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Excerpts of
William
Syphax: A Pioneer
in Negro Education in the District
of Columbia
By E. Delorus Preston, Jr
[William] Syphax [1825-1891] was born shortly
after the troublous days of the Missouri Compromise; he
witnessed the growing hatred and sectional discords that
resulted in the Compromise of 1850; he saw the devastating
effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Dred Scott Decision,
the John Brown Raid, and lived through the hectic days of
disunion, civil war and subsequent reconstruction.
Through it all he had an abiding faith in his
people, and at every possible opportunity he evinced a manliness
and a fortitude in his efforts to champion their cause. He was
honest, courageous, thrifty in all his dealings and never
descended from his lofty pedestal.
William Syphax was the offspring of a
distinguished line. His grandfather, William Syphax, was a free
Negro, who lived on Fairfax Street, in Alexandria, Virginia. The
house in which he lived had at one time been the office of
William Herbert, a leading citizen of Alexandria and a
descendant of Carlyle.
He lived near the old bank of Alexandria and
was constantly on the ground of the Carlyle House, over which
the Braddock House was afterward built. the elder Syphax was
well versed in the prophetical portions of the Scriptures, and
ever and anon he was wont to stand on the street corners and
preach his doctrines to passersby. He was quite a character in
Alexandria and was "very industrious and much
respected."
Charles Syphax [1791-1869], the only
son of William, was a slave and he belonged to George Washington
Parke Custis [1781-1857], who owned Arlington, Virginia, and its
environs. When about ten years of age [1801] he accompanied
George Washington Parke Custis to Arlington, where he grew up
with Custus' daughter Mary, who later married Genereal R.E. Lee.
Syphax became enamored of one Maria Carter [1803-1886]
while working as one of the "White House" servants
whose duties were confined to the serving of meals in the
Arlington Mansion, and they were married at Arlington by an
Episcopal minister, about 1821. By this marriage Elinor was born
1823, and William 1825.
Charles, it seems, had considerable liberty,
for although he was not freed until after the death of Custis,
he was a member, in good standing, of a Baptist Church in
Alexander, of which the Rev. Wm. Madden was pastor. Inasmuch as
he belonged to the Custis family at Arlington, he was full of
recollections of the early presidents and statesmen, and his
memory was stored with anecdotes of those he met there, and who
were in the habit of conversing with him.
He was was acquainted with George Washington
and gave vivid accounts of Jefferson, Monroe, and others. It is
said that during the Civil War, soldiers camped around his
residence, too great delight in listening to his vivid
descriptions of the past. he was well liked by all regardless of
color and was considered a good Christian. He died in 1869 at
the ripe old age of seventy eight.
On his mother's side William Syphax descended
not only from a distinguished line but his ancestry savored very
definitely of the plantation aristocracy of the South.
Maria Syphax was the daughter of
George Washington Parke Custis and a maid of Martha Washington.
George Washington Parke Custis, and he was lord of the Arlington
estate of 1,110 acres.
In the treatment of his slaves Custis is said
to have been as considerate as he was regarding any other class
of human beings, and the glaring evils of iniquitous slavery
were never apparent on his property. Each slave had a house
apportioned him and a bit of ground, the produce of which he
owned as "securely as if his title to the land he occupied
was duly recorded in the records of the county courts."
Particularly was this true as regarded his
female servants for whom he seemed to show an interest out of
all proportion to those motives actuated by humanitarian
impulses. He freed Louisa, the daughter of his servant Judith,
on the 5th of April, 1803; John, the son of Judith; the children
of Olney, in 1818. In our about 1826 Custis manumitted Maria,
who at the time had two children, Elinor, six years of age, and
William, "a baby boy." Her two children were freed
along with her, though her husband, Charles, seems not to have
received his freedom until after the death of Custis, who left a
will manumitting all his slaves.
It is stated, however, that Custis recognized
Maria as his child and gave her a piece of property on the
Arlington estate. This piece of land constituted 15 acres off
the northwest corner of the Arlington estate and "her white
cottage was surrounded by tall trees and pleasant stretches of
grassland and the place was beautiful as well as homelike."
It is also stated that "the family of
Robert E. Lee inherited the respect for the blood of the former
slave woman, and they (the wife of Robert E. Lee was the
daughter of Custis and the half-sister Maria Syphax) confirmed
the legacy of Custis by saying that the bit of land was hers
although there was no deed to show the fact." William
Syphax, therefore, came from a distinguished line.
Charles and Maria spent their entire lives on
that plot of land and besides the two children previously
mentioned eight others were born and reared there. They were
Cornelius, Charles, Colbert, Shaulter, Austin, John, Ennis and
Maria. All lived to maturity, and all except Shaulter and Austin
had families.
The ever-increasing hatreds, part feuds and
sectional discords over the slavery issue resulted in the Civil
War, and the Arlington Estate was necessarily affected. Robert
E. Lee took command of the Confederate forces while his family
left the grounds. Federal troops occupied Arlington from the
first days of the war and had many personal contacts with the
Syphaxes.
On August 5, 1861, the Government had passed
the Direct Tax Act. Inasmuch as Virginia was in "open
rebellion" against the United States, the Federal
Government realized the impossibility of collecting the taxes.
