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Robinson, Cedric J.
2001.
The Inventions of the Negro.
Social Identities,
Vol. 7,
Issue. 3,
p.
329.
Article contents
White women, black slaves and the law in early national Georgia: the Sunbury petition of 1791*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2010
Abstract
In 1791, in one of the most remarkable documents penned in eighteenth-century Georgia, a group of white women petitioned for the life of a male mulatto slave who had been condemned to death not because of the offence he had committed but because of his reputation as ‘villain’. Although barely a page long, the Sunbury petition provides a fascinating statement of the racial attitudes, political consciousness and modus operandi of elite white women in early national Georgia. The women of Sunbury were articulating their understanding of the role and duties of women in the new republic. If necessary, those duties included correcting the civic behaviour of men.
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References
1 The items said to have been taken by Billy included a ‘Magnifying Glass’, clothes, shoes, silverware, chinaware, and a ‘brass Candlestick’. For the trial proceedings, which are loose papers and unpaginated, see Telamon Cuyler Collection [Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia] Box 71: File: Georgia-Slavery; Folder Georgia. Slavery. Trials. (Hereafter Trial Proceedings.)
2 For a brief discussion of slave trials in early national Georgia see Wood, Betty,‘“Until he shall be dead, dead, dead”: the Judicial treatment of slaves in eighteenth-century Georgia’, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXXXI (1987), 377–408Google Scholar.
3 For the slave code of 1765 see Candler, Allen D. and Knights, Lucian L., eds., The colonial records of the state of Georgia, 26 vols. (Atlanta, 1904–1916), xviii, 225–35Google Scholar.
4 Prince, Oliver H., ed., Digtst of the laws of the state of Georgia (2nd edn, Athens, 1837), p. 786.Google Scholar David Stewart, E. Henry Schmidt and Artemas Baker, appointed as appraisers by the Sunbury Court, valued Billy at ‘Fifty Pounds Sterling’, Trial Procedings.
5 This was the usual face of those slaves who secured a reprieve. Owners were liable for all the expenses incurred.
6 ‘The Petition of Thomas Stone To his Excellency Edward Telfair Esq.’ (Trial Proceedings).
7 John Lawson and David Rees to Governor Edward Telfair, Sunbury, 23 Aug. 1791 (Trial Proceedings).
8 Ibid.
9 ‘To John Lawson Esquire, one of the Assisting Judges — and David Rees Esquire-The humble memorial of Sundry Ladies inhabitants of Sunbury’ (Telamon Cuyler collection, Box 75: Sunbury: Miscellaneous papers “hereafter Stmhwy Petition”). The petition was signed by the following women: Mary Baker, Elizabeth Peacock, M[ary] B. M'Intoth, S[arah[ Maxwell, B. Lokerman, Ann Oswald, E[Elizabeth[ Rees, Elizabeth Lawson, Esther Dunwody, Mary Lawson, C[laudia] Coddington, Hannah Peacock, D. Schmidt, Esther Alexander, Mary Ann Ladsdon, S. D. Schmidt, C. Schmidt, H. Schmidt, Jane Dollar, M[ary] Hardy, Jane Mulryne and Elizabeth Barneray. In addition to Lawson and Rees, the Court comprised John Baker, Charles Irvine, Jonathan Holden, Philip Jacob Schmidt and John Pomeroy (Jurors) and the three Courtappointed appraisers (Trial Proceedings).
10 For examples of petitions drafted in connection with convicted whites see Telamon Cuyler Collection, Box 39: Georgia. Governors papers. Hall, Lyman, 1783–4; Houstoun, John, 1784–5; Box 40: Georgia. Governors papers. Elbert, Samuel, 1785–6; Box 40A: Georgia. Governors papers. Telfair, Edward; Matthews, Georgia; and Box 4a: Georgia. Governors papers. Telfair, Edward.
11 For an excellent discussion of this literature see Kerber, Linda K., ‘Daughters of Columbia: educating women for the republic, 1787–1805’, in Elkiins, Stanley and McKitrick, Eric, eds., The Hofstadter asgis: a memorial (New York, 1974), pp. 36–59 andGoogle ScholarWomen of the republic: inellect and ideology in revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, 1980).Google Scholar See also , Kerber's ‘“History can do it no justice”: women and the reinterpretation of the American revolution’, and Mary Beth Norton's Reflections on women in the age of the American revolution’, in Hoffman, Ronald and Albert, Peter J., eds., Women in the age of the American revolution (Charlottesville, 1989), pp. 3–49, 479–93Google Scholar Despite the recent flurry of scholarly interest in the experiences of women during the Revolutionary era comparatively little has been written about the lot of southern women during the second half of the eighteenth century.
12 For two rare discussions of white women in eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Georgia see Swann, Lee Ann Caldwell, ‘Landgrants to Georgia women, 1755–1775’, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXI (1977), 23–34Google Scholar and Eleanor M. Boatwright, ‘The political status of women in Georgia’, ibid, xxv (1941), 301–24.
13 It is not without interest that women's opinions were conspicuous by their absence in the literature generated during the bitter debate which preceded the introduction of slavery into Georgia.
14 For women landowners, including Elizabeth Butler, see Swann, ‘Landgrants to Georgia women’. See also Davis, Harold E., The fledgling province. Social and cultural life in colonial Georgia, 1733–1776 (Chapel Hill, 1976), pp. 160–1Google Scholar.
