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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Better Late Than Never

I found this item at Hening's Statutes of Virginia 9:320-1 quite moving:


He knew he was dying.  He gave his slave Rachel and her daughter their freedom, and left part of his estate to build them a house.

3 comments:

  1. Most today would probably suspect the child was his. I suspect back then they would have also thought that. Thanks to DNA testing we know that was not a rare thing.

    In such cases freedom and land seem like a minimum obligation. Certainly a complex mess slavery created.

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  2. A man is not mentioned. You have to wonder if the child was John Barry's.

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  3. It is certainly a reasonable assumption. More than a few slaves received their freedom in such a manner.

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