The government then decided that when the civil authority in any
State was so obstructed, due to the insurrection, as to
prostrate the peaceful collection of the direct tax, that the
tax apportioned should be charged or apportioned in each
insurrectionary district upon all lands and lots of ground
according to the enumeration and valuation of the last
assessment preceding the breaking out of the War.
The Act was amended in 1863, and from
November 21, 1863, to January 10, 1864, the sale of the
Arlington Estate was advertised in a Virginia newspaper. on the
11th of January, 1864, the Arlington Estate of 1,100 acres was
purchased by the Government for $26,100, and the cemetery began
May 13, 1864, through the influences of General Meigs.
While all this was going on the Syphaxes were
living on the little plot of land left Maria by Custis. There
was no deed, record, will or document of any sort to show the
right of possession and even had there been, the action of the
Federal Government would have rendered such ownership null and
void. Maria with her family, had lived there for upwards of
fifty years, and now that the vast estate had been reduced to a
waste and a camping ground for the Government's troops, the
family began to bestir itself to maintain possession of its
property.
William, who by this time had become
prominent in Washington, came to his mother's rescue. Through
his efforts the matter was brought to the attention of Congress,
and with little delay and no debate the Bill for the Relief of
Maria Syphax was passed.
On May 16, 1866, Senator Harris, from the
Committee on Private Land claims, to which was referred the
"memorial of William Syphax, praying to be confirmed in his
title of land in the Arlington Estate (so called), Virginia,
granted to his mother by the late George Washington Parke Custis"
reported a bill (S. No. 321) for the relief of Maria Syphax. The
bill proposed to release and confirm to Maria Syphax, her heirs
and assigns, the title to a piece of land, being a part of the
Arlington estate, upon which she had resided since about the
year 1826.
The Bill for the Relief of Maria Syphax
came up for a second hearing in the Senate May 18, 1806. Senator
Morrill inquired of Senator Harris on what grounds the bill was
placed. Senator Harris stated that the person named in the bill
was a mulatto woman who was once the slave of Mr. Custis. He
said
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Mr. Custis, at the time she married
about forty years ago feeling an interest in the woman,
something perhaps akin to a paternal instinct,
manumitted her, and gave her this piece of land. It has
been set apart to her, and it has been occupied by her
and her family for forty years. Under the circumstances
the Committee thought it no more than just, the
government having acquired title to this property under
a sale for taxes, that this title should be confirmed to
her. |
Senator Harris explained that "the title
runs to this woman and her heirs." On June 8, 1866, the
House advised the Senate that Bill S. No. 321 for the Relief of
Maria Syphax had passed, without amendment. It passed the senate
June 11, 1866, and was signed by President Andrew Johnson, June
12, 1866.
Very little information has been preserved
about the early life of William Syphax. It is said that he came
to Washington, D.C. at the age of eleven and attended private
schools taught by an Englishman named Nutall, John T. Johnson
and Enoch Ambush, also private schools in Alexandria. Whether he
made daily excursions from Arlington to Washington, or returned
to Arlington from Alexandria and Washington at certain definite
intervals, is not clear in the writer's mind.
He made no effort to obtain his manumission
certificate until he was quite a man, when, desiring to
accompany Robert C. Winthrop to Boston as an attendant, he went
to Alexandria "to get his papers.' He found, in the
archives of Alexandria, the document which Custis had signed
giving his mother her freedom and that of her daughter, Bertha
Elinor, six years old, and one male infant. An octogenarian
Quaker affirmed that the male child was the young Negro and he
received his credentials." . . . .
Syphax took a prominent part in all
movements and assumed leadership in many enterprises for the
advancement of Negroes in the city of Washington along social,
educational and religious lines. He was one of the founders of
the Civil and Statistical Association (18500, the aim of which
was the educational, moral and financial advancement of the
Negroes of the District of Columbia.
He sponsored and secured the incorporation of
Columbian Harmony Cemetery in 1889. Affiliating himself with the
Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in 1857, he became a deacon
there and thus functioned for a period of relatively 20 years.
He was appointed copyist in the Interior department in 1851 at
$720 a year, promoted July 14, 1874, to $900 a year and
appointed to a clerkship at $1,000 a year October 31, 1885. He
served under nine Secretaries of the Interior.
Seriously interested in the advancement of
his people, Syphax had his first great opportunity in the
passing of the act "Relating to Schools for the Education
of Colored children in the cities of Washington and Georgetown
in the District of Columbia," July 11, 1862. The act
created a board of trustees of the schools for Negro children,
specified their duties, term of office, etc., and empowered the
Secretary of the Interior to fill vacancies and make
appointments from residents "of the cities" at the
expiration of the term of one of the trustees. William Syphax
had long been thus interested.
Syphax became the first president of the
Board of Trustees of the Colored Public Schools of Washington,
D.C., serving from July 1, 1868, to June 30, 1871. It was in
this capacity that he made his chief contribution, for he was a
pioneer in the educational movement for the intellectual
advancement of the Negroes of Washington, D.C., and did much to
lay the foundation for the present school system now enjoyed by
the Colored People in the District of Columbia.
