VII · Liberty, Marching South
c.1739–1740
Dictated narrative
A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself (the sale at Anamaboo and the voyage to Barbadoes)
Venture Smith (dictated; amanuensis usually identified as Elisha Niles) · 1798, recalling about 1739
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
In the Exam Room: Question 12
They then went on to the next district which was contiguous with the sea, called in Africa, Anamaboo. … I was then taken a second time. All of us were then put into the castle, and kept for market. On a certain time I and other prisoners were put on board a canoe, under our master, and rowed away to a vessel belonging to Rhode Island, commanded by capt. Collingwood, and the mate Thomas Mumford. While we were going to the vessel, our master told us all to appear to the best possible advantage for sale. I was bought on board by one Robertson Mumford, steward of said vessel, for four gallons of rum, and a piece of calico, and called VENTURE, on account of his having purchased me with his own private venture. Thus I came by my name. All the slaves that were bought for that vessel's cargo, were two hundred and sixty.
After all the business was ended on the coast of Africa, the ship sailed from thence to Barbadoes. After an ordinary passage, except great mortality from small pox, which broke out on board, we arrived at the island of Barbadoes: but when we reached it, there were found out of the two hundred and sixty that sailed from Africa, not more than two hundred alive. These were all sold, except myself and three more, to the planters there.
The vessel then sailed for Rhode Island, and arrived there after a comfortable passage.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Dictated at about 69 at Haddam Neck, Connecticut, and printed at New London in 1798, nearly sixty years after the voyage he describes, which he made as a young boy.
- Intended audience
- New England readers of the 1790s, while Connecticut and New York were debating how slavery should end.
- Purpose
- To set down his life, his labour and his bargains in his own terms, and to show what freedom cost him.
- Point of view
- His own, but mediated by a white amanuensis and printer, and remembered across sixty years. His figures (260 bought, about 200 alive) are memory: the customs record of the voyage historians match to his story (the Charming Susanna, 1739) is far smaller.
Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa (New London: C. Holt, 1798), ch. I–II. Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina.
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Database
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: estimates
SlaveVoyages (David Eltis, David Richardson and others)
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
[Paraphrase, not a quotation] The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database estimates that about 12.5 million people were forced aboard slave ships between 1501 and 1866, and that about 10.7 million arrived alive. About 389,000 reached North America.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The database compiles about 36,000 recorded slave-trade voyages from ship logs, port records and insurance and customs papers. Missing voyages are filled in by statistical estimates.
- Intended audience
- Historians, teachers, students and the public.
- Purpose
- To give the best available count of how many people the Atlantic slave trade carried, where they left from and where they landed.
- Point of view
- A scholarly database with an explicit method. Its totals are estimates that historians revise, so the narration says "about" throughout.
SlaveVoyages (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database), estimates page, summarized in David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Yale UP, 2010), and in the 2019 summaries by SlaveVoyages. Our chart uses the SlaveVoyages regional total of 388,747 for mainland North America, rounded consistently to about 389,000 (see the chart’s full regional table and citation).
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Historical population estimates
Estimated population of the American colonies, 1750
U.S. Bureau of the Census; estimates compiled by Stella H. Sutherland · 1960 · estimates for 1750
Source
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
In the Exam Room: Question 7, Question 13
Estimated thirteen-colony population in 1750: 1,170,760 total residents, including 236,420 Black residents—about 20.2 percent. The Black population figure includes free people.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A twentieth-century reconstruction of colonial population from official reports, censuses, tax and militia lists, and other historical estimates.
- Intended audience
- Researchers and the public.
- Purpose
- Provide comparable historical population series.
- Point of view
- These are reconstructed estimates, not a single complete colonial census. The source’s racial category includes enslaved and free Black people. The denominator is all thirteen-colony residents in 1750, not Atlantic arrivals across centuries.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1960), Chapter Z, Series Z 1–19, Estimated Population of American Colonies, 1610–1780, printed p. 756 (chapter PDF p. 14); methodology p. 743. 236,420 ÷ 1,170,760 × 100 = 20.1937%, rounded to 20.2%.
