NEGROES WHO OWNED SLAVES 483 



NEGROES WHO OWXED SLAVES 



By CALVIN D. WILSON 



GLENDALE, O. 



THE story, in its completeness, of the existence previous to the civil 

 war, of a large number of free negro slaveholders in America has 

 become for our generation practically a lost chapter. The fact has been 

 almost forgotten. The full data have never been collected, and prob- 

 ably never will be in an exhaustive way. Much material on this subject 

 has perished through the burning of court houses, state houses and 

 similar depositories of documents. The generations that were familiar 

 with this condition have gone. More than forty daily newspapers 

 passed around from one to another during the summer of 1907 a few 

 crumbs of information on this matter as items of curious news. Edi- 

 torial comment was tinctured with surprise and in some cases with in- 

 credulity. The facts have not only their own kind of interest, but they 

 throw light upon the economic and industrial condition of the free 

 negroes before the emancipation proclamation. 



When President Lincoln signed that paper he by the same pen re- 

 duced to comparative poverty many colored people who thus lost pos- 

 session of their bondsmen. Some of these were pure blacks ; some were 

 mulattoes; while still others had in them only enough African to class 

 them with that race, according to the social decree that a drop of African 

 blood makes a negro, or as President Booker Washington phrases it, 

 "makes him fall to their pile." Certain of these blacks owned from 

 one to a dozen slaves, while others had in servitude from sixty to a 

 hundred or two hundred men, women and children. These were to be 

 found, at one period or another, in nearly all, if not quite all, the col- 

 onies or states where slaves were held. In some counties they were 

 numerous, while in others they were unknown. In certain of the states 

 this condition was at times forbidden by law, but often continued in 

 spite of the law, tolerated or ignored; the laws upon the subject also 

 varied from time to time. In other states, free negroes were given the 

 privilege of being masters by special statute or this liberty was covered 

 by general laws. 



Certain of these slaveholders became such by inheritance through 

 white relatives; others by gift; and still others by purchase after the 

 manner of their Caucasian neighbors. In some instances they owned 



