due to their largely isolated community life as slaves. Seclusion between the Gullah slaves and their masters was promoted because of the highly contagious tropical diseases that existed in the slave community. A culmination of language, rituals, customs, music, and crafts from various African tribes is the foundation upon which the Gullah people thrive today. Although they are no longer an isolated group, they continue to view themselves as a divergent community. ”[1]
The Plantation System in North and South America started in Brazil in the 1500’s, under the Portuguese. They set up sugar plantations first using Indian labor, and then enslaved Africans. The Plantation System started in America in the 1700’s. Under the Plantation System Europe’s’ Landless Peasants became Landed Gentry in the Americas’. They used Native Lands, African Labor, and religion to set up a Hierarchy based on race. In South Carolina, the White Planter Class became an aristocracy that controlled social and political life. At the bottom of the society were the slaves, who were distinguished by their color and identify as property.
“South Carolina is about the same size as Sierra Leone and has a roughly similar geography and climate. There is the "Low Country" which consists of the Sea Islands, the swampy southern coastline, and a wide and fertile arc of coastal plain stretching up to a hundred miles in the interior. Beyond that is the "Upcountry," a region of rolling hills rising gradually to mountains three thousand feet high in the far northwest. Much of the state is humid and semitropical with long, hot summers, mild winters, and abundant rainfall reaching seventy inches in some areas. Three-fifths of the state is covered in forest, and a series of rivers flows down in Parallel lines to the Atlantic Coast."[2]
The main crops in Colonial South Carolina were Rice, Indigo, and Cotton. Slaves cleared the snake and alligator infested swamps, and built the plantations from the ground up. Yet, they were not to build grand houses for themselves, instead their quarters were little more than out houses. A place to rest for a few hours before it was time to plant, cultivate, or pick the crop. There was no minimum age for the slaves in the field, only a height requirement. As soon as they were, tall enough the children were sent into the fields.
The color indigo, often associated with political power or religious ritual, has held a significant place in many world civilizations for thousands of years.[3] In the excavation of Thebes, an indigo garment dating from around 2500 B.C. was found; furthermore, the Hindu god Krishna is most often depicted in blue.[4] Europeans favored the indigo grown by slaves, cultivated and processed in South Carolina.
"Indigo is of several sorts. What we have gone mostly upon is the sort generally cultivated in the Sugar Islands, which requires a high loose soil, tolerably rich, and is an annual plant; but the wild sort, which is common in this country, is much more hardy and luxuriant, and is perennial. Its stalk dies every year, but it shoots up again next spring. The indigo made from it is of as good a quality as the other, and it will grow on very indifferent land, provided it be dry and loose.
"An acre of good land may produce about eighty pounds weight of good indigo, and one slave may manage two acres and upwards, and raise provisions besides, and have all the winter months to saw lumber and be otherwise employed in. However, as much of the land hitherto used for indigo is improper, I am persuaded that not above thirty pounds weight of good indigo per acre can be expected from the land at present cultivated. Perhaps we are not conversant enough in this commodity, either in the culture of the plant or in the method of managing or manufacturing it, to write with certainty.
"But I cannot leave this subject without observing how conveniently and profitably, as to the charge of labour, both indigo and rice may be managed by the same persons [emphasis added]; for the labour attending indigo being over in the summer months, those who were employed in it may afterward manufacture rice in the ensuing part of the year, when it becomes most laborious; and after doing all this they will have some time to spare for sawing lumber, and making hogshead and other staves to supply the Sugar Colonies." [5]
The slaves brought from the West Coast of Africa brought their techniques to the rice fields. Their labor and expertise made rice take hold as a primary and lucrative source of income in the last decade of the seventeenth century. The first rice seeds used in rice farming may have been imported directly from the Island of Madagascar in 1685. By 1750, some of the largest slave owners in the South cultivated rice in the coastal regions of the Carolina s in ways similar to how it was grown by Africans.
"They reckon thirty slaves a proper number for a rice plantation, and to be tended with one overseer. These in favourable seasons and on good land will produce a surprising quantity of rice; but that I may not be blamed by those who being induced to come here upon such favourable accounts and may not reap so great a harvest; and that I may not mislead any person whatever, I choose rather to mention the common computation throughout the province, Communibus Annis; which is, that each good working hand employed in a rice plantation makes four barrels and a half of rice, each barrel weighing five hundred pounds weight, neat; besides a sufficient quantity of provisions of all kinds, for the slaves, horses, cattle, and poultry of the plantation, for the ensuing year.”