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Official report
An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina (the Spanish proclamation, the Sunday rising, Wallace's tavern, and the count)
Unidentified white official (some scholars credit James Oglethorpe) · 1739
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
In the Exam Room: Question 14
On the 9th day of September last being Sunday which is the day the Planters allow them to work for themselves, Some Angola Negroes assembled, to the number of Twenty; and one who was called Jemmy was their Captain, they suprized a Warehouse belonging to Mr. Hutchenson at a place called Stonehow; they there killed Mr. Robert Bathurst, and Mr. Gibbs, plundered the House and took a pretty many small Arms and Powder, which were there for Sale. Next they plundered and burnt Mr. Godfrey's house, and killed him, his Daughter and Son. They then turned back and marched Southward along Pons Pons, which is the Road through Georgia to Augustine, they passed Mr. Wallace's Tavern towards day break, and said they would not hurt him, for he was a good Man and kind to his Slaves, but they broke open and plundered Mr. Lemy's House, and killed him, his wife and Child. They marched on towards Mr. Rose's resolving to kill him; but he was saved by a Negroe, who having hid him went out and pacified the others. Several Negroes joyned them, they calling out Liberty, marched on with Colours displayed, and two Drums beating, pursuing all the white people they met with, and killing Man Woman and Child when they could come up to them. … They increased every minute by new Negroes coming to them, so that they were above Sixty, some say a hundred, on which they halted in a field, and set to dancing, Singing and beating Drums, to draw more Negroes to them, thinking they were now victorious over the whole Province, having marched ten miles & burnt all before them without Opposition, but the Militia being raised, the Planters with great briskness pursued them and when they came up, dismounting; charged them on foot. The Negroes were soon routed, though they behaved boldly several being killed on the Spot … About 30 escaped from the fight … The rest are yet untaken. In the whole action about 40 Negroes and 20 whites were killed.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Georgia and South Carolina, autumn 1739, weeks after the rising, with Spanish Florida promising freedom to runaways and war with Spain about to break out.
- Intended audience
- British officials in Georgia and London who needed to know what had happened and how to stop a second rising.
- Purpose
- To report the rising, to blame Spanish agents and the Augustine proclamation, and to describe the measures taken to stop runaways reaching Florida.
- Point of view
- A white official who praises the planters' 'Humanity' while recording summary shootings, and who reports the rebels' only words (sparing Wallace) in indirect speech. Its count ('about 40 Negroes and 20 whites') is one of two contemporary counts; Bull's letter gives another (21 white people; 44 rebels 'killed and Executed').
"An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina" (1739), in Allen D. Candler, ed., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, vol. 22, pt. 2 (Atlanta, 1913), 232–236; original-spelling text as posted by Latin American Studies (fetched 4 Oct 2026). The National Humanities Center prints a modernized version.
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Park history page
Fort Mosé (Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose)
National Park Service
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
[Paraphrase, not a quotation] By the late 1600s enslaved people from the English colonies could find freedom in Spanish Florida if they became Catholic and pledged to serve the Spanish Crown. In 1738 Governor Manuel de Montiano granted land about two miles north of St. Augustine for a free Black settlement with an earthen-walled fort and thatched houses: thirty-eight men and their families, about one hundred people, commanded by Francisco Menéndez.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A present-day park history of the first legally sanctioned free Black town in what is now the United States.
- Intended audience
- Visitors, teachers and students.
- Purpose
- To explain Spain's sanctuary policy and the founding of Mose.
- Point of view
- The National Park Service, drawing on Jane Landers's work in the Spanish archives; Spain's offer was also a weapon against Carolina.
National Park Service, 'Fort Mosé', https://www.nps.gov/foma/learn/historyculture/fort-mose.htm (read 4 Oct 2026); Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (1999).
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Written account
An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina
Unidentified white official (some scholars credit James Oglethorpe) · 1739
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
On the 9th day of September last being Sunday … Some Angola Negroes assembled, to the number of Twenty; and one who was called Jemmy was their Captain … Several Negroes joyned them, they calling out Liberty, marched on with Colours displayed, and two Drums beating, pursuing all the white people they met with, and killing Man Woman and Child when they could come up to them.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- South Carolina and Georgia, autumn 1739. A rising of enslaved people near the Stono River had just been put down, and Spanish Florida was promising freedom to runaways.
- Intended audience
- British officials and colonists, in Georgia and in London, who needed to know what had happened and how to prevent a second rising.
- Purpose
- To report the rising and the measures taken against it, and to warn that the Spanish promise of freedom was drawing enslaved people south.
