This weekend (November 21-23) the Umbrella Art Fair (International Square, 1850 K Street, NW Washington DC) features a dazzling installation presented by the Capital Hill Boys Club Intergenerational Gallery. The project emerges out of the celebrated National Gallery of Art exhibition, Afro Atlantic Histories, April 10 – July 17, 2022
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/afro-atlantic-histories which originated in a major show at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Brazil in 2018, incorporating 130 art works from across four centuries of the African Diaspora.

The exhibition poster feature Zanele Muholi’s Ntozakhe II (Parktown) a striking image of the artist in blackface with an elaborate wig and head-tie, eyes slightly raised. Large format versions of the poster burst upon DC public spaces through the Metro public transit system. At the conclusion of the show, nine of these posters were presented by the National Gallery to the CHBC Gallery, allowing for collaborative projects between professional artists and local schoolchildren, honoring Muholi’s original work through acts of artistic intervention and reinterpretation.The series was first presented in June 2024 at the CHBC Gallery at 16th and Marion Barry, SE (Anacostia, Ward 8_, and is now on view at the Umbrella Art fair.

The original image, Ntozakhe II (Parktown), is part of Muholi’s photographic series of digitally altered self-portraits “Somnyama Ngonyama” (translated by the artist as “Hail, the Dark Lioness”), The projects consists of carefully posed images taken in locations around the world, through which the artist-activist gives voice to a vast number of black South Africans, primarily LGBTQ, regularly consigned by dominant social institutions to the shadows. (I have previously written about the overall project and its evocation of Nguni royal praise poetry at:
https://markauslander.com/2021/10/30/panegyric-imagery-in-zanele-muholis-somnyama-ngonyama/

The artist has remarked that Ntozakhe II (Parktown) is inspired in part by the Statue of Liberty, a work famously presented to the United States by the people of France in honor of Emancipation, later re-conceptualized as a celebration of immigration. Like other images in the “Somnyama Ngonyama” series,the work plays creatively and critically with a long history of colonial blackface and minstrelry, reclaiming a proud and defiant stance of Black feminine and queer subject positions. Other works in the Somnyama Ngonyama series, most notably those titled “Bester” honor Muholi’s mother, who worked as a domestic laborer. It is possible that a trace of his maternal figure informs Ntozakhe as well. The name Ntozakhe, in isiXhosa and isiZulu can be translated as “One who comes with their own belongings,” suggesting a proud lineage that will result in significant inheritance.

Proceeding left to right, the first remixed work in the project is Untitled, by Brian Bailey Jr. Over 20 abstract forms, of varying colors, cover the subject’s face, although Zanele’s striking eyes remain visible. I have the strong sense of the swirling energies of a rotating Yoruba Egungun mask in performance, sequined and mirrored cloth trips rising in rotation, cycling the flows of ancestral power and the invisible world into the domain of the Living.

Bailey may have drawn particular inspiration from one of the most striking works in the 2022 exhibition, Daniel Lind-Ramos’s Figura de Poder (2016–2020) created from found materials of the Afro-Puerto Rican community in Loíza, northeastern Puerto Rico. The work itself does appear to evoke Egungun shapes, consistent with the Ogun festival and other Yoruba-inflected performances.

The second reworked poster, “Bloom,” by Naje Fields, may be in conversation with the CHBC mural “Bloom” by Nonie Dope, which transforms bullet holes into blooming flowers. Fields’ interpolations incorporates raised upholstered pieces, including a green swatch across the forehead and floral designs that, like Dope’s imagery, seem to replace bullet holes with signifiers of new life. The net effect, my students thought, was akin to a flowering bush or tree, promising renewed growth emerging out of sites of violence and trauma.

The third poster, one of two by Abdul Brown in the installation, energetically splatters multiple hues across the face, a queer-friendly celebration of the Rainbow Nation, with blue lips, and a bright yellowed head tie. The toga, subdued in the original monochrome image, is now covered in rich rivulets of color. The Afro largely retains its blackness, outlined in yellow, with swatches of blue and green. A bolt of blue crosses diagonally above the head, from the blue frame’s top to its right edge.

The fourth, by students Tamara Mceachin and Tyrone Graves, plays on the design of the Stars and Stripes, an acknowledgement of the original image’s citation of the Statue of Liberty. One white star hangs us a kind of earring, while white and red stars adorn the voluminous hair. Simple lines of red, white and blue describe basic features of the face and the folds of the toga. The net effect is to re-inscribe forcefully the presence of Blackness at the heart of the American experiment.

The fifth poster, by Lewis Waters, reworks Muholi’s head to render her skull fully shaven, a classical image of Black beauty. In the lower left, emerging out of a green forest, we we glimpse the burning eyes of a Black Panther, a kind of doppelganger of the Muholi head that seems to recall a noble African heritage. Behind the head is a silver linked chain evocative of the history of the slave trade and enslavement; the chain appears to be broken in the upper right by a red swatch, perhaps evocative of the blood of cleansing revolutionary violence. Emerging from this broken link is red and yellow mass reminiscent of fire coalesced into a huge clenched fist, another homage to revolutionary histories. In the upper left, we glimpse a white man, perhaps an enslaver or a perpetrator of another sort, racing in horror towards the self-liberating Black woman, his stetson flying off his head. The enslaver is surrounded by dripping patches of red, recalling, presumably, the blood shed in colonialism and the Middle Passage. We glimpse, perhaps, a trajectory from the Underground Railroad through continuing struggles for liberation.

The sixth poster is by gallery co-director Mark Garrett and his student Jazlyn Brown. My students read the image as homage to the Marvel super-heroine Storm or Ororo Monroe, a high-level mutant member of the X-Men, a descendant of African priestesses who controls the weather and who for a time was consort of the Black Panther of Wakanda. Here, she wears a metal collar and a kind of metal armature, which could be read as instruments of enslavement, but which here seem to be conductors that condense bolts of lightning from the sky. Her Black face is framed by triangles of red and green, symbolic of the black, red and green of pan-Africanism. Perhaps her body functions as an enormous cosmic battery, pulling in the voltages of the cosmos and then shooting out through her eyes laser-like towers of light into the heavens. Her eyes are obscured, but one senses she possesses supernatural vision, seeing far beyond conventional powers of sight, far into outer space.

The seventh image is again by Abdul Brown, filled his signature multicolored aesthetic of exuberant swaths of paint blotches and dripping patterns. Again, one senses the revelation of an overpowering aura radiating off the figure’s face. The head wrap is prominently in white and the capacious afro remains in black, with multicolored filaments of paint dripped across.

The eighth image, by Taniya Graves, moves us dramatically into an Afrofuturist frame. The blackness of Zanele’s face and body become the night sky of the universe, filled with stars and swirling galaxies. The symmetrical white eyes of the face are juxtaposed with an off-center white blue splotch that might evoke the Magellanic Cloud, the brightest objects of the southern hemisphere sky. A white drizzled line, an evident home to Abdul Brown’s signature drip style, bisects the cloud and traverses the figure from the “L” of the upper word “National” down to the base of the figure’s neck. Five hearts adorn the woman’s torso, perhaps evocative of the power of love that permeates the Afrocentric universe.

Afrofuturist mythology is further developed in the series’ final, ninth remade poster, by gallery co-director William Dietrich, titled, “Mapping Like She Freed the Slaves”. The heroine now wears an “X” patch, further suggesting, as in the sixth poster, membership in the X-Men league of supernatural mutants. Her lower half is silhouetted by bands of yellow and red, suggestive perhaps of a sunset that is about to give way to the cosmic mysteries of the night sky. Her head-tie is a collage made out of torn, reassembled images from early comic books that celebrate, like image six the magical X-mutant Storm. One has the sense of concentrated consciousness, the power of Black Mind that explodes outwards into the aurora borealis, shimmering fireworks of greens, reds, and yellow that illuminate the firmament in the splendor of the northern lights.

Taken together the series of nine remixes takes us on an extraordinary journey, enabled by the gift of Zanele Muholi’s singular gift and the generosity of the National Gallery team. The CHBC team’s commitment to collaborative partnership, binding established and emerging adult artists with high-schoolers, speaks to a profound commitment to generational continuity. In that sense, the project embodies the central spirit of the Nguni concept of “Ntozakhe”, the title of the founding, repeated image. As noted, naming a newborn “Ntozakhe” signifies that the child will in time be bequeathed a great inheritance, worthy of their substantial lineage. Similarly, the gallery’s co-directors and resident artists seek to bequeath to their posterity gifts of artistic inspiration, to travel throughout the generations forever. In the shadow of the forces of racial capitalism, that have for centuries sought to corrode lines of social continuity in the Black community, the whole project is a stunning performance of revitalized lineage- from the ancestors to their posterity.

The curatorial decision to start the installation with the swirling enigmatic Afrocentric energies of the Brian Bailey Jr iteration, I would suggest, can be read as a kind of invocation of the muses, that launches us into this dreamlike pilgrimage through history, time, and space. We plunge into the violence and healing struggles of the Black American experience, with glimpses of the Middle Passage, the Underground Railroad, and the contemporary scourge of gun violence. All this proceeds under and through the watchful eyes of the Statue of Liberty, an ambiguous signifier of the promise of freedom so long denied to Black America. Out of this tumultuous history enters the magicality of Africa-informed superheroes, illuminating the far reaches of the universe. In the final images, the series explodes into vast cosmos of the future. Into this ever-expanding skyscape, the luminous figures that Jim Chuchu terms the “Afronauts”— oscillating between the ancient ancestors and their distant descendants—go traveling.

It is my deepest hope that this incomparable series can be preserved as a whole in an institutional collection, so that future generations can travel, following Zanele’s footsteps along this stellar road of Black beauty and incandescent light.

Recently, my USC-Capital Campus students and I visited the Capital Hill Boys Club Intergernational Art Gallery at 16th and Marion Barry Avenue, SE in Washington DC’s Ward 8. (We had been inspired by Elizabeth O’Gorek’s excellent article, “A Hub For Artists: Capital Hill Boys Club Art Gallery” (East of the River) July 16, 2025
https://eastoftheriverdcnews.com/2025/07/16/a-hub-for-artists-capital-hill-boys-club-art-gallery/)

We were warmly hosted by co founder Mark Garrett, and learned about many of their remarkable programs, including an artist-in-residence program, an after school arts program for elementary school children, and a community mural program.

The center is based in the former Hope Laundromat building, which had been a shooting gallery surrounded by an open air drug market. Garret and gallery co-founder Dietrich Williiams and their colleagues have created a remarkable, vital, nurturing safe space for community people of all ages.

Inside the center, my students had a chance to hang out with some of the after-school program members as they drew animals and told stories.

The team had built fences around the property, which have been filled with murals over the past year. We found many of these outdoors murals (some created during February’s Anacostia Mural Fest) well worth contemplating, and were grateful to Mr. Garrett for sharing his insights in the art works.

As the “Love Power” mural illustrates,the community is conscious of being in the shadow of the seat of national government, which looms over the horizon but which also freezes them out in so many ways. Yet, Love conquers. Here, music, perhaps Go-Go (celebrated in the nearby Go-Go Museum), is the heartbeat of the city, pulsing out of the boombox, tracing the silhouette of the city skyline.

Violence is certainly a theme in some of the work. This sculptural assemblage from a children’s plastic slide has bullet holes in it, shot by gang member friends of the artist ts his request to give it a look that reflects the lived realities in the neighborhood:

The young people we talked to are certainly very conscious of gang violence and the dangers of drive-bys. Many in the neighborhood recall the tragic year of 2020 when many women and children were lost collaterally in gun-related violence. Yet they emphasize they are standing strong. In Nonie Dope’s mural, “Bloom” (created for the Anacostia Mural Fest 25)  flowers bloom around the outline of a person killed, evidently in a drive-by shooting. The “Boom” from the guns has become “Bloom”, and the bullet holes have become flowers. 

The Sisters Wall is in the rear area of the yard.  One of the murals proclaims “Rooted and Resilient”

Many young women in the community very deeply moved by the tragic story of the ballet dancer Michaela de Prince, who had been a war orphan in Sierra Leone, then became a ballet dancer in the US and Europe, and died under undisclosed circumstances at aged 29, in 2024. The artist Kyanna Cole (@kycode83) paints her as a winged angel, her wings made out of glittering ice or glass-like forms. Below are the shattered shards of a reflective mirror, evocative of the spreading gossamer wings. Above her head floats a crown or halo. DePrince (born Mabinty Bangura) recalls in her memoirs that as a child she was deeply stigmatized due to her skin condition of vitiligo, who led to pigment loss on sections of her skin; here the artist celebrates the condition with mulicolored hues across the dancer’s face and arms.

A possible interpretation is that DePrince functions here as a kind of guardian angel, looking over and protecting all the girls and young women who gather here to pursue their love of art.

