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George Washington Parke Custis' Will
A Memo
1. G.W. Parke Custis died October 10,
1857, in his 77th year
II. According to Custis' will Robert
E. Lee was named as one of the four executors. the other three
were Robert Lee Randolph, of Eastern View, Right Reverend
William Meade, and George Washington Peter. Failure of the last
named three men to quality, left the sole duty of
"discharging all the duties of settling a troublesome
estate under a complicated testament."
III. The will was probated December 7,
1857.
IV. The will provided for all of
Custis' slaves to be emancipated, "the said emancipation to
be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my
decease."
The slaves numbered sixty-three.
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Due to his need of funds Lee was
forced to hire most of his slaves out to neighboring
plantations and to eastern Virginia. This move caused a
"petty rebellion" among the slaves and they
tried to run away to Pennsylvania, but were caught and
returned to Lee. The version of a man who signed a
letter he wrote to the Editor of the N.Y. Tribune, June
19, 1859, "A Citizen," is as follows.
The
children Custis had by his slave women numbered fifteen.
On one occasion three slaves ran away
and nine miles from Pennsylvania they were captured and
returned to Col. Lee, who ordered them flogged. The
officer who captured them whipped the two men and Lee
whipped the woman. After their punishment, Lee sent them
to Richmond from his Arlington plantation to be hired
out. This letter was written from Washington, D.C. --
June 19, 1859 and the facts were told the unknown author
of the letter, by relatives of the men whipped. |
V. Lee liberated the slaves of Custis during the
winter of 1862-63 and checked the list of Negroes and had the
deed of manumission recorded in the Hustings Court of the City
of Richmond. It was (the deed) acknowledged, before Benj. S.
Cason, J.P. of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Dec. 29, 1862, and
was recorded in Richmond, Jan. 2, 1863.
VI. The following is the list of Negroes freed under
Custis' will.
1. Perry, Lee's body servant
2. Nancy
Robert E. Lee's Slaves (p. 371)
I. He (Lee) had been in contact with slavery all his
life, though he had never owned more than some half-dozen
slaves.
II. There are no references in any of Lee's letters to
slaves of his own and until the rediscovery of his will in the
records of Rockbridge County, Virginia, it was not positively
known that he ever held any servants in his own name. That
document written in 1846, showed that he then owned a Negro
woman Nancy and her children who were at the White House
plantation. He directed that they be "liberated as soon as
it can be done to their advantage and that of others."
III. Lee's Will -- Obtainable -- Clerk's Office,
Lexington, Virginia.
George Washington Parke Custis' Slaves
| Eleanor Harris |
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| Ephraim Demicks |
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| George Clarke |
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| Charles Syphax |
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Selina Grey |
6 children -- Emma, Sarah, Harry, Amise,
Ada, Thornton |
| Thornton Grey |
|
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| Margaret Taylor |
4 children -- Danbridge, Ihon, Billy,
Quincy |
|
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| Lawrence Parks |
9 children -- Perry, George, Amanda,
Martha, Lawrence, |
|
James, Magdalera, Leano, William |
|
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| Julia Ann Check |
3 children -- Catherine, Louis, Henry |
|
An infant of Catherine |
|
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| Sally Norris |
3 children -- Mary, Sally, Wesley |
| Len Norris |
|
|
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| Old Shaack Check |
|
|
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| Austin Bingham |
12 children -- Harrison, Parks, Reuben,
Henry, Edward, |
| Louisa Bingham |
Austin, Lucuis, Leanthe, Louisa, Carolina,
Jem and her infant |
|
|
| Obediah Grey |
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| Austin Banham |
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| Michael Merriday |
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| Catherine Grey and her |
child |
|
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| Marrianne Burke |
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| Agnes Burke |
|
|
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| Slaves Belonging to |
the White House Estate |
| Robert Crides |
|
| Desiah Crides |
|
| Locky Zack Young and |
child |
| Fleming Randolph and |
child |
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Source: R.E. Lee by Douglass S. Freeman, Vol. 1 (page 379);
Vol. III (page 228). |
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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 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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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.
* * *
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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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* * * * *
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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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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