- Point of view
- A white official who blames Spanish agents and praises the planters' mercy. He reports the rebels' words and drums but not their reasons in their own voice.
"An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina" (1739), in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, ed. Allen D. Candler (Atlanta: Byrd, 1913), vol. 22, pt. 2, pp. 232–236; text as posted by Latin American Studies (original spelling). National Humanities Center prints a modernized version.
View original
Letter
Lieutenant Governor William Bull to the Board of Trade on the Stono rising
William Bull (1683–1755), lieutenant governor and acting governor of South Carolina · 5 October 1739
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
On the 9th of September last at Night a great Number of Negroes Arose in Rebellion, broke open a Store where they got arms, killed twenty one White Persons, and were marching the next morning in a Daring manner out of the Province, killing all they met and burning several Houses as they passed along the Road. I was returning from Granville County with four Gentlemen and met these Rebels at eleven o'clock in the forenoon and fortunately deserned the approaching danger time enough to avoid it, and to give notice to the Militia who on the Occasion behaved with so much expedition and bravery, as by four a'Clock the same day to come up with them and killed and took so many as put a stop to any further mischief at that time, forty four of them have been killed and Executed; some few yet remain concealed in the Woods expecting the same fate, seem desperate.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Charles Town, four weeks after the rising, as Britain and Spain moved toward war and South Carolina feared Florida's pull on the people it enslaved.
- Intended audience
- The Board of Trade in London, which oversaw the colonies.
- Purpose
- To report the rising, his own escape, the militia's speed and the toll, and to ask for help (Indian trackers, measures against desertion to St. Augustine).
- Point of view
- The colony's second man, who rode into the column and fled; he praises the militia's 'bravery' and counts the rebels 'killed and Executed' together.
William Bull to the Board of Trade, 5 October 1739, The National Archives (UK), CO 5/388; text as printed by PBS, Africans in America, Resource Bank, 'Report from William Bull re. Stono Rebellion' (fetched 4 Oct 2026).
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Colonial law
An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province (the Negro Act of 1740), Section I
South Carolina General Assembly; enacted 'by the honorable William Bull, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor' · 10 May 1740
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
I. And be it enacted, by the honorable William Bull, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-chief, by and with the advice and consent of his Majesty's honorable Council, and the Commons House of Assembly of this Province, and by the authority of the same, That all Negroes and Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and degrees, mulattoes, and mustizoes, who are now free, excepted,) mulattoes or mustizoes who now are, or shall hereafter be, in this Province, and all their issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be, and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother, and shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever …
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Charles Town, May 1740, eight months after Stono, in the first year of war with Spain.
- Intended audience
- South Carolina's masters, magistrates and courts, who would enforce it, and the people it bound.
- Purpose
- To fix enslaved status as permanent, hereditary through the mother and property in law, and (in later sections) to ban drums, limit travel and gatherings, and fine anyone who taught an enslaved person to write.
- Point of view
- The colony's planter lawmakers and its acting governor, the same William Bull who met the Stono marchers; the people the law names had no voice in it.
"An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province" (No. 670, 10 May 1740), sec. I, in David J. McCord, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, vol. 7 (Columbia, 1840), 397; transcription posted by the Modjeska Simkins School (fetched 4 Oct 2026).
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Colonial law
An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province (the Negro Act of 1740), Sections XXXVI and XLV
South Carolina General Assembly · May 10, 1740
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Liberty, Marching South
In the Exam Room: Question 15
using or keeping of drums, horns, or other loud instruments, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes … who shall hereinafter teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught, to write … every such person and persons, shall, for every such offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Charles Town, May 1740, eight months after the Stono rising of September 1739 and the burning of several plantations.
- Intended audience
- South Carolina's masters, overseers, magistrates and courts, who had to enforce it, and the people it governed.
- Purpose
- To tighten control over enslaved people: to ban drums and horns that could signal a gathering, to restrict movement and meetings, and to fine anyone who taught an enslaved person to write.
- Point of view
- The colony's ruling planters, writing after the rising, who call the drums a way "to give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs". The people the law names had no vote and no voice in it.
"An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province" (No. 670, May 10, 1740), in David J. McCord, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, vol. 7 (Columbia: A. S. Johnston, 1840), 397 ff. (sections XXXVI and XLV); transcription as posted by the Modjeska Simkins School.