The front section of the fence, flanking the front gate, is dedicated to LGBTQ+ themes, including the mural “Love looks like us”, The colors of the rainbow radiate out from a heart enclosing multicolored young lovers.

Continuing the LGBTQ+ section, Rae Akino’s Andromeda The Milky Way, honors Grammy-winning poet and musical artist Meshell Ndegeocello ( Michelle Lynn Johnson; Meshell Suhaila Bashir-Shakur), who came of age in Southeast DC and who has self-identified as queer. The mural’s background seems to be drawn from the Adinkra symbols of the Akan people of West Africa, often found on textiles, with the name of the singer-songwriter embedded in the lower left. Meshell’s face is highlighted by yellow circle, in which see the Adinkra patterns transform into the shapes of the US Capitol, the Supreme Court, and perhaps the American flag. The work’s title honors Ndegeocello’s well known composition, Andromeda & the Milky Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzKXLtA2gqk The lyrics include the lines: “Take me down to your river/I wanna get free with you…this Love/Is written in the stars/Meant to be/ Forever, forever.” Perhaps the title alludes to the fact that our own galaxy, The Milky Way, and the nearest galaxy to us, Andromeda, are headed to collide and merge with one another in about 4 billion year. Perhaps “the river” in the song references the Anacostia river, near the neighborhood she grew up in, or perhaps it is the river of stars that stretches across the firmament.

[It is often stated that the performer adopted the name “Ndegeocollo” as a KiSwahili term meaning, “Free as a Bird” “Nedege” does mean bird but “eocollo” does not appear to be a recognizable KiSwahili phrase. Speculatively, perhaps the name is a hybrid neologism meaning something like “Bird Cello,” referencing the artist’s renown skill as bassist. ]

The well known DC artist Sydney Buffalow, has created this mural, from I believe her Moon Mama series celebrating the deep connection between women and lunar powers.

The gallery co founder Mark Garrett painted this image of “Mayor for Life” Marion Barry’s Jaguar, which used to cruise up and down tis very street,  now facing the avenue that know bears the mayor’s name.

A mural by Karla Style (@karlaeezy) , “The Eyes of the City,” depicts Mayor Barry with the three stars of the DC flag above him, and the eyes of DC all on him. (The artist explains that she didn’t actually realize she was painting the late Mayor until his widow explained to her that the visage was that of Marion as a young man. (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2025/murals-corner-anacostia-dc-artists/)

An unhoused gentlemen took me into the adjacent yard where he now sleeps at night, to very proudly me show the murals painted there, including Tarika Campbell‘s (@TarikaArt) “We are Cultured”.   A woman has an image of the Capitol dome rising out of her mind; above her are musical notes and a couple dancing, next to Egyptian pyramids, perhaps alluding to the ancient Egyptian roots celebrated by many Afrocentric thinkers in Washington DC.  He told me, “We have our own regular Smithsonian right here!

by Ellen Schattschneider and Mark Auslander

We just read Christie Thompson’s delightful interview with L.M. Bogad (author of “Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play”) on the long political tradition of absurdist protest and “tactical frivolity” that is exemplified by the Portland Frog Brigade, Operation Inflation, and the other dancing costumed frogs and fanciful critters that have been taunting agents of the Trump regime in recent weeks. As anthropologists deeply interested in animal-human transformations, we have been wondering why frogs in particular have proved so particularly beloved by those protesting ICE and other Federalized law enforcement in our current moment of crisis? As many commentators have noted, the hilarious inflatable costumes highlight the absurdity of the regime’s claim that Portland and other progressive urban areas are “war-ravaged” and worthy of invoking the Insurrection Act. Yet, why are animals, and why frogs, of all taxonomic genera, so well “suited” (pun intended) to Trump 2.0 protests?

Our point of departure is Claude Levi-Strauss’ classic observation that animals and plants are not just good to eat but “good to think.” Animal symbolism, from a structuralist perspective, offers particularly rich affordances for characterizing human social dynamics. This is not so much because of the intrinsic qualities in individual species, but because, frequently, differentiation between species highlights structural contrasts between different human social groups. Levi-Strauss urges that in unpacking the logic of totemism, we should pay attention not simply to surface “relations” between elements, but rather to ”relations between the relations.” For instance in some Pacific Northwest Coast societies, it is not so much that human members of the Eagle or Turtle clans directly resemble eagles or turtles, but that the underlying relationship between predating raptors and vulnerable reptiles is structurally comparable to the contrast between (higher ranked) wife-takers and (lower ranked) wife-givers in the human realm. For the Nuer, a Nilotic people of South Sudan, “twins are birds,” not because human twins can literally fly, but because the contrast between the great majority of fauna, which are terrestrial, and birds that fly above in the sky, is analogous to the contrast between ordinary people, who enter the world through single birth, and twins, who through the miracle of excessive “kwoth” or spirit, enter the mortal domain through multiple birth. Human twins are like birds in that birds defy the usually classificatory scheme that animals creep upon the ground, just as twins defy the usual tendency of humans (unlike most mammals) to be born one at a time.

Might this basic structuralist insight help illuminate the current choice of the frog in facing off against incipient fascism? In the most immediate sense, frogs are generally prey for predatory species including herons, snakes, raccoons, and of course people. So for protesters who wish to highlight the fact that they are not in fact a threat to their would-be oppressors, a preyed-upon species is entirely appropriate. Prey is to Predator as playful protesters are to armed uniformed jackbooted squads. Hence, it would be less effective for the protesters to be costumed as a snarling wolf or a venomous snake. How interesting in this light, that the Revolutionary War flag of the coiled rattlesnake, “Don’t Tread on Me,” has been adopted by far-right extremists and guns rights advocates. The frog, in contrast, is at the opposite end of the predator/prey spectrum. Hence, the particular horror ignited across the country when an ICE officer inserted a chemical irritant into the air vent of frog protester’s inflated costume, practically guaranteeing that the frog motif would be taken up totemically by dissidents nationwide.

In general, contrastive symbolism works best when there is an underlying resemblance between the opposed pairs. As it happens, frogs bear some physical similarities to humans, especially when they are leaping and look momentarily bipedal, even though they are usually thought be uglier than people: hence, the classic folkloric motif of the princess kissing the frog who turns into a prince (a protean mytheme which probably plays upon the near miraculous transformation of tadpoles into frogs). Green inflated frogs with large rounded heads bear an exaggerated visual resemblance, as well, to paramilitary officers clad in camouflage green tactical outfits and visored helmets, a point highlighted in many of the viral photographs and videos of stand-offs between the prancing frog brigade and the grimacing line of armed ICE agents.

Endlessly protean, moving improbably from egg to tadpole to frog, hopping from water to land and back again, puffing up their throats to utter the loudest of collective calls, frogs have long served as natural channels of chaotic magicality. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, in his 1533 edition of De occulta philosophia libri tres (Three books of occult philosophy) recalls the ancient wisdom of Pliny:

“Pliny reports that there are red toads that make their home in briars, and are full of sorcery and do wonderful things. For the small bone that is in its left side, when cast into cold water, makes it immediately become hot. It restrains the attacks of dogs. Added to a drink, it arouses love and quarrels. When tied to someone, it arouses lust. On the other hand, the little bone that is in the right side cools hot water, and it will not become hot again unless the bone is taken out. It cures quartan fevers, when tied in a fresh lamb’s skin, and prevents other fevers and love and lust. And the spleen and heart of these toads make an effective remedy against the poisons that are drawn from those animals” (Quoted in Anthony Grafton, Marked by Stars Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy)

Summoning up reservoirs of magical metamorphosis and healing energy, the frog at the front of the protesting crowd is the cure to all that ails us: as mere individuals at the present moment each one of us is a quivering mess of anxious fear, but through the frogs at our vanguard, we are transformed (poof!) into the brave Prince staring down the Dragon.

Indeed, the raucous inflatables resonate with the magicality of premodern masquerades, which for millennia have channeled the cosmological energies of animals and supernatural beings. In ritual masking traditions the world over, performers lend their physical bodies to the intangible spirits of the mask. In the modern protests, the masked critters —plump frogs, cute bunnies, dancing unicorns— evoke the frisson of childhood animated cartoons. It is as if the entrancing energy of Saturday morning TV shows, a treasured dreamtime of childish safety and delight, is being summoned up to defuse the brutal nightmare of looming totalitarianism. The intrepid wise-cracking spirit of Kermit, everyone’s favorite alter ego, manifests himself as a fearless guardian in the face of every schoolyard bully we’ve ever known. As Kermit bursts through the TV screen of Sesame Street and the Muppet Show, we behold a particularly potent effort to undo a populist figure who has shown an uncanny genius in commanding global airwaves and social media feeds.

At the heart of the current struggle, as Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey would remind us, is the question of rights to the city. Are the urban areas of tomorrow to be ruthlessly homogeneous, subject to panoptic state surveillance and the capricious rule of an all- powerful sovereign, who delights in tormenting all adversaries high and low, serving the interests of an impossibly privileged oligarchy? Or is the city to be the site of irreducible heterogeneous difference, in which power flows not from a unitary center but from innumerable sites of creative practice anchored in the practical lived experience of the masses?

Hence, perhaps, the deep visceral appeal of children’s most beloved ritual of reversal, Halloween itself. As the dark shadows of winter loom, children, subordinate to the whims and dictates of their elders for the rest of the year, have one magical night in which their wishes are paramount. On Halloween, children take over the streets of their environs, empowered by their costumes and their chorused playful cries of “trick or treat.” Some of that magic seems summoned up in the costumed front line of protesters, in Portland and across the nation, joyously and absurdly speaking truth to power.

In so doing, they reenact one of the oldest narratives of liberation from bondage. When all hope seemed lost way down in Egypt’s land, when his people were oppressed so hard they could not stand, the Lord commanded his servants to “Stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.’ (Exodus 8: 6) Amphibians, unique in their ability to traverse underwater and terrestrial domains, move instantly from the invisible to the visible. Now, facing down the new agents of Empire, a new irrepressible flock of frogs comes up over the land. They are hilarious, absurd, unarmed, unarmored, portly, inflated. True weapons of the weak. Yet they carry with them the oldest of dreams, that the Last shall be First, and those who had been bowed down with fear shall spring up with the joy of a million frogs, and propel themselves, irrepressibly, back into the light.

My students and I have been pondering a fascinating line in the September 1749 will of Richard Bennett III, who died in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore:

Bennett wills to Ann Bell (actually Beall), whom he identifies as “a little girl that lives with me under the care of her aunt the said Ann Brooke” a estate of 249 acres, and then adds:

“I give and bequeath unto the said Ann Bell [Beall] the negro girl Bettey that plays with her, and one hundred pounds sterling and one hundred pounds current paper money. The said land and plantation and the said legacy of the Negro Girl and money to be under the care and management of the said aunt Ann Brooke until she comes of age or marriage.” (Liber 28, folio 466. 25 Sept. 1749, p, 474)

At the time of his death Richard Bennett III was reckoned the wealthiest man in Maryland colony and perhaps the wealthiest man in British colonial North America. He is sometimes referenced as North America’s first multimillionaire. His lengthy will was subject to extensive subsequent litigation and laid the foundation for the wealth of many Maryland families of historical importance.

Our fascination here, however is in the wording of the final passage of the paragraph, in which Bennett bequeaths to the little girl Ann Beall, evidently motherless, who lives with him, the “negro girl Bettey that plays with her.” What kind of emotional and ideological configuration is evoked in this phrasing? And what in turn, can we infr about the lives of these two young women, Ann Beall and Bettey, linked by this legal instrument?

In itself, there is nothing particular unusual in a white child being willed a enslaved child, of roughly the same age. The practice of pairing free and slave same-sex children appears to have been common in slave-owning societies in North America and the Caribbean, in part to ensure that the white child would have a paired enslaved person to serve as a companion and domestic, perhaps in time as a valet or maid in waiting. Elsewhere in this same will Bennett bequeaths to the three white children of Charles Browne (married to his cousin Priscilla Brooke Brown) a twelve year old male slave child and an eight year female slave child.

Elsewhere, I have written of the case of Lt William Joseph Belt of Calvert County, Maryland, across the Chesapeake Bay from Queen Anne’s County, who at this death in 1859 bequeathed each of his four sons an enslaved boy, and to each of his four daughters, an enslaved girl. In my book, The Accidental Slaveowner (2011), I discuss comparable probate cases, in which one might argue the enslaver, writing his will, is in effect deploying enslaved children as pawns or counters in reinforcing the bonds of white kinship.