15 Ibid. pp. 163–4.
16 O. Vernon Burton, unpublished comment on the earlier vernon of this essay presented to the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. I am most grateful to Professor Burton for this observation.
17 Sylvia R. Frey, ‘“Bitter fruit from the sweet stem of liberty”. Georgia slavery and the American revolution’ (paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the A.H.A., Dec. 1985).
18 See, for example, The Gazette of the State of Georgia, 29 Sept. 1785, to May 1787 and 36 May 1788.
19 The Gazette of the Statt of Georgia, 28 Apr. 1785 (emphasis added).
20 Ibid. 13 Dec. 1787 (emphasis in original).
21 Ibid. 6 July 1786.
22 Down to the mid- 1780s these petitions and their disposition were published periodically in The Gazette of the State of Georgia.
23 Bogin, Ruth, ‘Petitioning and the new moral economy of post-revolutionary America’, The William and Mary Quarterly, XLV, no. 3 (1988), 391–425CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 In 1782, or early in 1783, ‘sundry ladies or Augusta’ petitioned the Assembly on behalf of Dr Andrew Johnston. Their petition, which appears not to have survived, was rejected by the Assembly in Dec. 1783 (The Gazette of the Stats of Georgia, 6 Feb. 1783, 25 Dec. 1783).
25 For Liberty County's local officials and representatives in the state government see Groover, Robert L., Sweet land of Liberty. A history of Liberty County Georgia (Russell, GA, 1987), pp. 135Google Scholar Some idea of the economic eminence of the families from whom the petitioners were recruited may be gathered from three tax lists which have survived from the mid-1780s. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library (University of Georgia), MSS 1323. Sunbury Tax Lists, 1785–7. No comparable lists have survived for the years between 1787 and 1791.
26 , Groover, Sweet land of Liberty, p. 9Google Scholar.
27 With the exception of Mary Dollar all these women signed the petition or 1791. For the immensely complicated family and kinship networks of Liberty County see Wilson, Caroline P., ed., Annals of Georgia. Liberty County records and a state revolutionary pay roll (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Carter, Mary, comp., Effimgham County, Georgia & Liberty County, Georgia, early records (Albany, GA, 1978)Google Scholar; and Stacy, James, History of the Midway Congregational Church, Liberty County, Georgia (Newnan, GA, 1899)Google Scholar.
28 Henry Stone married for the first time in 1788. He and his bride, Susannah McClelland, were both minors (Wilson, Annals of Georgia, 10). For his marriage to Ann Oswald sec , Stacy, History of Midway, p. 177Google Scholar.
29 For Elizabeth Stewart Stone's will see LaFar, M. F. & Wilson, C. B., eds., Abstracts of Wills, Chatham County, Georgia, 1773–1817 (Washington, DC, 1936), 134–5Google Scholar. it is also probable that Elizabeth Stone's god-daughter, Elizabeth Butler Maxwell, who was named in the will, was related to Sarah Maxwell who signed the Sunbury petition.
30 Patty's whereabouts were mentioned in the Sunbury Petition.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 This was in the shape of a series of articles published under the pseudonym ‘ANTIMULATTO’. See The Savannah Republican for 16, 19, 26 August; 6, 20, 27 September 1817; and 17 January 1818. For a brief discussion of these pieces see Wood, Betty, ‘White society and the “informal” slave economies of lowcountry Georgia, 1763–1830’, Slavery & Abolition, xi (1990), 313–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Sunbury petition.
35 For a standard account of the invasion and reinvasion of Liberty County which typically makes no mention of women, black or white, see , Groover, Sweet land of Liberty, pp. 17–21Google Scholar.
36 Billy was tried on 18 July and scheduled to die five days later (Trial Proceedings).
37 It is unclear whether any of the petitioners actually attended Billy's trial. That some women did attend capital trials in the early nineteenth century is suggested by I. S. Bradwell's comment to the effect that ‘A good murder trial was sure to find them present’. (I. S. Bradwell to Adam Alexander, 31 May 1820 in MSS Letters and Papers of Adam Leopald Alexander, Washington, Georgia, in Duke University Library. Cited by , Boatwright, ‘The political status of women’, P. 303)Google Scholar
38 Comparatively little is known about Stone. In 1759 he married Frances Guerin in St Philip's, Charleston. At some point between that date and 1774 he moved to Georgia where he became active in the patriot cause. He was referred to as a ‘soldier of the line’ and in 1780 as a ‘planter’. In 178a Stone was elected to the Georgia Assembly as one of the members from Chatham County. Two years later he was appointed a Commissioner for Great Ogechee District and a Justice for Chatham County. Knight, L. L., ed., Georgia's roster of the revolution (Atlanta, 1920; reprint, Baltimore, 1967), pp. 166,Google Scholar 39a, 439; Davis, Robert S. Jr, Georgia citizens and soldiers of At Amman revolution (Easley, S. C., 1979), p. 68Google Scholar; Candler, Allen D., ed., The revolutionary records of the state Georgia, 3 vols. (Atlanta, 1908), III, 171, 560Google Scholar; Georgia Historical Society (Savannah), Geneaology File: STONE FAMILY (typescript). For a brief life of Walton see Gladys Buckner, George Walten signer of the Declaration of Independence (Augusta, n.d.).
39 LaFar, M. L. and Wilson, C. B., eds., Abstracts of wills, pp. 134–5Google Scholar.
40 Trial Proceedings.
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