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Background
Dramatized speech from reported testimony
Elizabeth's mother names the father — dramatized
Our dramatization, based on Alice Larrett's sworn deposition · Scene set c. 1631
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
I heard her mother Say that shee was mr. Keyes daughter
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- In 1656 Alice Larrett testified that Elizabeth was about twenty-five and that she had heard Elizabeth's mother identify her as Mr. Key's daughter. The testimony does not date that remark or place it at a newborn's bedside.
- Intended audience
- The historical deposition addressed Nicholas Morris and the court. In the imagined scene the mother addresses someone beyond the kitchen door while Alice listens.
- Purpose
- Make visible the remembered claim of paternity on which Elizabeth could later draw, while distinguishing the mother's reconstructed sentence from Larrett's surviving words.
- Point of view
- No name or direct transcript of the mother's speech survives. The kitchen, newborn, delivery and Alice's servant role are staging. Alice at about thirteen is arithmetic: her deposed age of about thirty-eight minus Elizabeth's age of about twenty-five; it is not a recorded childhood age. The full field preserves the underlying verbatim clause, with accidental joined words in the web transcription separated.
Alice Larrett, deposition sworn before Nicholas Morris, 19 January 1655 Old Style (1656 modern year), recorded 20 January. Northumberland County records, case of Elizabeth Key, 1655/56. VAGenWeb transcription credits the University of Chicago and lists Record Books 1652–1658, fols. Order Book 1652–1665, fols.
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Eyewitness deposition about the service agreement
Anne Clark recalls Higginson's promise
Anne Clark, about thirty-nine, as recorded in her sworn deposition · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Anne Clark aged 39 or thereabouts Sworne and Examined Sayth that shee this deponent was present when a Condition was made betweene mr. Humphrey Higginson and mr. Kaye for a servant called Besse a Molletto and this deponents Husband William Reynolds nowe deceased was a witness but whether the said Besse after the Expiration of her time from mr Higginson was to be free from mr Kaye this deponent cannot tell and mr Higginson promised to use her as well as if shee were his own Child and further this deponent Sayth not
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth's freedom suit required proof of the agreement under which Thomas Key transferred her service to Higginson for nine years.
- Intended audience
- The Northumberland County court and jury.
- Purpose
- Testify to an agreement Clark witnessed and to Higginson's promise of treatment.
- Point of view
- Clark says she was present, but expressly cannot tell whether Elizabeth would be free from Thomas Key after Higginson's term. We quote her promise clause, not an invented promise of freedom. Her on-camera regret is interpretation.
Anne Clark deposition, 20 January 1655 Old Style (1656 modern year), Northumberland County records, Elizabeth Key case; VAGenWeb/University of Chicago transcription.
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Sworn report of direct speech; scene reconstructed
John Bayles reports Mrs. Speke's rebuke
John Bayles, about thirty-three, reporting Mrs. Speke's words · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
John Bayles aged 33 yeares or thereabouts sworne and Examined Sayth That at the House of Col. John Mottrom Black Besse was tearmed to be mr Kayes Bastard and John Keye calling her Black Bess mrs. Speke Checked him and said Sirra you must call her Sister for shee is your Sister and the said John Keye did call her Sister and further this deponent Sayth not the marke of John Bayles
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The court was considering evidence that Thomas Key fathered Elizabeth. Bayles recalled a household exchange treating Elizabeth and John Keye as siblings.
- Intended audience
- The Northumberland County court and jury in Elizabeth's case.
- Purpose
- Establish publicly acknowledged kinship through the remembered correction of John Keye.
- Point of view
- A witness's report of someone else's direct speech, not Mrs. Speke's own deposition. The record calls her only mrs. Speke and gives no date or age for John Keye. We follow the customary identification with the estate overseer Thomas Speke's wife. Her words are verbatim; the household staging, boy's age, emotions and Elizabeth's position in the room are dramatized.
John Bayles deposition, 20 January 1655 Old Style (1656 modern year), Northumberland County records, Elizabeth Key case. Accidental web word joins separated; original spelling and capitalization retained.
View original
Dramatized private decision
Elizabeth and William choose to sue — dramatized
Our dramatization, based on Elizabeth Key's documented freedom suit · 1655
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The Mottrom estate claimed Elizabeth's service. She sued for freedom, and the county records identify William Grinsted/Greensted as her attorney, meaning representative rather than a trained lawyer.