Yet although the patterns is familiar, there is something particularly striking about the phrase, “the negro girl Bettey that plays with her.” In many cases in which enslaved children are bequeathed in wills, they are identified as the child of a named enslaved mother. This was consistent with legal code that based the station of slavery on the state of the mother: the child of an enslaved mother was perpetually enslaved, regardless of whether or not the child’s father was free. Since on many plantations more than one bond-child bore the same first name, the addendum of the mother’s name served to legally differentiate enslaved children, an important matter when division of the estate was worked out by the estate’s administrators.

Here, however, the enslaved girl Bettey is only identified by the fact that she plays with the orphaned white girl Ann. Bettey’s status as a play companion was presumably emphasized by Bennett, in part, to disambiguate Bettey from other enslaved girls in his voluminous estate.

One may, as well, infer a certain sentimental indulgence on the part of Richard Bennett, in his own mind. Ann Beall, cared for by her aunt Ann Brooke (for whom she might be named) is being gifted the Black child who she has a close emotional bond with, as one might bequeath a pet or plaything to a young person who had become attached to an object of affection. (Having said that, as my colleague Stephen Clingman notes, it is intriguing that the enslaved Bettey is in effect assigned agency by Bennett- it is she “that plays with” the white girl Ann.)

We might note that this is not the only act of sentimental charity in the will that makes use of enslaved people. The document begins with the declaration that Bennett bequeaths “To cousin George Parker of Accomac Co., [Virginia], all my lands, as Bennetts Cr. in Nansemond Co., my livestock, & negroes, to raise L 30 Virginia silver currency yearly to be paid to the wardens of the Lower Parish Nansemond on 25 March for the poor.” The Poor, that is to say, the white poor, of the parish (where his grandfather, as it happens, resided) are to be cared for in perpetuity by the labor of enslaved persons in the local Bennett estate.]

There is a kind of sentimental kinship at play in Bennett’s performative utterance, ensuring that the free girl Ann and her enslaved counterpart Bettey will be bound together for life. They are it would appear in Bennett’s eyes already sisters of sort, by virtue of innocently playing with one another. The legal act of bequeathing makes this quasi-kinship affective relationship an irrevocable jural fact on the ground, transferring Bettey from the category of playmate to property/plaything.

We might read this transformation of Bettey from Ann’s playmate to her property as an instance of what Rob Nixon terms “slow violence,” the gradual, often unremarked-upon imposition of potent relations of power, unfolding in ways that are often mystified or, in psychoanalytic terms, disavowed by actors. At the manifest level, the act of bequeathing is framed as preserving girlish friendship among age-mates. In a legal sense, of course, Bettey was already enslaved, so the transition is only from her being property of Richard Bennett to being new property of Bennett’s ward Ann Beall, under the supervision of Ann Beall’s aunt Ann Brooke , until Ann Beall comes of age. Through the will’s phrasing the underlying structural violence of the relationship between enslaver and enslaved is somewhat displaced or muted, recast as one of mutual affection. All of this is consistent, as I have argued in my book The Accidental Slaveowner (2011), with a common structure of feeling in the enslavement system, in which the plantocracy often sought to cast chattel bondage in a sentimental ethos of mutual care, deference, and putative kindness.

This transaction may also be conceived of as a special instance of The Gift as classically theorized by Marcel Mauss. Bennett imbues the gift (in this instance the slave girl Bettey) with an aspect of himself, so that the gifted entire comes to embody the enduring relationship between himself and the recipient, with ward Ann Beall, a bond that would last after Bennett’s death. The gift relationship is complicated by the fact Bettey is also a commodity, who can, once her new owner comes of age, be sold by Ann Beall on the market or used as security in a loan or mortgage.

Manumission of Dick, and Gifts of Clothing to Slaves

Bennett only frees one enslaved person in his will, his enslaved carpenter, Dick, with the following provisions:

“Item, I do give my Negro man Dick the carpenter his freedom and hereby manumit and set free and at full iiberty my said Negro man Dick, and do him hm all the chest of tools and other tools of every sort which he usually works with, and do also order my executor to give the said Negro Dick one suite of Cloathes made of narrow cloth of shilligngs stocking of hard, two shirts of Irish linen of one shilling and five p? of yard and two shirts of spring ozenbuggs? line, one part of good shoess and one part worsted stockings. one castor hatt and two Romal hankerchiefs. ” (p. 476)

In the previous item, Bennett instructs his executors to provide all his negroes and mulattos in the province of Maryland with articles of clothing, including coats for the males and petticoats for the females.

Who were the parties?

It should be noted that Richard Bennett’s enormous wealth was in part due to his advantageous marriage around 1700 to Elizabeth Rousby (1682-1740), who controlled the plantation and lucrative commecial port known as Morgan’s Neck (later Bennetts Point), on the southeastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, having inherited it from her childless aunt and uncle Frances and Peter Thayer. The Bennetts never had children and after Elizabeth’s death in 1740, Bennett continue tor reside on the property until his own death in 1749.

Perhaps because he was childless, Bennett had multiple cousins residing with him at Bennett’s Point. I am not sure at this point of all their connections, but a close reading of several wills and associated document of the period indicate that Ann Beall (the little girl to whom Bettey was willed) was the daughter of Elizabeth Brooke (b. 23 Nov 1707) , deceased before 1749, and Nathaniel Beall, who died 20 February 1757 (Frederick, Maryland). Nathaniel does not seem to have been able or willing to care for his daughters Ann and Priscilla Beall, and hence must have entrusted their care to his late wife’s sisters, Ann Brooke and Priscilla Brooke Browne.

Elizabeth Brooke Beall’s surviving sister Ann Brooke later married William Carmichael (d. 1769), and was evidently the stepmother of the prominent American secret agent, diplomat and delegate to the Continental Congress, William Carmichael, Jr. who died on a mission to Spain in 1795. Perhaps in gratitude to her wealthy beneficiary she named one of her own sons, Richard Bennett Carmichael (1752-1824).

Elizabeth and Ann Brooke’s sister Priscilla Brooke by the time of Richard Bennett’s death was married to Charles Browne. As noted in Richard Bennett’s will, Ann Beall was cared for by her aunt Ann Brooke, and her sister Priscilla Beall was cared for by her aunt Priscilla Brooke Brown.

As of this writing, I have not been able to locate the probate inventory records for Richard Bennett’s 1749 estate in the Queen Anne’s County Register of Wills records. The inventory would normally list the names, ages, and appraised values (and in some cases family relations) of all enslaved persons in the estate.

It may well be that Bettey was the biological daughter of Richard Bennett, or that there was some other biogenetic relationship between Ann Beall and Bettey, as this was not unusual in slavery-based households. One recalls the famous instance of Sally Hemmings, the enslaved half sister of Martha Wayles Jefferson, who was transferred from the estate of of John Wayles, the shared father of Martha and Sally, to Thomas Jefferson. Thus, Martha’s half sister Sally accompanied her from the Wayles household to the Jefferson household, where Sally as is well known, in time bore some of Jefferson’s enslaved children.)

What Happened after Richard Bennett’s Death?

Ann Beall was reasonably well set up in life by Bennett with a gift of the 249 acre property known as Poplar Ridge, “in the borough of Wye River in Talbot County where Edwd. Griffin is my tenant”. Her aunt and guardian Ann Brooke, with whom she would continue to live until her marriage or her majority, was willed the estate of Stagwell, “purchased from Andrew Price & pat. for 526a, Stagwell Addition 129a adj., the rest of Bennett’s Choice on the crk. leading to Seths Landing, & the negroes & livestock.” So Bettey would have been removed from the main Bennett household and taken to Stagwell, near Queenstown. This site, which passed into the Carmichael family through Ann Brooke’s marriage to William Carmichael, was located on what is now Carmichael Road near Wye Fields Lane and Stagwell Road in Carmichael, Maryland. This is about 12 miles northeast of Bennett Point, where the Richard Bennett household had been located.

Hence, what was likely conceived of by Richard Bennett as a sentimental gesture, presumably had real life consequences for little Bettey, most likely separating her from her mother and siblings in the Bennett household. The will also states that Ann Brooke, who oversaw Ann Beall, was to receive “negro girl Easter & negro boy Benn that attends in the house”, so Bettey would be brought up with these two individuals, who may or may not have been her kin.

Easter and Benn, willed in 1749 to Ann Brooke (later Ann Brooke Carmichael), appear four years later in Ann Brooke Carmichael’s will, which was proved 15 January 1753 (Queen Anne’s County Register of Will, Liber 28, folio 510), She wills to her cousins “Ann Beall and Mary Beall, negro boy Ben, and negro woman Easter (that always waited on me) and her issue, equally divided.” If Bettey was still alive, she thus would have been reunited with Ben and Easter, and perhaps lived with Easter’s eventual children.

“Our” Bettey may be the same Betty who is referenced in a manumission act by the grandson of Ann Brooke Carmichael, William Carmichael on 26 November 1818. A newly freed woman “Betty” is listed as “Daughter to Betty, mother to Hannah & Jenny” (Queen Anne’s County Folder 11,2,, witnessed by Wm. Clayton & E.P. Wilmer. Entered in Liber TM #2, folio 24-5, 30 Nov 1818. Series: c251.) This William Carmichael (1775-1853), son of Richard Bennett Carmichael, was an attorney and Maryland state senator who manumitted at least 66 of his enslaved people, between 1811-1839, one of the largest manumissions in Maryland history.

One of these Bettys might be the Betty Mathy listed as heading an all Black free household in the 1820 census in the adjacent Anne Arundel County, District 4, Maryland, consisting of a free Black woman over 45, a free Black man over 45, and a free Black man between the ages of 26 and 44.

It is hoped that future research may cast light on the story of the enslaved child Bettey and her family, in the Richard Bennett household and then under the control of Ann Brooke Carmichael and her ward Ann Beall.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful for guidance on Queen Anne County probate records from Ms, Barb Pivec, President Emeritus, Queen Anne’s County Historical Society.

What do we know of the Peggy, the slave ship that transported 144 enslaved Africans from The Windward Coast in West Africa in 1770, evidently selling scores of them in the port of Georgetown, Prince George’s County, Maryland, which three decades later became part of the District of Columbia?

It would appear that the Peggy is the first ship documented to have directly sold slaves in Georgetown, so its story is of considerable historical interest. (References to this sale include Johnston 2021)

It should be noted that some sources (eg Keyes Port) have misread data compiled in Slave Voyages: the Trans Atlantic slave database, slavevoyages.org, to conclude that enslaved people were landed in Georgetown for sale much earlier, from at least 1732 onwards. This is improbable, since the town of “George” or “George-town” was not even laid out until 1751. The principal mistake appears to be misreading the destination “North Potomac” as meaning Georgetown, whereas “North Potomac” simply seems to be a designation for the north bank of the Potomac river, stretching about 100 miles from the river’s mouth on the Chesapeake Bay to the Fall line, near the modern day site of Georgetown. Generally speaking, the voyages that terminated in “North Potomac” seem to have landed many miles downriver of the present day site of Georgetown, in Charles County or St Mary’s County, Maryland

Note: Testimony entered into the Congressional Record by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (October 5, 2021) asserts that “The first enslaved Africans were believed to have been brought through the Georgetown port in 1732.” The voyages referenced in this account disembarked enslaved captives in “North Potomac” ports, but there is no direct evidence so far as I know that the Georgetown port recieved slave ships prior to the 1770 sale from the Peggy.

The August 1770 Sales

Our principal record of the 1770 sale from the Peggy is from an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette on August 30, 1770, placed August 17, referring to a double sale that was to take place on August 27, 1770. The notice reads:

“Port Tobacco , August 17, 1770. NEGROES. Just imported in the Snow Peggy, Captain William Sharp, from Africa,

A PARCEL of choice healthy SLAVES, consisting of Men, Women, and Children; One Half thereof to be sold by the Subscribers, on Monday the 27th Instant, at George-Town, on Patowmack River; and the other Half at Nottingham, on Patuxent River, on the same Day, at which Places the Sale to continue ’til all sold, for Sterling Cash, or good Bills of Exchange, payable in London.”

Note that the term “snow” is derived from the Dutch word, “snauw” (beak) referencing the distinctively shaped prow of a two masted vessel with a larger rear triangular sail. Hence, the vesssel was named the “Peggy”, not, as in some published accounts on line, the “Snow Peggy.”

The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade database assigns the 1770 trip of the Peggy the unique voyage ID #91463, and records the Peggy was constructed in Liverpool in 1768. The Peggy under Captain William Sharp undertook two previous slave voyages prior to its journeyto Maryland in 1770. In 1768, it took on slaves in Bassa (in present day Liberia) and disembarked them on the island of Dominica, and in 1769, it collected slaves at Grand Sestos (present day Liberia) on the Windward Coast, and again disembarked them in Dominica. The 1770 trip to Maryland would thus appear to the Peggy’s first trip to mainland North America,

The Peggy departed Liverpool, on August 8, 1769 then collected 166 slaves from locations on Africa’s “Windward Coast” (the region between Cape Mount and the Assini River, which encompassed parts of modern-day Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire, known as the “Windward Coast” since ocean-going vessels traveling south regularly encountered winds directly blowing into them ) After crossing the Atlantic, the Peggy disembarked an unspecified number of slaves on the island of Dominica, possibly in June, then traveled about 1,800 mile northwest to Maryland, where it sold the majority of its human cargo in August 1770.