Source: Journal of Negro History, Vol. XX (4) 1935, pp.
448-476.
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George
Washington Parke Custis (April 30, 1781 –
October 10, 1857), the step-grandson of United
States President
George Washington, was a nineteenth-century
American writer, orator, and agricultural reformer.
. . . Custis died in 1857 and was buried at
Arlington alongside his wife,
Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis.
Custis's will [see above] provided that:
Arlington
plantation (approx. 1100 acres) and its contents,
including Custis's collection of George Washington's
artifacts and memorabilia, would be bequeathed to
his only surviving child
Mary Anna Custis Lee (wife of
Robert E. Lee) for her natural life, and upon
her death, to his eldest grandson
George Washington Custis Lee;
White House plantation in
New Kent County and
Romancoke plantation in
King William County (approx. 4000 acres each)
would be bequeathed to his other two grandsons
William Henry Fitzhugh Lee ("Rooney Lee") and
Robert Edward Lee, Jr., respectively;
Legacies (cash
gifts) of $10,000 each would be provided to his four
granddaughters, based on the incomes from the
plantations and the sales of other smaller
properties; (Some properties could not be sold until
after the Civil War and it was doubtful that $10,000
each was ever fully paid.)
Certain
property in "square No. 21, Washington City"
(possibly located between present day Foggy Bottom
and Potomac River) to be bequeathed to
Robert E. Lee "and his heirs."
Custis's
slaves, numbered around 200, were to be freed once
the legacies and debts from his estate were paid,
but no later than five years after his death.
(Fulfilled by Robert E. Lee, executor, in the winter
of 1862.)
Custis's death
had great effect on the careers of Robert E. Lee and
his two elder sons on the cusp of the
American Civil War. Lt. Col.
Robert E. Lee, named as an executor of the will,
took leave from his Army post in Texas for two years
to settle the affairs. During the period Lee was
ordered to lead troops to quash
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. By 1859,
Lee's eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee,
transferred to an Army position in Washington, D.C.
so that he could care for Arlington plantation,
where his mother and sisters were living. Lee's
second son, Rooney Lee, resigned his army
commission, got married, and took over farming in
White House plantation and nearby Romancoke. Robert
E. Lee was able to leave for Texas to resume his
Army career in February, 1860.
At the outbreak
of the
American Civil War, the 1,100-acre (4.5 km2)
Arlington Plantation was confiscated by Union forces
for strategic reasons (protection of the river and
national capital). A "Freedman's Village" was
established there for freed slaves in 1863. In 1864,
Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of
the US Army, appropriated some parts of Arlington
Plantation be used as a military burial ground.
After the Civil War,
George Washington Custis Lee sued and recovered
the title for the Arlington Plantation from the
United States government. Congress subsequently
bought the property from Lee for $150,000. Arlington
Plantation is now
Arlington National Cemetery and
Fort Myer. Arlington House, built by Custis to
honor George Washington, is now the
Robert E. Lee Memorial. It is restored and open
to the public under the auspices of the
National Park Service.—Wikipedia
posted 29 June 2008
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Midnight Rising
John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the
Civil War
By
Tony Horwitz
Plotted
in secret, launched in the dark, John
Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal
moment in U.S. history. But few Americans
know the true story of the men and women who
launched a desperate strike at the
slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising
portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color,
revealing a country on the brink of
explosive conflict. Brown, the descendant of
New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin
against America's founding principles.
Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to
take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for
battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by
his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and
a guerrilla band that included former slaves
and a dashing spy. On October 17, the
raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the
nation and prompting a counterattack led by
Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his
defiant eloquence galvanized the North and
appalled the South, which considered Brown a
terrorist. The raid also helped elect
Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfil
Brown's dream with the Emancipation
Proclamation, a measure he called "a John
Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."
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Slavery’s
Constitution: From Revolution
to Ratification
(2009)
By David Waldstreicher
Taking on decades of received wisdom,
David Waldstreicher has written the
first book to recognize slavery’s place
at the heart of the U.S. Constitution.
Famously, the Constitution never
mentions slavery. And yet, of its
eighty-four clauses, six were directly
concerned with slaves and the interests
of their owners. Five other clauses had
implications for slavery that were
considered and debated by the delegates
to the 1787 Constitutional Convention
and the citizens of the states during
ratification. This “peculiar
institution” was not a moral blind spot
for America’s otherwise enlightened
framers, nor was it the expression of a
mere economic interest. Slavery was as
important to the making of the
Constitution as the Constitution was to
the survival of slavery.By
tracing slavery from before the
revolution, through the Constitution’s
framing, and into the public debate that
followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows
that slavery was not only actively
discussed behind the closed and locked
doors of the Constitutional Convention,
but that it was also deftly woven into
the Constitution itself. |
For one thing, slavery was
central to the American economy, and since the
document set the stage for a national economy, the
Constitution could not avoid having implications for
slavery. Even more, since the government defined
sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in
them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to
debate over slavery’s place in the new republic. Finding meaning in silences
that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution
is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the
conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning
of our nation’s founding document.
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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