[1] Charleston Black Heritage – Gullah Geechie Culture, http://www.charlestonblackheritage.com/gullah.html, June 10, 2009
[2] Littlefield, Daniel C., Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina, University of Illinois Press: 1991
[3] Gösta Sandberg, Indigo Textiles: Technique and History (London: A & C Black, 1989), 14.
[4] Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America. A Socioeconomic History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1973), 176
[5] -Glen, James, "A Description of South Carolina," in Chapman J. Milling (ed.), Colonial South Carolina: Two Contemporary Descriptions by Governor James Glen and Doctor George Milligen-Johnston (South Carolina Sesquicentennial Series, No. I [Columbia, S.C.: 1951])
Original Air Date: 7/4/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 7/3/2009 11:49 PM UTC
The 4th of July is in some ways bittersweet for our family. It is a cause to celebrate because we are descendants of several Revolutionary War Veterans'. These Revolutionary War Soldiers are related from our Maternal line. They resided in Colonial Virginia, and were referred to as, Free Persons of Color (fpc). We are mindful of the slaves who were caught in the middle of this event. They may have believed that this was an event which would end in their freedom, but that did not happen. The Soldiers of Color who fought in the War, may have held that belief as well. My family honors our ancestors who fought in this War, and those whose freedom was put on hold. We had ancestors who were free, and others who were slaves. This is article is about our ancestors who were Seamen and Soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Charles and Ambrose Lewis, and Rawley and Robert Pinn.
Charles, and Ambrose Lewis were brothers, who served in the Revolutionary War. Their place of birth was probably King George County Virginia, where they were in 1771, when the courts sentenced them to serve twenty year indentures. The law at the time required that Mulatto males serve twenty year indentures, while females served thirty years. The pro ported father of Ambrose and Charles, was John Lewis, and the mother a Mulatto woman named, Josephine. John Lewis was the Grandson of Zachary Lewis, whose family intermarried with the Washington's, Smiths, and Spotswood's.
Ambrose was the younger of the brothers being born about 1758, while Charles was born about 1756. In Ambrose Revolutionary War Pension application for 1818, he is about sixty years old, which set his birth year at 1758. When the war broke out, Ambrose was about eighteen years old, and Charles about twenty. They were serving their indentures on the Page Galley, as Seamen on the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg Virginia. They served three years as Seamen, before signing on as regular Soldiers. The brothers saw more action as Soldiers when they fought at the Battle of Camden South Carolina. Ambrose was bayoneted clean through, and shot nine times, and taken prisoner by the British. It is interesting to note that his life was saved by the British, as he was critically injured.
Another Seamen and Soldier with the brothers was Benjamin Lewis, the younger brother of John Lewis. John Lewis was born in 1724, but Benjamin was born about 1744, and was closer in age to Charles and Ambrose. Later, Benjamin would take up residence in Richmond along with Charles. Ambrose and his wife Fanny lived in Fredericksburg, and he worked sporadically as a Dray man. In Richmond, Charles Lewis, and his wife, Susanna owned land, and a Mill at Rockets Landing, as well as a Plantation. They also owned slaves, and in The City of Alexandria, several manumitted slaves gave Charles Lewis name as their former owner. Not only did Charles live in Richmond he owned property in Northumberland County. Charles did quite well for a Mulatto in Colonial Virginia, possibly because of the Lewis influence, in the region.
Rawley Pinn was born in Lancaster County Virginia, in Indian Town. His parents were Robert and Margaret Pinn. After completing an indenture as a Cooper, Rawley left Lancaster County and moved further inward, eventually settling in Amherst County. He was a minuteman in Amherst County, before signing on as a Soldier. The Unit marched to Yorktown and along the way joined with Marquis De Lafayette's Troops. They were the soldiers waiting for a signal from George Washington to join the battle known as The Siege of Yorktown. Rawley, along with his unit, converged on the Battle Field, and won the battle.
Joining Rawley on the Battle Field was his brother Robert, and nephews, Billy, Jim, and John. The fact that they were in the same unit tells me that there was communication, although they were separated by distance. Rawley's nephew Jim was killed during the Siege of Yorktown, according to the Pension Records his brother John left. At the time of the Battle, the family was living in Indian town, in Lancaster County Virginia. At the end of the War Rawley returned to Amherst County, and to his family. He was married to Sarah Evans, and the father of several children, including, James Pinn (my direct ancestor), Edy Pinn, Anne Pinn, and Turner Pinn. Rawley obtained land and was a prominent Farmer in Amherst County. His son Turner was also a prominent Farmer in the area for many years. James Pinn died at a young age of unknown causes, and his land first went to his widow, and then Turner Pinn.
It is with pride that I share the stories of my ancestors this 4th of July Weekend.
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