Reading the wording of the advertisement, we may infer one scenario: upon arriving in the Tidewater region the Peggy first deposited half of its enslaved people in Nottingham, which at that point was located at a point on the Patuxent river still navigable by ocean-going vessels. Then the Peggy might have sailed down the Patuxent to the Chesapeake Bay and sailed about 100 miles up the Potomac to the port of Georgetown, to disembark the remaining slaves in its cargo. Speculatively, if around 45 slaves were sold in Dominica, then perhaps about 50 were disembarked in Nottingham and about 50 disembarked in Georgetown. (As of this writing, I have not found specific records of how many slaves were sold at any given location or details on pricing or names of those sold.)

Georgetown port, as noted, is situated just below the Fall line, marked by rapids to this day, that rendered it the furthest navigable site up the Potomac River for ocean-going vessels. (For this reason George Washington and others campaigned to organize a canal to open up more of the interior to trade and other mercantile activity.)

Barnes & Ridgate

The firm that organized the slave sale, Barnes & Ridgate, was a partnership of John Barnes and Thomas How (or Howe) Ridgate, based in Port Tobacco (Charlestown), Charles County. Maryland, headquartered in Stagg Hall, which still stands. They were primarily tobacco merchants, with real estate holdings in multiple Maryland locations. It is not clear why Barnes & Ridgate chose to hold two simultaneous slave sales in Nottingham and Georgetown; perhaps they calculated that better profits could be realized by appealing to two geographically distinct clientele, one in the upper Potomac Georgetown region, marked by relatively modest agrarian holdings and mercantile firms, and the other around Upper Marlborough, an area of dense slave-based plantations.

A few weeks before the Georgetown and Nottingham sales of the Peggy’s human cargo, Barnes & Ridgate advertised the sale of another group of slaves from the ship Providence, also a “snow” vessel, captained by Thomas Davis and owned by a Mr Shoolbrd, These slaves, purchased in Gambia, were to be sold at Lower Cedar Point, on July 23, from July 30 to August 3, 1760 at Najemoy and on August 7 at Mr William DIgge’s landing near Piscataway. (slavevoyages.org records that on this voyage the Providence embarked 162 slaves in Gambia and disembarked 132, thirty captives presumably dying during the horrific passage.)

It is not precisely clear how Barnes & Ridgate came to organize these various sales from the Providence and the Peggy. They are not listed as owners of the Peggy, which was owned by Peter Baker, Robert Green, John Clarke and John Johnson, whom were I presume were Liverpool merchants.

It is possible that Barnes and Ridgate’s key link to the owners or captain of the Peggy was through the wealthy merchant Abraham Barnes, father of John Barnes. Abraham Barnes, with James Gildart, was co-owner of three documented slave trade voyages: the Upton which in 1759 transported slaves from Gambia, landing 205 slaves in Annapolis, Maryland on August 8, 1759; a later trip by the Upton, carrying about 137 slaves from Gambia to the port of Nanjamoy in Charles County, Marylnd in 1761; and the Lawrell, which purchased slaves at James Fort in Gambia. (The subsequent fate of the Lawrell and its slaves is unknown.)

Whatever profits Barnes and Ridgate may have realized from these slave sales, they quickly ran into major financial challenges, during the British debt crisis of the early 1770s which caused widespread hardship for the mercantile and planer elite in the thirteen colonies. In May and June 1773, trustees for Barnes and Ridgate advertised for all those indebted to the firm to settle their debts. The Fall of 1773 saw several urgent sales of real estate and mercantile goods by the firm, and multiple calls by trustees to settle the firm’s extensive debts. By the time of his death in 1773, the father of John Barnes, Abraham Barnes, a major landowner and enslaver, had lost patience with his son’s business misadventures. Abraham Barnes’ will, dated June 29, 1773 states:


“In 1764 I gave my son John a very sufficient quantity of goods to begin trade and merchandise. Contrary to my expectations, he has carelessly lost and sunk all I gave him and is more in debt than I am able to pay, he having stripped all the ready money I had and has involved me in a very considerable security to Osgood, Hanberry and Company, merchants in London, and others. On the whole, this will amount to an equal share of my estate, but above all, he has robbed me of my happiness and peace of mind at a time of life when I expected to be free from any disturbance or anxiety. 
When he reflects on this and that this profoundly unhappy condition and misfortune is entirely owing to his own obstinacy in rejecting my advice and opinion in all things and at the same time not informing himself of the true state of his affairs and endeavors (and) to keep everything material from my knowledge. From this melancholy consideration, he cannot, with any reason, expect any further favor or indulgence from me. Therefore, I give all to my son, Richard Barnes”.
SOURCE https://reno.stmaryshistory.org/smc/articles_files/july_ABarnes.html

John Barnes appears to have been in considerable financial distress for the rest of his life. He moved to property owned by his brother Richard, who as noted above was the sole beneficiary of their father Abraham’s estate. John Barnes died in Washington County, Maryland in 1800. [Richard Barnes, who died in 1804, attempted in his will to free approximately 200 of slaves; due to legal technicalities only 101 of this number attained freedom.]

Thomas Ridgate, the other partner in Barnes and Ridgate. also seems to have been consumed with debt challenges in his final years. He died intestate in Charles County in March 1790 in Charles County, Maryland. His court ordered estate inventory lists 13 enslaved people: Abram, 33 years old old, Jess, 31, Sam 19, (subject to convulsive tfits ) Frederick 5, Spencer 2, Fanny, 24, Nell 17, Jane Sickley, 15, Molly 16, Darkey, 7, Milly 5, Monaky, 2, Priss, 7. Of these, Abram, Jess and Fanny were old enough to have come off of the Peggy, although that does seem unlikely.


Captain William Sharp and the Peggy: The Robins Johns episode

William Sharp, who captained the Peggy into Georgetown in 1770? is recorded as have captained two later slave trading voyages on the Peggy. In 1772 (Voyage #91741) he sailed from Liverpool to the Windward Coast and then disembarked 287 slaves in Dominica. By the time of this voyage, he had evidently earned sufficient funds to be listed as a co-owner of the voyage. In 1774, Sharp again captained (with George McMein) the Peggy (Voyage # 91906) from Liverpool to the Windward Coast, then disembarking slaves in British Honduras and Charleston, South Carolina

In his fascinating book, The Two Princes of Calabar (2009), Randy Sparks infers that Captain Sharp intersected with one of the most intriguing episodes in the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the story of Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin John, known as the Robin Johns or “the two princes,” The Robins John, who may have been uncle and nephew, were prominent Efik slave traders in Old Calabar (present day Nigeria), who were captured, sold into slavery and transported to Dominica. Sparks proposes that in Dominica they made contact with Captain Sharp, who falsely promised to return them to Old Calabar, but who in fact tricked them, transporting them to Virginia and selling them to the Bristol-native Captain John Thompson, who abused them seriously. With great difficulty the Robin Johns eventually secured their freedom and returned to Old Calabar. Sharp clearly had connections with the Efik slave traders: Sparks notes that the Efik ruler of Calabar, Grandy King George, the brother of Little Ephraim, praised William Sharpe in a letter in 1773, as a “very good” man, not knowing how Sharp had tricked his brother and nephew (Sparks 2009, p 168, fn 19)

(I am having difficulty retracing all of Sparks’ detective work, since the journey of the Peggy he references, #91357, is not listed in slavevoyages.org as continuing to Virginia, although of course it may have done so. Alternately the Robin Johns may have been on the Peggy voyage to Maryland and purchased by Captain Thompson in 1770.)

This Captain William Sharp may be the same William Sharp who two decades later in 1792 is listed as owning 58 slaves in St Ann’s Province, Jamaica.

It is my hope that future research will reveal more details on the lives of the persons transported on board the Peggy and sold in Georgetown in August 1770.

References

James H. Johnston. Slavery was part and parcel of the wealth of early Georgetown.Washington Post. August 27, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/27/slavery-was-part-parcel-wealth-early-georgetown/

Sparks, Randy J. (2009). The two princes of Calabar: an eighteenth-century Atlantic odyssey. Harvard University Press

Keyes Port of Washington: Capital City Slavery Tour,

John Barnes, legal records; from https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I102445&tree=Tree1&sitever=mobile

Building on research by Lisa Fager of the Black Georgetown Foundation and staff members at Dumbarton House, my students and I are researching the life and legacy of Grace (Gracy) Ann Duckett, born c. 1791 in Maryland, deceased July 28, 1874 in Georgetown, District of Columbia. Gracy appears to have spent the majority of her adult life, from around 1820 until 1862, enslaved by the Whitall family of upper Georgetown. She then resided as a free woman in the home of her daughter Julia Ann Duckett Cartwright and Julia’s husband Rev. Lewis Cartwright, in their nearby home (31 West street, currently 2620 P street, NW) up until her death in 1874

It seems likely that Grace was initially owned by the Eversfield family of Prince George’s County, Maryland. The enslaver Charles Eversfield of Nottingham Town owned around 30 people when he died at some point in 1820. Around that time, Grace was probably acquired by the merchant Samuel Whitall. Whitall, who was in the process of moving his fishing interests from New Jersey to the Potomac region, rented Bellevue House of north Georgetown, in 1820 from the heirs of Charles Carroll. The house, previously known as the Jackson House of Cedar Hill had earlier been occupied by Joseph Nourse, the first Registrar of the US Treasury, from 1804 until around 1817, when Nourse acquired the tract of land he termed Mount Albans, now the land occupied by the National Cathedral and St. Albans Church. (I have traced some of the the enslaved people owned by the Nourse family in various publications, including: https://gloverparkhistory.com/population/slaves-population/mount-alban-highlands/)

As noted, it seems likely that Whitall purchased Grace from the Eversfield family of Prince George’s County around 1820-22. In 1824, Charles Eversfield’s son and heir John Thomas Eversfield placed Grace’s daughters Juliann (Julie Ann) and Emeline as term-limited indentured servants with Samuel Whitall, providing that they be freed at age twenty. Perhaps Whitall, a member of the Society of Friends (that is to say, a Quaker) harbored some qualms about the excesses of the slavery system and sought to reunite Grace with her young daughters. It should be noted that the 1822 probate inventory of Charles Eversfield’s property, mentioned below, does not mention Grace, so her sale, if it took place, either happened before Charles Eversfield’s death or before the probate inventory was completed.

The first written reference I know of Grace dates to 1826. On 9 February 1826, Samuel Whitall mortgaged “Grace”, later known as Gracie or Gracy Duckett, and her children Henry, Emeline and Julia to help settle a debt owed to Caleb Newbold of Philadelphia. Among the collateral property listed is “1st One black woman named Grace with her child [Henry], and the time of two colored (sic) girls named Emeline Ducket & Julian Ducket until (sic) they arrive at the age of twenty years.“ (The original mortgage is at the DC History Center MS 0725.1298.) Whitall must have settled his debts, since Grace and her children remained in his possession, and Julia was ultimately freed.

The 1830 census records that Samuel Whitall owned seven slaves in Georgetown. Grace may have been the enslaved female aged 24 through 35. (The 1830 and 1840 censuses only list age range for free and enslaved people;.)

The next explicit reference we see to Grace Duckett is in the membership register of Mount Zion Methodist Church in Georgetown, in 1836. The Church was near the household of Samuel Whitall, who resided, as noted, in the Bellevue House of upper Georgetown from 1820 until his death in 1855.

The same register, under January 6, 1836, lists Grace’s daughter Julia Duckett as a member of the church.

The 1840 census for the household of Samuel Whitall lists five slaves, including an enslaved woman, aged between 36 and 54, who is likely to be Grace.

A decade later, it seems likely that Grace is the 56 year old enslaved woman listed as the oldest of six slaves of Samuel Whitall in his 1850 slave schedule, which enumerates the age. sex, and color of the enslaved.

In the 1860 census, although she was still enslaved at the time, Grace Duckett is listed by name as if she were a free person, residing in the home of her enslaver Lydia (nee Newbold) Whittall. the widow of Samuel Whitall. who had passed away five years earlier. The 1860 slave schedule does not record any any enslaved people in the Whitall household.