- Intended audience
- William Greensted in the imagined private moment.
- Point of view
- No record preserves this conversation, the exact moment of the decision or William's nod. Their shared child and William's role in the proceedings are documented.
Elizabeth Key case, Northumberland County Record and Order Books, 1655/56, particularly the order naming 'William Grinsted Atturney of the said Elizabeth'. VAGenWeb/University of Chicago transcription, fetched 4 October 2026.
View original
Northumberland court record
Mrs. Elizabeth Newman · sworn evidence
Mrs. Elizabeth Newman · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Mrs. Elizabeth Newman aged 80 yeares or thereabouts sworne and examined Sayth that it was a common Fame in Virginia that Elizabeth a Molletto nowe servant to the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased was the Daughter of mr. Kay; and the said Kaye was brought to Blunt-point Court and there fined for getting his Negro woman with Childe which said Negroe was the Mother of the said Molletto and the said fine was for getting the Negro with Childe which Childe was the said Elizabeth and further this deponent sayth not the marke of Elizabeth Newman 20th January 1655 Jurat in Curia. Elizabeth Newman aged 80 yeares or thereabouts Sworne and Examined Sayth that shee this deponent brought Elizabeth a Molletto, Servant to the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased to bed of two Children and shee layd them both to William Grinsted and further this Deponent Sayth not Elizabeth Newman her marke 20th January 1655 Jurat in Curia
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
Mr. Nicholas Jurnew · sworn evidence
Mr. Nicholas Jurnew · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Mr. Nicholas Jurnew aged 53 yeares or thereabouts sworne and Examined Sayth That about 16 or 17 yeares past this deponent heard a flying report at Yorke that Elizabeth a Negro Servant to the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased was the Childe of Mr. Kaye but the said Mr. Kaye said that a Turke of Capt. Mathewes was Father to the Girle and further this deponent sayth not signed Nicholas Jurnew 20th January 1655 Jurat in Curia
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
Anthony Lenton · sworn evidence
Anthony Lenton · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Anthony Lenton aged 41 yeares or thereabouts sworne and Examined Sayth that about 19 yeares past this deponent was a servant to Mr. Humphrey Higginson and at that time one Elizabeth a Molletto nowe servant to the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased was then a servant to the said mr. Higginson and as the Neighbours reported was bought of mr Higginson with the said servant both himself and his Wife intended a voyage for England and at the nine yeares end ( as the Neighbours reported ) the said Mr Higginson was bound to carry the said servant for England unto the said mr. Kaye, but before the said mr Kaye went his Voyage hee Dyed about Kecotan, and as the Nei,ghbours reported the said mr. Higginson said that at the nine yeares end hee would carry the said Molletto for England and give her a portion and lett her shift for her selfe And it was a Common report amongst the Neighbours that the said Molletto was mr Kays Child begott by him and further this deponent sayth not the marke of Anthony Lenton 20th January 1655 Jurat in Curia
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
John Bayles · sworn evidence
John Bayles · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
John Bayles aged 33 yeares or thereabouts sworne and Examined Sayth That at the House of Col. John Mottrom Black Besse was tearmed to be mr Kayes Bastard and John Keye calling her Black Bess mrs. Speke Checked him and said Sirra you must call her Sister for shee is your Sister and the said John Keye did call her Sister and further this deponent Sayth not the marke of John Bayles 20th January 1655 Jurat in Curia
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
Anne Clark · sworn evidence
Anne Clark · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Anne Clark aged 39 or thereabouts Sworne and Examined Sayth that shee this deponent was present when a Condition was made betweene mr. Humphrey Higginson and mr. Kaye for a servant called Besse a Molletto and this deponents Husband William Reynolds nowe deceased was a witness but whether the said Besse after the Expiration of her time from mr Higginson was to be free from mr Kaye this deponent cannot tell and mr Higginson promised to use her as well as if shee were his own Child and further this deponent Sayth not Signum Ann Clark 20th January 1655. Jurat in Curia
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
Alice Larrett’s deposition · sworn evidence
Alice Larrett, as recorded by the clerk · Sworn 19 January 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
The deposition of Alice Larrett aged 38 yeares or thereabouts Sworne and Examined Sayth that Elizabeth which is at Col. Mottroms is twenty five yeares of age or thereabouts and that I saw her mother goe to bed to her Master many times and that I heard her mother Say that shee was mr. Keyes daughter and further Sayth not the marke of Alice Larrett Sworne before mr. Nicholas Morris Igth Jan. 1655. 20th January this deposition was Recorded
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
View original
Northumberland court record
The January jury’s finding
Northumberland County jury · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Wee whose names are underwritten being impannelled upon a Jury to try a difference between Elizabeth pretended Slave to the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased and the overseers of the said Estate doe finde that the said Elizabeth ought to be free as by severall oathes might appeare which we desire might be Recorded and that the charges of Court be paid out of the said Estate.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
