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From: <>
Subject: Slave Records
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 18:05:46 EDT

As a follow up to my previous post, in answer to a question "Should we post
slave records on this board?" I offer the following three examples:

Example #1.Proving a lineage for white people. I was researching the name
AVARY which has since been published in the South side Virginian. The first
clue was the spelling of the name as AVARY, not AVERY. The will of the
presumed ancestor, George Avary, of Brunswick County, VA named several
children and bequeathed to them several slaves. One of these children was
Charles AVARY and he was bequeathed two slaves named GEORGE AND BASON. There
was a very large AVARY line descended from one Charles AVARY of Greenville
Co., SC. The odd but consitent spelling of the name was a good clue, but not
enough to prove anything.

I was hired to research the records of South Carolina to see if there was any
way to connect this Charles Avary of SC to George Avary of VA. I found a will
for Charles Avary and many land transactions, but they did not shed any light
on his ancestry. Only when I found his estate file did I find an inventory of
his estate which included several slaves. Two of them were named GEORGE AND
BASON. The name George is certainly common enough, but BASON? And George and
Bason together? Further, the will of the father, George Avary, was written in
1796, which is when he bequeathed these two slaves to his son Charles. The
inventory of Charles Avary, in South Carolina, was produced in 1824. It
included a slave man Bason aged 78 and "of no value." The slave George was
only valued at $100, compared to the average of about $1000 for the other
slaves. Therefore, slave George was also an old man at this time. The
conclusion to this is that slave inventories can certainly prove a
relationship for people of white ancestry.

2.Proving a lineage for African Americans. Continuing from Charles Avary,
above, who had moved to South Carolina. One of his many children was one
William Avary, who left a will in 1845. It named his wife Sarah but no
children. His estate, upon the death of Sarah, was to be divided between
three of his brothers, which further proved a link to the AVARY's of Alabama.
However, the will also stated that his slaves Adam, Matilda and a baby slave
girl named Mary were to be sold to a "merciful master" and not sold "at public
outcry" (by which he meant not at auction.) There is clue #1. Clue #2: the
widow gave the baby slave girl, Mary, to her "step-nephew" William Poor, and
in the deed the baby is called a "Mulatter". Clue #3: The slave named Adam
ran away from the Mistress after she gave the baby girl to her nephew, and
Clue #4: The executor of the estate submitted a bill for an enormous sum of
money to obtain a pardon for the slave Adam, who had run away and been
captured, from being hanged. Does this prove anything? No. But it doesn't
take a rocket scientist to read between the lines. This particular case is
probably one of the better examples, but inventories of slaves in estate files
often mention the mother, father and children of slaves owned at the time of
death. I have also found wills which name children by female slaves,
acknowledging the man is the father and emancipating them. It should also be
born in mind that not all blacks were slaves in the south, some of them were
free.

A NOTE TO THE LIST: Just as all Southerners were not slave owners, much less
sitting around like Gone With The Wind drinking mint juleps, African Americans
cannot assume they are all descended from white men.

One last note (comment) on this subject before I go to example #3. The census
of 1870 in the South is often called "horrible" because it was conducted by
the Re constructionist government often by black tabulators who had formerly
been slaves. It has been suggested that because these tabulators were former
slaves, they must have been illiterate, and therefore the census is not to be
relied upon. If these people were illiterate, how could they have written up
a census? While there are MANY political motivations for skewing population
records, a census was conducted nonetheless. In 1870, therefore, in my
opinion, you may have one of the most accurate census' ever taken--notice how
often you will see the word "mulatto" and how often the surname (and first
names) match those of the white person living on the same property. Food for
thought. Not food for jumping to conclusions.

Example #3. African American History. In the course of my research into my
own family (Kilby), I found an unrelated branch which produced many learned
men who were judges and lawyers in Hanover Co., VA. One of their descendants
had the foresight to donate all of these papers to the VA state library, and
are in several boxes at the archives. Included in them (including several
wills and deeds drawn up for clients, which produced some very nice surprises
not related to the Kilby line) were several letters from one of this family's
former slaves. He had obviously been taught to read and write by his former
masters. He had also decided to take Mr. Lincoln up on his offer to go back
to Africa, for his letters back to Virginia recite in vivid detail his trip
across the ocean and what was going on in Liberia once he landed. (It was not
a pretty story and that probably explains why this experiment didn't get off
the ground.)

Well this has been a long post, and most of you are probably dozing off by
now, but this is a fascinating subject and one that deserves a lot more
discussion. I hope at least someone out there found something of value here.
My regards to all of you, and God's love to all as well. Craig M. Kilby

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