As I have discussed elsewhere, in May 1858, Lydia Whitall decided to manumit two enslaved brothers, Stephen and James Bennett, the sons of the free woman Minn or Jemima. (see: https://markauslander.com/2024/01/26/in-search-of-stephen-and-james-bennett-manumitted-from-belle-vue-georgetown/) Lydia did not however choose to manumit Gracie at this point. My understanding is that Grace was the very last enslaved person owned by Lydia Whitall. (The 1860 slave schedule, as noted, does not list any slaves belonging to Lydia; instead, Grace is listed in the regular Federal Census, which in principle enumerates free people only.)

In early 1862, the enslaved Grace was manumitted by the will of Lydia Whitall, the widow of the Georgetown merchant Samuel Whitall, who had previously owned her. (Lydia Whitall Will, page 1, “[Item] 2nd. I discharge from slavery my servant woman Grace & direct my Executors to pay her out of my Estate the sum of thirty dollars annually during the term of her life, in half yearly payments”. The manumission took place several months before the Act of Compensated Emancipation in the District of Columbia, which freed all 3,200 enslaved individuals in the District. (Presumably, if Lydia Whitall had lived until mid-April 1862, Grace would have received nothing.)

Eight years after her manumission, Gracie is recorded in the 1870 census in the household her daughter and son in law, Julia Ann Duckett Cartwright and Reverend Lewis Cartwright on West street, later P street, in Georgetown.

Gract;s death notice, notes that she died on July 28 [1874] “in Georgetown, in ther residence of her daughter, Julia Cartwright, Gracy Duckett, in her eighty-third year. Funeral this (Thursday) afternoon at 3 o’clock, from her daughter’s residence, No 31 West street. Relatives and friends are invited to attend.”

Gracie’s well preserved headstone in the Female Union Band Society section (Mt Zion West) of the cemetery, reads:

“In Memory of
GRACY DUCKETT
The mother of
JULIA CARTWRIGHT
Died July 28, 1874
Aged 83 years

A loved companion faithful and true,
In the work that her master gave her to do,
Sweet be thy rest in that home bright and fair,
… my Savior…”

Who was the father of Gracie’s children?

Some have speculated that Augustus Duckett (c. 1800-1879) was husband to Gracie and father to her daughters Julia Ducket Cartwright, Emeline Ducket and Henry Duckett . However, the 1850 census implies that Augustus was married to Lucy Duckett, age 50, and father to Edward Duckett, 21 and Mary Duckett, 17. This is consistent with the 15 April 1853, will of Lucy Duckett’s who leaves her property to her husband Augustus and after his death, to their children, Edward, Mary and William (Lucy may be same person as the Lucy Duckett liberated by the last will and testament of Ann Hall, in Prince George’s County, bearing te date May 15, 1815, and recorded in a 1852 freedom certificate.)

The 1871 city directory shows Augustus Duckett residing at 1149 23rd St NW in the West End, while Gracie according to the 1870 census was residing in the household of her son in law Rev Lewis Cartwright at what was then 21 West Street (later 2620 P Street) in Georgetown. So the preponderance of evidence is that Augustus and Gracie were not married, although they may have been siblings or cousins.

One possibility may be that Julia and Emeline were fathered by the enslaver John Eversfield, and that for this reason he was willing to place the two girls in an indentured situation with Samuel Whitall of Georgetown, on June 19, 1824. with the provision that they be freed upon reaching the age of twenty.

Duckett Enslavers

The white Duckett family of Maryland has a long enslaving history. Richard Duckett Sr. (1675–1754) settled in Maryland from England and had many slaveowning descendants, among them his grandson Baruch Duckett (d. 1810) of Fairview. Queen Anne Parish, Prince George’s County, who owned 59 slaves in 1800, and Federal Circuit Judge Allen Bowie Duckett (1775 – July 19, 1809), who presided over some of the important Queen cases, of an enslaved family seeking freedom. It seems likely that many of the Black Ducketts in Maryland and DC have historical connections to this extensive line of white Ducketts.

Among the best known of the enslaved people with the Duckett surname is Benjamin Duckett, who as described in William Still’s The Underground Railroad escaped in 1856 from Zach Berry (misidentified by Still as Sicke Perry) in Prince George’s County. Benjamin escaped to Philadelphia and then presumably made his way north to Canada. We do not know if Benjamin and Gracie were related to one another.

The Eversfield-Duckett Connections

The Eversfield family were long time slave owners in Prince George’s County. Rev. John Eversfield (bef. 1707-1781), a major enslaver and the rector of St. Paul’s Parish, owned the land that is now the site of the University of Maryland basketball arena. His will is summarized at: https://colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I107562&tree=Tree1

Rev. Eversfield’s grandson, John Thomas Eversfield (b 13 August 1790, d 18 December 1857, Prince George’s County) of Prince George’s County owned several enslaved people who used the surname Duckett. :

—On 30 August 1815 The Daily National Intelligence notes that the Hartford Count sheriff has captured a Black man named Jim Duckett or John Douglass, who “says he belongs to John Eversfield near Bladensburg. “ (Hartford County is more or less due north of Bladensburg, and would have been a possible route to Pennsylvania and freedom).

—On 17 October 1829, John Eversfield advertises that 31 year old Charles Duckett, born around 1796, has escaped from near Rossburg, in Prince George’s County.

-On 3 September 1838 runaway slave advertisement makes references to a Nancy Ann Duckett, who escaped from John Eversfield, who lived near Bladensburg. Eversfield explicitly notes that her sister is enslaved at Samuel Whitall’s in Georgetown; she must have been Gracie.

Under the terms of an 1824 indenture agreement between John Eversfield and Samuel Whitall, Gracie’s daughter Juliann was to be manumitted on 17 October 1838 (perhaps significantly, a month after her aunt Ann’s escape) . But in fact it was not until 10 July 1841 that Samual Whitall actually manumitted Julia Ann (The Free Negro Register, Registration No. 1883, Volume 3, page 362 describes Julia’s enslavement and manumission by Samuel Whittall at age 24, to substantiate her status as a ‘free Negro). This was about two months after Julia recorded marriage to Lewis Cartwright, on 19 May 1841.

The widow of John Thomas Eversfield, Ann Perrie Eversfield, in 1867 applied (unsuccessfully) for compensation for 27 enslaved people, who had been emancipated by the new Maryland Constitution on November 1, 1864. Among these were ten people with the surname Duckett: Harriet Duckett, age 50 (born about 1814). Lucy Duckett, age 36 (b. 1828); Charles Duckett, age 36 (b 1828), Emily Duckett age 25 (b. 1839), Henry Duckett, age 20 (1844), Maria Duckett, age 20 (so born about 1844).. Mary Duckett, age 10, (so born 1854), Louis Duckett, age 7 (1857), Ben Duckett, age 7 (b. 1857), Amelia Duckett, age 6 (b 1858)

Note that none of these were named Nancy or Ann, so the sister of Grace may have successfully escaped in 1838, or have died in the interim. (The son of John Thomas Eversfield, John T Eversfield Jr, applied for compensation for about 46 slaves, none of whom had the Duckett surname)

The probate inventory of Charles “Charlie” Eversfield, youngest son of Rev. Eversfield and the father of John Thomas Eversfield, in February 1822 in Prince George’s County lists the thirty enslaved people (17 male, 12 female). Only first names are given, not surnames:

Frank, aged about 60 years
Jim, 60
Nace 60
Billy, 49
Paul, 28
Jim, 23
Matthew, 24
Harry, 22
Jim, 20
John, 19
Anthony, 15
Nace, 13
Jupiter, 8
George, 4
Henry, 10
Ned, 8
David, 6
Ceale 60
Beck, 50
Racel, 33
Nancy 35 (valued at $300)
Jeanly? , 30
Henny, 27
Lucy, 25
Clarisa, 20
Barbara 20
Sarah, 18
Susan, 16
Caroline, 15
Julia, 8 (valued at $100)

As noted Grace is not mentioned in this inventory, so seems likely to have been sold or transferred to Samuel Whitall before the inventory was assembled.

Nancy, age 35, may be the sister of Grace who escaped from Charles’ son and heir, John Eversfield in 1838. Julia, age 8, might be the same person as the Julia Ann Duckett transferred by John Eversfield two years after the inventory, to Samuel Whitall of Georgetown. (The ages do not quite match, since the inventoried Julia was 8 years old in 1822, and supposedly 5 years old in 1824.)

Tracing Gracie’s Children

I have not yet seen a record of Grace’s daughter Emeline Duckett, following the 1824 indenture by John Eversfield and the 1829 mortgage by Samuel Whitall.

There are several references to a Henry Duckett, probably the son of Gracie, in the Freedman’s Bureau records in 1867, evidently while working at Fort Monroe, near Hampton, Virginia.

He may be the same Henry who married Mary Walker on 18 Dec 1877 in DC. In 1885, Henry is listed in the City Directory as a laborer residing at 816 G Street, SW. He died a year later on 30 September 1886, at 611 Virginia Avenue SW, suffering from pneumonia and asthma. He was buried in Graceland cemetery. I am not sure if the couple had children; there are several subsequent Henry Duckett’s listed in the city directory and death records, who may be related.

There is much more thorough documentation of Gracy’s daughter Julia Ann Duckett, who married Rev. Lewis Cartwright on 19 May 1841, about two months before her freedom was formally affirmed by Samuel Whitall on 10 July 1841. Lewis was the son of Rev. Joseph Cartwright (d 1851) known as a pioneer of Methodism in the DC Black community, who played a prominent early role in Mt Zion Church. He purchased the freedom his enslaved wife, Susanna, and their children, Lewis, Joseph Jr., and Norah.

Lewis and Julia Cartwright lived as a well respected couple in Georgetown. Rev. Lewis Cartwright died 4 March 1875 and was buried in Mount Zion. Julia Ann survived him by 26 years and continued to reside in their house at 31 West street (now 2620 P Street).

—Their son Lewis Cartwright, Jr. died 8 July 1850, age two months, and was buried in Mt Zion.

—Their daughter Matilda Cartwright died 29 January 1863 at age 15, and was also buried in Mt Zion.

—Their son William Henry Cartwright, b, 1854, opened his own bank account in the Freedman’s Bank at age 17. He married Mary Jane Lambert, daughter of Louis Lambert, on 17 August 1871. By 1880, however, Mary Lambert Cartwright is listed as a widow, once again living with her father Lewis. Also residing with her is her evident daughter Rosie Cartwright, born 1875.

William Henry appears to be the Black man William Cartwright who died September 16, 1875 of a previously undetected brain tumor; he was found by his landlord Mrs Jordan, 307 12th street, SW. The Washington Chronicle notes he left a wife from whom he was separated, but no children. Perhaps at the time of his death, Mary was pregnant with Rosie. In any event, I have not been able to trace Rosie subsequent to 1880.

—Rev Cartwright and Julia Ann’s daughter Margaret Ann Cartwright, b 1843, married Henry Burgoyne, on 18 Jan 1869 in Manhattan, New York City. She later remarried, to a Joseph Holden, in 1889 and remained in the New York area. She died in her home in Jersey City, NJ, on 19 February 1920. The death notice makes no notice of any children

—Rev Cartwright and Julia Ann’s daughter Annie S Cartwright was born in June 1858, On 18 Feb 1886 she married Charles W. Boyd. (I have not found his death certificate but one source lists his death as 11 September 1888). The 1900 census lists Anna as widowed and living in her mother Julia’s home, with her siblings. Anna is listed as buried in Mt Zion (location Q H10 380A), but I am also unsure of her death date.

—Their daughter Alice Victoria, b. June 1858. married Fenton C Harris on 6 November 1879. Fenton was active in Emancipation Day activities and was funeralized at Mt Zion Methodist upon his death in 25 June 1905. His widow Alice Victoria Cartwright Harris continued to live in her parents’ former home . 2620 P Street, until her death on 19 June 1920. She was buried in Mt Zion Cemetery and her headstone is still visible.

Julia Ann Duckett Cartwright’s first will, in 1880, bequeaths her house at 2620 West Street (now P street) to her daughter Annie D Cartwright and Alice Victoria Harris, with the understanding that Annie and Alice would share an interest in the property with their sister Margaret Ann Burgoyne. In a 1886 codicil of the will she named Alfred Pope, a prominent neighbor and Georgetown Black businessman, as executor of the estate.

By the time Julie Ann died, 14 Mar 1901, her daughter Margaret had remarried and was known as Margaret Holden. Anna had married and was known as Anna Boyd. Alice remained Alice Victoria Harris.

Descendants of Alice Victoria Cartwright Harris

Alice Victoria and Fenton Harris’ daughters included Grace Henrietta Harris Brown, 1885-1955. and Victoria Harris Morris, 1886-1948.

Grace Henrietta Harris married George Henry Brown, 1872-1920 on 7 November 1901. Their children were Milton Cartwright Brown, 1902-1967; Margaret Henrietta Brown, 1905-1981, and George Brown, b 1910-1931.

—Milton Cartwright Brown married Ruth E. Wooten in Pittsburgh, PA on 11 December 1940, and was buried in Highwood Cemetery, Pittsburgh

—Margaret Henrietta Brown, was born 8 November 1905 • Washington, District of Columbia and died 5 June 1981 • Oakland, Alameda, California. She graduated from the University of Pittsburg and married Amater Zeale Traylor, Sr. the son of Joseph Henderson Traylor, in Pittsburgh on 17 August 1929. He was a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, and pursued graduate work at the University of Chicago, Carnegie Institute of Technology and Atlanta University. They had distinguished careers as educators in Atlanta, Georgia. After Margaret Henrietta Brown Traylor died in 1981, Amater Sr remarried, to Amanda Cummings, and passed on 11 September 1988.

Some of the children of Margaret Henrietta and Amater Zeale Traylor settled in the San Francisco Bay area. Descendants remain there to this day, we understand

My students and I hope to continue to illuminate more of the life of Grace Ann Duckett and to trace her descendants.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Isabella Kiedrowski, Archives and Collections Manager at Dumbarton House, for her many insights into Samuel Whitall’s business activities and for access to Whitall family records in the Dumbarton House collection. Mary Lesher, former program manager at Dumbarton House, kindly shared related documents with the Black Georgetown Foundation.

My students and I are beginning work assisting our collaborator Emily Washines and her relatives in the Yakama Nation (central Washington State) in understanding the life of her cousin Martha Bassett (traditional surname Pochahsquinest). Miss Bassett. who went missing in Chicago in 1967, was searched for by her family for decades. Recent forensic DNA research has established that Miss Bassett is almost certainly the same person as a Jane Doe, whose remains were recovered in Will County, about an hour south of Chicago, on 30 September 1968:
https://storiesoftheunsolved.com/2021/01/25/will-county-jane-doe-1968/

An autopsy at the time indicated that she had died violently two days earlier, so about 28 September 1968.

There are numerous media reports on recent progress in this Cold Case, including: https://dnasolves.com/articles/martha-bassett-will-county-illinois-1968/

Some of these are drawn on for the Find a grave entry on Miss Bassett. These reports assert that Miss Bassett came to Chicago in 1960. However, BIA records indicate she arrived in Chicago through the Federal location program in January 1957, from Yakima County, Washington state, to Chicago, Funds for her relocation were provided under Public Law 959, also known as the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. (Records in NARA Chicago, from the BIA employment files contain some information on her arrival in Chicago and the fruitless search for her from Summer 1968 onwards.)

Where did Martha live in Chicago?

There is a surprising disjuncture between the records of the BIA Chicago Branch (Field employment0 Office, which list Martha residing in residential hotels in the Loop or Uptown neighborhood, including the McCormick YWCA and, for eight years, at the old Sheridan Hotel, 4607 Sheridan, in Uptown (which was already emerging as a Native American neighborhood) and the Chicago Telephone directories, which list a woman of the name Martha Bassett residing on Chicago’s South Side, initially in Woodlawn and later in Bronzeville, from 1958 until 1966. Perhaps they are separate individuals or perhaps Martha in a sense lived a double life, moving back and forth between the residences expected by the BIA for single young woman, and the dynamic emerging Black neighborhoods of the South Side.

Initial Timeline (The Life of Martha Bassett)

January 3, 1936. Possible birth date of Martha Bassett. Parents; John John Bassett (Pochahsquinest), born OCT 1894 Death 12 NOV 1968 • Wapato, Yakima, Washington, USA and Ida Henry Bassett, born ABT 1890 • Rock Creek, Skamania, WA, USA. Death 01 OCT 1939 • Wapato, Yakima, Washington.

Siblings include:

Amelia Bassett 1916–1972

Wanapum ‘Wapt’ Bassett1920–1998 (who made constant efforts to support and trace her)

Savike Bassett1925–

Jack Bassett1926–1952

William Washwell Bassett1926–1934

1940. I do not see Martha Bassett in the US Federal census records for 1940. I do not know if the 1940 Yakama reservation census records are on line

1950. The “Yakima” (sic) reservation census records may be searched at: https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?page=1&reservation=Yakima I don’t believe these are transcribed yet, so it may be necessary to search them page by page for the Basset or Pochahsquinest families.

nb. 1960 US Federal Census census records will not be released until April 2032 (although family members may be able to request some records)

• Martha is listed in the Wapato WA High School Year book.
• Martha is listed in the Wapato WA High School Year book
• Dec 3, 1956. Martha Bassett applies for funding from BIA for Federal relocation to Chicago

March 10 1957. The Dalles Dam, constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers, floods Ceililo Falls, an important fishing site on the Columbia River near the Washington-Oregon state border This rising waters destroyed one of the oldest continuous indigenous settlements in North America. A financial settlement of $26.8 million had been reached with the tribes associated with the Celilo site ($15,019,640 was allocaed to the Yakama.( Martha Bassett did receive some payments from this arrangement, so presumably came to Chicago with some financial resources, unlike others who were relocated during this era. See photograph of the settlement signing with Yakama representatives at: https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/yakama-nation-corps-discuss-celilo-settlement/

• January 7, 1957, the day of Martha’s official relocation to Chicago , following a several day bus ride from Toppenish on a Greyhound bus. On BIA religious preference card, indicates a preference for the Catholic faith
• Begins training with the Western Union company as a teletype operator,
• In early 1957. Martha first lived at the YMCA. Hotel 826 So Wabash
• She hen resided at the McCormick, YWCA, 1001 South Dearborn
• February 2, 1957. Living at 4349 W Jackson.
• December 7. 1957. Bank application lists Martha’s address as 608 South Dearborn, Apt 511. (now a Parking Lot) She is not listed this year in the Chicago Telephone Directory.
• Feb 15, 1958. BIA telegram indicates that letters of inquiry have been sent seeking the location of Martha Bassett, who evidently hasn’t been in touch with the Branch office.
• The 1958 Chicago directory does list a Martha Bassett residing at 5640 S Indiana Avenue. Chicago IL, with the phone number HY3-2463 (HY was the prefix for Hyde Park) That address, currently a vacant lot, is in the Woodlawn neighborhood in the Chicago South Side, about seven blocks west of Washington Park, between 57th and 56th streets. This would have been a transitional neighborhood in the late 1950s, under conditions of “White Flight,“ and was increasingly African American. Her residence was located across the street from the old “Indiana and 56h Park”, now known as Lorainne Hansbury Park, named for the celebrated African American playwright, author of “A Raisin in the Sun”. Martha would have been able to take walks in the beautiful nearby Washington Park, an perhaps walked through the University of Chicago neighborhood to partake of the Lake Michigan lakefront. I am not sure what bus lines at the time were near this location. Martha may have had to take bus to the old “Little Englewood L” subway station on 63rd street, in order to get into the Loop and other sites of employment in downtown Chicago.

1959=1966. From 1959-1966, a Martha Bassett is listed each year in the telephone directory at 4030 S Michigan Avenue,, As of 1959, she had a new phone number, AT5-0134, which she retained until 1966. I am not sure if she was residing both at this location and at the Sheridan residence hotel in Uptown. The Michigan Ave location location was two miles due north and one block west of her old residence on South Indiana, and put her in the heart of Bronzeville, a growing, dynamic Black neighborhood. This address, which may also be a vacant lot currently, is adjacent to Catholic Church property, including St Elizabeth’s Church and the Totlon Heritage Center, https://ourladyofafricachicago.org/tolton-heritage-center which honors, Father Augustus Totlon, one of the first Black priests ordained in the United Services, who served with distinction on the Chicago South Side, presiding over St Mary’s Parish. It is possible that the lot Martha resided on 1959-1966 was Catholic Church property and that she was connected with the church in some way (recall that she initially listed in 1957 her religious preference as Catholic). 4030 is adjacent to the ChiTurf company.

January 21, 1960. BIA notes that they had consulted with Western Union, who reports that Martha is hard working and efficient (she clearly hasn’t been in touch with the BIA Branch Employment office or her family in Washington state).

June 4, 1960. Martha’s brother Wapt Bassett contacts the Branch BIA office, concerned that he hasn’t heard from Martha and that his letter to her old address had been returned.

November 2, 1960. BIA telegraphs Martha at 4825 North Sheridan Apt 2 (I believe the old Sheridan hotel) informing her someone is arriving in Chicago and hopes she will greet him

January 10, 1962. BIA believes Martha’s address is 938 West Wilson Ave, in the heart of Uptown.

BIA records make it clear that Martha worked at Western Union as a teletype operator, although it is not clear which location she worked at. In the 1960s there were according to the telephone directories about 40 branch offices in Chicago for Western Union. The Chicago headquarters appears to have been at 427 LaSalle in the center of the Chicago Loop. The Western Union local 1 was adjacent, at 327 LaSalle, (Union records might be worth consulting).

March 5, 1965, Western Union reports Martha’s attendance at work has become erratic; she has had seizures, possibly epileptic.

The Summer of 1968

During the summer of 1968, the BIA became increasingly concerned over Martha, who had ceased all contact with them and her family.

July 25, 1968. The Western Union Credit Union reaches out to the BIA Branch office expressing concern for Martha’s welfare (and for her unpaid debt). Mentions that she has been ill for some time.

August 1, 1968. BIA learns that the family had heard Martha had been hospitalized; they have not heard from her for at least two months.

August 2, 1969. BIA officer visits the Sheridan Hotel, 4607 Sheridan Road, where Martha had lived for 8 years; she had become arrears in rent, and on June 25, the hotel had “plugged” (sealed?) her room. They recalled she had served at some point in the past a 17 day sentence at “Bridewell” (The Chicago City Jail) for assault and battery, threatening a CTA conductor who had tried to get her off a train at Howard Street, at the end of the line. (Year of sentence is unclear)

August 5, 1968. BIA officer calls many local hospitals and Chicago Police Department but no luck tracing Martha.

August 6, 1968. Family reports Martha’s father in a nursing home with a fractured skull and family is eager to be in touch with her.

August 7, 1968. BIA Branch decides to file missing person report for Martha with Chicago Police Department, although the CPD is dubious a case can be pursued, given that Martha is a 32 year old adult.

August 28, 1968, Marjorie Lee of the BIA field assistance office writes to the Indian Agency in Toppenish, WA, explaining all efforts to trace Martha have been fruitless

September 28, 1968. Estimated death date of the Jane Doe/Will County.

September 30, 1968. The Jane Doe found near Blodgett Rd & I-55 in Will County. IL (in 2025 identified as Martha Bassett through forensic DNA analysis).

November 20 1968. A bill collector reports to BIA he has been in touch with Martha’s brother, who reported that last July she had wired him requesting $200, which he sent her, At that point he thought she was in Wells(?), or Indian Wells Minnesota. No contact since then; their father tragically had just died in a house fire. (nb this is a second hand report through the bill collector, so perhaps not all that reliable). Speculatively, perhaps the telegram sent to Wapt was fraudulent, and Martha was by this point incapacitated in some way.

June 19, 1968. BIA learns that the Sheridan hotel had been sold last December and there are no records on what may have happened to Martha’s possessions.

June 19, 1969, BIA Branch reports to the Yakima Agency in Toppenish they still have no leads on Martha

June 9, 1970. Western Union Employees Credit Union still trying to contact Martha.

December 26, 1972, BIA reports contacts with Native people in Uptown, but none have seen Martha for several years

White Bear Lake?

As noted above,a BIA contact sheet (NARA-Chicago files) of November 20, 1968, contains a report via a bill collector that Martha’s brother Wapt had heard that she may have been living in “Indian Wells” in Minnesota. Perhaps this was Indian Wells Trail, a short street in the town of White Bear Lake, in Ramsie County, north of the twin cities. We are not sure if Wapt was correctly informed, but we note that many Dakota and Ojibwe people from Minnesota did come to Chicago under the Federal Relocation Program, so perhaps Martha met one of these individuals who invited her back to White Bear Lake.

A possible connection to the Twin Cites area is certainly of great interest to us, given that in July 1968, the American Indian Movement was founded in Minneapolis. Is there any possibility that Martha was involved with AIM or the Red Power activist movement during her final year of life?

Reconstructing Martha’s Final Days

As noted above, the BIA Branch office and the Western Union Employee’s Credit Union appear to have lost touch with Martha around June 1968, about four months before the date when we now know she was murdered. There is a mention in the BIA file that according to a bill collector her brother told him he had heard from Marsha in July 1968 requesting $200 when she was still living on Sheridan Road. Lake. He next understood her to be living somewhere in Minnesota, perhaps in “Wells” or(Indian Wells, Minnesota, which we suspect may have been Indian Wells Trail in White Bear Lake, Ramsie County, MN. Or she may have been living in Wells, MN, on the southern border of the state. Or Wapt may have simply heard a false rumor.

On September 30, 1968 the Jane Doe’s remains (now through forensic DNA identified as Martha Bassett) were recovered just off West Blodgett Road, in unincorporated Will County, IL, which runs alongside I-55, south of the interstate’s crossing of the Des Plains River and north of the crossing of the Kankakee River The site of recovery was evidently about 100 feet northwest of the point where I-55 crosses the BNSF (formerly Burlington Northern Santa Fe) railroad line. tracks, which may be significant, and immediately south of Grant Creek. The reports indicate that the area of recovery was forested or brush covered in 1968, so perhaps this was in the area that is now the Des Plaines State Fish and Wildlife Area, which is a 56 mile drive along I-55 from the Bronzeville neighborhood where Ms Bassett is last reported residing.

What can be inferred from the fact, which is now clear from the forensic DNA evidence, that Miss Bassett’s mortal remains were found off of the I-55 interstate in Will County, near West Blodgett Road and the crossing of the BNSF railroad tracks, about an hour south of Chicago? I-55, which partly runs along the old route of Route 66, was constructed in the 1950s as part of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, to connect Chicago to New Orleans. The highway, now known as the Stephenson Expressway in its Cook County segment, runs initially, (in an an east to west direction, about two miles north of the 4040 S Michigan location, and then curves south-east out of Cook County towards the Will County border. So if Miss Bassett was abducted and a perpetrator sought to dispose of her remains, it is possible that they could have easily gotten on I-55 and then driven south until they encountered the forest cover of Will County, and decided to dispose of the body there. The recovery spot was about a quarter miles southeast of the curve of W Blodgett, so perhaps the body was dragged from W Blodgett, or (perhaps more likely) the body may hae been dragged from a car parked on the side of the interstate, about 100 feet away.

We do not know if proximity to Grant Creek is of any significance.: There is a bridge over Grant Creek maintained by the State Highway Department. Further upstream a section of Grant Creek has a popular hiking trail.

Or perhaps proximity to the BNSF railroad line, which originates in the major rail hub of Chicago, may be telling: could the victim or her remains been transported by rail, and not by car?

It is possible that the murder took place in Will County, or in Cook County, or some other location. There do not appear to be records of Martha being seen in Chicago after spring 1968, so the final months of her life remain unaccounted for.

The Fisher Mound Site

By a strange coincidence, the location where Ms. Bassett’s body was abandoned and then recovered, near the confluence of the Kankakee and the Des Plaines rivers, forming the Illinois River, is close by a prominent Native American archaeological site associated with upper Mississippian culture and Upper Woodland inhabitation, known as the Fisher Mound Site, which consisted of a dozen burial mounds that were subjected to multiple excavations in the first half of the 20th century. (see: Kjersti E. Emerson and Thomas E. Emerson, A Reassessment of Upper Mississippian Habitations and Chronology at the Fisher Mounds and Village Site in Northeastern Illinois MIDCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 2024, VOL. 49, NO. 1) I am fairly certain that by the time of the murder and secreting of the body in September 1968, the mounds had been essentially destroyed through quarrying. The better preserved Briscoe mound group is still visible across the river, to the northwest of the site. My students may bein preparing a summary of research on these sites, for the reference of the family and community members.

Scientific and Forensic Research

We are also interested in reconstructing the sequence of scientific and forensic research that led to the identification of the Will County IL Jane Doe with Martha Bassett. Various press reports refer to the Will County coroner consulting with the :Smithsonian Institute Paleontology section” Isic) which was assume twasthe Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute of the Museum Support Center, Suitland, Maryland. Reports also reference, the “University of Illinois Forensic Anthropology Department” which we assume references the University of Illinois’ forensic program within the Department of Anthropology. DNA sampling also evidently too place at the University of North Texas, and subsequent forensic DNA genealogical analysis was conducted at Othram Labs in Texas.

Update: Emily Washines in consultation with other family members has recently authored a moving obituary of her cousin Martha, at: https://www.reevesfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/martha-bassett

Records to research

Western Union personnel records (perhaps in Denver Colorado, the Western Union headquarters) and perhaps the Western Union Employee Credit Union records, if those stil exist.

Telephone Directories

ancestry.com’s list of searchable online telephone directories does not include Chicago in the 1950s or 1940s. The Library of Congress has digitized many Chicago telephone directories. available via https://www.loc.gov/collections/united-states-telephone-directory-collection/?fa=location:illinois

Or google “Library of Congress Telephone Directories Chicago [year of search]’.

BIA Urban Relocation

Possible records at the main National Archives building, Archives 1 in downtown Washington DC, include:
“Financial Assistance Reports Relating to Relocatees, 1951–1956” (National Archives Identifier: 2194625)
“Relocatee Cards, ca. 1958–1959” (National Archives Identifier: 2194622)

Relevant records in Chicago at the branch National Archives include; “Reports on Employment Assistance, December 1951–June 1958” (National Archives Identifier: 3514914) These have been obtained and are a rich source of material on Martha’s early years in Chicago and the fruitless search for her from Summer 1968 onwards.

Census Records

Tribal Census records for Yakama and Yakima Reservation in 1940 and 1950.

Chicago History Museum: https://www.chicagohistory.org/collections/

—The History Museum has some Chicago Police Department records: https://explore.chicagocollections.org/marcxml/chicagohistory/30/jd4qs4q/

The Newberry Library in Chicago (extensive resources on Native American history); https://www.newberry.org/

Circuit Court Records, Cook County, IL (may have records related to Ms Bassett’s apparent arrest record: https://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/archives

In a previous post I mentioned the enslaved man Tom, who escaped from merchant Robert Peter of Georgetown on October 4, 1761.

On October 9, 1761 Peter placed the following advertisement in the Maryland Gazette

“Rock Creek October 9, 1761. Ran away from the Subscriber in the 4th instant, a very likely Negro Fellow named Tom, about 22 years of age, 5 feet 8 inches high, was imported from Africa 2 1/2 years ago, but speaks tolerable good English, tho’ slow, and appears bashful. He had on when when he went away, an over Jacket of dyed Cotton, and under Jacket of plading, an Osnabirg Shirt and trowsers; it is imagined that he carried with him some spare shirts and trowsers, and also some Bed Cloathes, and as we miss a Canoe from this shore, it is expected that he has gone by Water, especially as he was used to Water for a least a year before I purchased him, and had in that time made an attempt to get to sea in an open Boat.

Whoever apprehends the said Negro and secure him so that I can have him again, shall be paid the sum of Twenty shillings, if taken with ten miles of this place, thirty shillings if twenty miles, forthy shifllings if thirty miles, fifty shillings if forty miles an Three Pounds if at a greater distance by Robert Peter”

Several points are worth noting. If Tom was 22 years old in 1761, he would have been born around 1739, presumably somewhere in West Africa. As noted previously, this period, two and half years before October 1761 might correspond with the time frame, roughly August 1759, when three slave ships sold their human cargo in the environs; the True Blue from the Gold Coast, which sold slaves at Nanjemoy, Maryland; the Venus with slaves from the Gambia, which sold slaves at the naval station at Cedar Point; (both locations in southwestern Charles County, Maryland) and the Upton, with slaves from Gambia, which sold slaves in Annapolis. Tom might have been imported on any of these vessels.

Tom had at least one previous master before Peter purchased him, and had been familiar with the water, perhaps as a fisher or a ferryman. The shad run and other fisheries on the Potomac were highly profitable and many enslaved people were put to work exploiting these valued riparian resources. Tom had, Peter says, once before tried to escape to sea on an open boat, which suggests he had considerable courage and some nautical skill,

The advertisement’s location is given as “Rock Creek”, whereas the ad placed by Robert Peter a year earlier for Isaac and Sarah listed “Georgetown.” One of Peter’s many properties was the Rock Creek Quarter, a farm which appears to have been located along the eastern bank of Rock Creek. (Dr J.M. Toner’s map, “Washington in Embryo,” published in 1874, based on his own research on the landscape of the future District of Columbia before the Federal City was laid out around 1790, shows Rock Creek as rather wider than it is now, and indicates that Robert Peter owned an expanse of land east of the creek, from the Potomac River heading north.) Following his death, Rock Creek Quarters and its slaves and livestock were sold from Robert Peter’s estate on January 25, 1808 (the list of property is archived at Mount Vernon). Robert Peter’s general store is thought to have been located in the Wapping Quarter of Georgetown, on the west bank of Rock Creek. roughly where K street now crosses Rock Creek, underneath the present Whitehurst Freeway.

Tom’s Escape Route

Peter’s mention of a missing canoe implies that a canoe was regularly tied up on Peter’s Rock Creek property, perhaps near the general store or one of his creekside farms. it seems likely that a the time of his escape Tom would have paddled the canoe south to the creek’s mouth on the Potomac. Perhaps he headed downriver towards the Chesapeake Bay and then towards the open Atlantic. Or perhaps Tom tried to paddle up the Potomac, above the Fall line, traversing the treacherous rapids at Great Falls, in the hope of reaching Native lands in the interior.

Canoes as Vessels of Escape

It would of course be interesting to know more about the canoe that Tom liberated from Robert Peter in the process of hs escape. The Powhatan and other indigenous communities had used single log dugout canoes along the region’s waterways since time immemorial. The 18th century European modification of the dugout involved multiple logs and at times included masts and sails. These Chesapeake canoes were used by Chesapeake watermen well into the late 19th century. Chesapeake canoes are now regularly raced in the bay.

Canoes were used as vessels of self liberation in other instances. A decade after Tom’s, on December 19, 1771 the Maryland Gazette recounts an escaped enslaved man named Isaac in a small canoe being apprehended by a white Captain Scott; Isaac then escaped again.

On November 1, 1764, a Samuel Chew advertised that an Irishman named John Rice, an indentured servant, had escaped from him in Calvert County using a 25 foot stolen poplar canoe.

During the American Revolution, on October 2, 1777, John Cryer advertised that five enslaved people, three men and two young women, had escaped from him on Sharp’s Island (on the James River near Richmond, Virginia), in a large pine canoe, “well timbered.”

What Became of Tom?

As of this writing, I am unsure if Tom was recaptured and perhaps resold. It is possible that he is referenced in a different runaway ad, placed about eight months later on June 10, 1762 in the Maryland Gazette, by Caleb Dorsey, who ran the Elkridge Furnace, in Howard County, on the northwestern shore of the Chesapeake Bay:

“Six Pounds Reward
Ran away from the Elk-Ridge Furnace on the 26th of May last , Five Negro men, viz
One named Tom, he is a very cunning Rogue has often ran away and is very artful in sculking; the other four are New Negroes and can speak but very little English,
Whoever takes up the said Negroes, and bring them to the Elk-Ridge Furnace or secures them so that they may be had again, shall have six pounds reward, and reasonable charges paid by Caleb Dorsey
N.B. The negro named Tom, formerly belonged to Mr. Thomas Ringgold, and is very well acquainted with the Bay; therefore perhaps may attempt to escape by water.

This Tom’s previous owner, Thomas Ringgold IV (1715 – 1772) it should be noted, operated with his partner Thomas Galloway the largest slave trading operation in the Chesapeake Bay. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Robert Peter upon recapturing Tom, sold him to Ringgold who in turn sold him to Dorsey. But since Tom is such a common name they could easily have been different people.

If nothing else, these various advertisements do suggest that for enslavers in the Tidewater, there were benefits and risks in owning enslaved people skilled in water navigation. Their nautical skills were valuable for all sorts of purposes, but also increased the chance they might hazard a waterborne escape.

As noted in my earlier post, Robert Peter’s ledger (Tudor Place Archives) does notate that on 23 May, 1795, Peter gave “Tom” 15 cents to pay “Ning” (Mary?) for a coat. Perhaps this was the same Tom, or a different man.

What do we know of the Peggy, the slave ship that transported 144 enslaved Africans from the Windward Coast in West Africa in 1770, evidently selling scores of captive people in the port of Georgetown (then in Frederick County, Maryland) which three decades later became part of the District of Columbia?

It would appear that the Peggy is the first ship documented to have directly sold slaves in Georgetown, so its story is of considerable historical interest. (References to this sale include Johnston 2021)

Some sources (eg Keyes Port, n.d.) have evidently misread data compiled in Slave Voyages: the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade database , to conclude that enslaved people were landed in Georgetown for sale much earlier, from at least 1732 onward. This is improbable, since the town of “George” or “George-town” was not even laid out until 1751. The principal mistake appears to be misreading the destination “North Potomac” as meaning Georgetown, whereas “North Potomac” simply seems to be a designation used for the north bank of the Potomac river, stretching about 100 miles from the river’s mouth on the Chesapeake Bay to the Fall line, near the modern day site of Georgetown. Generally speaking, the voyages that terminated in “North Potomac” seem to have landed many miles downriver of the present day site of Georgetown, in Charles County or St Mary’s County, Maryland

Note: Testimony entered into the Congressional Record by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (October 5, 2021) asserts that “The first enslaved Africans were believed to have been brought through the Georgetown port in 1732.” The voyages referenced in this account disembarked enslaved captives in “North Potomac” ports, but there is no direct evidence so far as I know that the Georgetown port received slave ships prior to the 1770 sale from the Peggy.

The August 1770 Sales

Our principal record of the 1770 sale from the Peggy is from an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette on August 30, 1770, placed August 17, referring to a double sale of newly imported enslaved people that was to take place on August 27, 1770. The notice reads:

“Port Tobacco , August 17, 1770. NEGROES. Just imported in the Snow Peggy, Captain William Sharp, from Africa,

A PARCEL of choice healthy SLAVES, consisting of Men, Women, and Children; One Half thereof to be sold by the Subscribers, on Monday the 27th Instant, at George-Town, on Patowmack River; and the other Half at Nottingham, on Patuxent River, on the same Day, at which Places the Sale to continue ’til all sold, for Sterling Cash, or good Bills of Exchange, payable in London.”

What was a “Snow” vessel?

Note that the term “snow” is derived from the Dutch word, “snaugh” (snoop) referencing the distinctively shaped prow of a two masted vessel with a large rear triangular sail. Hence, the vesssel was named the “Peggy”, not, as in some published accounts on line, the “Snow Peggy.”

The 1769-1770 Voyage of the Peggy

The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade database, which assigns the 1769/1770 trip of the Peggy the unique voyage ID #91463, records the Peggy was constructed in Liverpool in 1768. The Peggy under Captain William Sharp undertook two previous slave voyages prior to its Maryland journey In 1768, it took on slaves in Bassa (in present day Liberia) and disembarked them on the island of Dominica. In 1769, it collected slaves at Grand Sestos (present day Liberia) on the Windward Coast, and again disembarked them in Dominica. The 1770 trip to Maryland would thus appear to the Peggy’s first trip to mainland North America,

The Peggy departed Liverpool, on August 19. 1769, then collected 166 slaves from locations on Africa’s “Windward Coast” (the region between Cape Mount and the Assini River, which encompassed parts of modern-day Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. (This coastal zone was known as the “Windward Coast” since ocean-going vessels traveling south regularly encountered winds directly blowing into them. ) After crossing the Atlantic, the Peggy disembarked an unspecified number of slaves on the island of Dominica, possibly in June, then traveled about 1,800 mile northwest to Maryland, where it sold the majority of its human cargo in August 1760.

Reading the wording of the advertisement, we may infer one scenario: upon arriving in the Tidewater region the Peggy first deposited half of its enslaved people in Nottingham, which at that point was located at a point on the Patuxent river still navigable by ocean-going vessels.(This stretch of the river has long since been filled in). Then the Peggy might have sailed down the Patuxent to the Chesapeake Bay and sailed about 100 miles up the Potomac to the port of Georgetown, to disembark the remaining slaves in its cargo. Speculatively, if around 45 slaves were sold in Dominica, then perhaps about 50 were disembarked in Nottingham and about 50 disembarked in Georgetown. (As of this writing, I have not found specific records of how many slaves were sold at any given location or details on pricing or names of those sold.)

The Georgetown port, as noted, was situated just below the Fall line, marked by rapids to this day, that rendered it the furthest navigable site up the Potomac River for ocean-going vessels. (For this reason George Washington and others campaigned to organize a canal to open up more of the interior to trade and other mercantile activity.)

Barnes & Ridgate

The firm that organized the slave sale, Barnes & Ridgate, was a partnership of John Barnes and Thomas How (or Howe) Ridgate, based in Port Tobacco (Charlestown), Charles County. Maryland, headquartered in Stagg Hall, which still stands. They were primarily tobacco merchants, with real estate holdings in multiple Maryland locations. It is not clear why Barnes & Ridgate chose to hold two simultaneous slave sales in Nottingham and Georgetown; perhaps they calculated that better profits could be realized by appealing to two geographically distinct clientele, one in the upper Potomac Georgetown region, marked by relatively modest agrarian holdings and mercantile firms, and the other around Upper Marlborough, an area of dense slave-based plantations.

A few weeks before the Georgetown and Nottingham sales of the Peggy’s human cargo, Barnes & Ridgate advertised the sale of another group of slaves from the ship Providence, also a “snow” vessel, captained by Thomas Davis and owned by a Mr Shoolbrd, (Voyage #77170). These slaves, purchased in “Senegambia and offshore Atlantic points”, were to be sold at Lower Cedar Point, Charles County, Maryland, on July 23, and from July 30 to August 3, 1760 at Nanjemoy and on August 7 at Mr William DIgge’s landing near Piscataway. (slavevoyages.org records that on this voyage the Providence embarked 162 slaves in Gambia and disembarked 132 in Maryland, thirty captives presumably dying during the horrific passage.)

It is not precisely clear how Barnes & Ridgate came to organize these various sales from the Providence and the Peggy. They are not listed as owners of the Peggy, which was owned by Peter Baker, Robert Green, John Clarke and John Johnson, whom were I presume Liverpool merchants.The Providence, as noted, was owned by a Mr. Shoolbrd.

Abraham Barnes

It is possible that Barnes and Ridgate’s key link to the owners or captain of the Peggy was through the wealthy merchant Abraham Barnes, father of John Barnes. Abraham Barnes, with James Gildart, was co-owner of three documented slave trade voyages: the Upton which in 1759 transported slaves from Gambia, landing 205 slaves in Annapolis, Maryland on August 8, 1759; a later trip by the Upton, carrying about 137 slaves from Gambia to the port of Nanjemoy in Charles County, Maryland in 1761; and the Lawrell, which purchased slaves at James Fort in Gambia. (The subsequent fate of the Lawrell and its slaves is unknown.)

Whatever profits Barnes and Ridgate may have realized from these slave sales, they quickly ran into major financial challenges, during the British debt crisis of the early 1770s which caused widespread hardship for the mercantile and planer elite in the thirteen colonies. In May and June 1773, trustees for Barnes and Ridgate advertised for all those indebted to the firm to settle their debts. The Fall of 1773 saw several urgent sales of real estate and mercantile goods by the firm, and multiple calls by trustees to settle the firm’s extensive debts. By the time he wrote his will in 1773, Abraham Barnes had lost patience with his son John’s business misadventures. Abraham Barnes’ will, dated June 29, 1773 states:

“In 1764 I gave my son John a very sufficient quantity of goods to begin trade and merchandise. Contrary to my expectations, he has carelessly lost and sunk all I gave him and is more in debt than I am able to pay, he having stripped all the ready money I had and has involved me in a very considerable security to Osgood, Hanberry and Company, merchants in London, and others. On the whole, this will amount to an equal share of my estate, but above all, he has robbed me of my happiness and peace of mind at a time of life when I expected to be free from any disturbance or anxiety. 
When he reflects on this and that this profoundly unhappy condition and misfortune is entirely owing to his own obstinacy in rejecting my advice and opinion in all things and at the same time not informing himself of the true state of his affairs and endeavors (and) to keep everything material from my knowledge. From this melancholy consideration, he cannot, with any reason, expect any further favor or indulgence from me. Therefore, I give all to my son, Richard Barnes”. SOURCE https://reno.stmaryshistory.org/smc/articles_files/july_ABarnes.html

In 1773, in an evident effort to raise cash, Barnes and Ridgate sold to Abraham Barnes the following 23 slaves, as described in this bill of sale:

“:”I, John Barnes of CC [Charles County], merchant and Partner in Trade with Thomas How Ridgate of CC, but at present of London, merchant, for 871 £13 shillings and 4 pence, have sold to Colo Abraham Barnes of St Mary’s County, all the following slaves, to wit, 1 Negro man named John, Negro woman named Phillis and her 3 children, 1 Negro man named Jack Nails, 1 Negro woman named Nanny and her 3 children, 1 Negro man named Kenn, 1 Negro woman named Judy and her 1 child, 1 Negro man named Clem, 1 Negro boy named Ajax, 1 Negro man named Ned and 1 Negro woman, wife to Ned, 1 Negro man named Peter, 1 Negro boy named Watt, 1 Negro man named Quibus and a Negro woman, wife to Quibus, 1 Negro man carpenter named Giles, 1 Negro man carpenter named Jerry.”
Signed Aug 1, 1772 – John Barnes. Wit – Phil R Fendall,
James Key, G.R. Brown*, Recorded Aug 1, 1772,1770-1775 Charles County, Maryland Land Records; Liber S#3 [TLC]; Page 279. Bill of Sale. Source: https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I118064&tree=tree1

Since Barnes & Ridgate are listed as the joint owners of these 23 slaves, it seems reasonable that some of these individuals may have come off the Peggy or the Providence, and were not sold in the August 1770. sales in Georgetown and Nottingham.

In any event, John Barnes appears to have been in considerable financial distress for the rest of his life. He moved to property owned by his brother Richard Barnes, who as noted above was the sole beneficiary of their father Abraham’s estate. John Barnes died in Washington County, Maryland in 1800. [Richard Barnes, who died in April 1804, declared in his will ““all of his Negroes shall be free before three years after his death and after they have finished the crop which shall be on hand at the time” This could have led to the freedom of his more or less 220 slaves, on condition that they assume the surname Barnes. However due to legal technicalities enumerated by his estate administrator, his nephew Thomas Mason, only a small number attained freedom. The enslaved persons who were kept in captivity and those who were freed are reviewed in a wikitree document.

Thomas Ridgate, the other partner in Barnes and Ridgate. also seems to have been consumed with debt challenges in his final years. He died intestate in Charles County in March 1790 in Charles County, Maryland. His court ordered estate inventory lists 13 enslaved people: Abram, 33 years old old, Jess, 31, Sam 19, (“subject to convulsive fits” ) Frederick 5, Spencer 2, Fanny, 24, Nell 17, Jane Sickley, 15, Molly 16, Darkey, 7, Milly 5, Monaky, 2, Priss, 7. Of these, Abram, Jess and Fanny were old enough to have come off of the Peggy or the Providence.


Captain William Sharp and the Peggy: The Robins Johns episode

William Sharp, who captained the Peggy into Georgetown in 1770 is recorded as having captained two later slave trading voyages on the Peggy. In 1772 (Voyage #91741) he sailed from Liverpool to the Windward Coast and then disembarked 287 slaves in Dominica. By the time of this voyage, he had evidently earned sufficient funds to be listed as a co-owner of the voyage. In 1774, Sharp again captained (with George McMein) the Peggy (Voyage # 91906) from Liverpool to the Windward Coast, then disembarked slaves in British Honduras and Charleston, South Carolina.

In his fascinating book, The Two Princes of Calabar (2009), Randy Sparks infers that Captain Sharp intersected with one of the most intriguing episodes in the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the story of Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin John, known as the Robin Johns or “the two princes,” The Robins John, who may have been uncle and nephew, were prominent Efik slave traders in Old Calabar (present day Nigeria), who were captured, sold into slavery and transported to Dominica. Sparks proposes that in Dominica they made contact with Captain Sharp, who falsely promised to return them to Old Calabar, but who in fact tricked them, transporting them to Virginia and selling them to the Bristol-native Captain John Thompson, who abused them seriously. With great difficulty the Robin Johns eventually secured their freedom and returned to Old Calabar. Sharp clearly had connections with the Efik slave traders: Sparks notes that the Efik ruler of Calabar, Grandy King George, the brother of Little Ephraim, praised William Sharpe in a letter in 1773, as a “very good man, ” not knowing that Sharp had tricked his brother and nephew (Sparks 2009, p 168, fn 19)

(I am having difficulty retracing all of Sparks’ detective work, since the journey of the Peggy he references, #91357, is not listed in slavevoyages.org as continuing to Virginia, although of course it may have done so. Alternately the Robin Johns may have been on the Peggy voyage to Maryland and purchased by Captain Thompson in 1770.)

This Captain William Sharp may be the same William Sharp who two decades later in 1792 is listed as owning 58 slaves in St Ann’s Province, Jamaica.

It is my hope that future research will reveal more details on the lives of the persons transported on board the Peggy and sold in Georgetown in August 1770.

References

James H. Johnston. Slavery was part and parcel of the wealth of early Georgetown.Washington Post. August 27, 2021.

Sparks, Randy J. (2009). The two princes of Calabar: an eighteenth-century Atlantic odyssey. Harvard University Press

Keyes Port of Washington: Capital City Slavery Tour,

John Barnes, legal records; from https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I102445&tree=Tree1&sitever=mobile