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Northumberland court record
The estate’s appeal is granted
Northumberland County court · January 20, 1655/6
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The Court doth order that Col. Thomas Speke one of the overseers of the Estate of Col. John Mottrom deceased shall have an Appeale to the Quarter Court next att James Citty in a Cause depending betweene the said overseers and Elizabeth a Moletto hee the said Col. Speke giving such caution as to Law doth belong.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
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Northumberland court record
Banns published in open court
William Greensted and Elizabeth Key; read by the county clerk · July 21, 1656
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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These are to Certifie whome it may concerne that William Greensted and Elizabeth Key intends to be joyned in the Holy Estate of Matrimony. If any one can shew any Lawfull cause why they may not be joyned together lett them Speake or ever after hold their tongues Signum William Greensted Signum Elizabeth Key 21th July 1656 this Certificate was Published in open Court and is Recorded
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
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Statute
Act XII · the double-fines clause
Virginia General Assembly · December 1662
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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WHEREAS some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or ffree, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any christian shall committ ffornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee soe offending shall pay double the ffines imposed by the former act.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia, December 1662, a few years after Elizabeth Key won her freedom on the strength of her English father. Planters and burgesses wanted to know what status the children of English fathers and enslaved women would have.
- Intended audience
- County courts, planters and colonial officials who had to decide each child's status.
- Purpose
- To settle the doubt in favor of the mother's status, so that a child born to an enslaved woman was enslaved whoever the father was. The act also doubled the fines for fornication across the color line.
- Point of view
- The colony's ruling planters and their assembly. The law protected enslavers' property in children; it says nothing of the mothers' or children's own view.
Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia (New York: R. & W. & G. Bartow, 1823), 2:170, Act XII (December 1662).
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Colonial law
An act about the casuall killing of slaves
Virginia General Assembly · October 1669
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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WHEREAS the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their master, mistris or overseer cannot be inflicted upon negroes, nor the obstinacy of many of them by other then violent meanes supprest, Be it enacted and declared by this grand assembly, if any slave resist his master (or other by his masters order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be accompted ffelony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murther ffelony) should induce any man to destroy his owne estate.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia, October 1669. The law for punishing a refractory servant, adding time to the term, could not be used on enslaved people, whose term was already for life.
- Intended audience
- Masters, overseers and county courts.
- Purpose
- To clear a master of any charge if an enslaved person died under "correction". The act argues that no one would kill his own property on purpose.
- Point of view
- The planter assembly, reasoning from an owner's interest. The person who died has no voice in the law.
Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, 2:270 (October 1669, Act I); text as reprinted by Virtual Jamestown, Laws on Slavery (a version of the act is also on Encyclopedia Virginia).
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Colonial law
What tyme Indians serve (Act XII)
Virginia General Assembly · October 1670
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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It is resolved and enacted that all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by shipping shalbe slaves for their lives; but what shall come by land shall serve, if boyes or girls, untill thirty yeares of age, if men or women twelve years and no longer.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia, October 1670. The Assembly was asking whether Native people captured in war by other nations and sold to the English were servants for life or for a term of years.
- Intended audience
- County courts and slaveholders.
- Purpose
- To draw a line: non-Christian servants brought in by ship are slaves for life, while those who come by land serve a term of years.
- Point of view
- The colonial assembly, defining status by how a person arrived and whether they were a Christian.
Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, 2:283 (October 1670, Act XII).
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Statute · chapter XIX, section XXXI
The General Court act · exclusion of witnesses
Virginia General Assembly · October 1705
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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That popish recusants convict, negroes, mulattoes and Indian servants, and others, not being christians, shall be deemed and taken to be persons incapable in law, to be witnesses in any cases whatsoever.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The 1705 Assembly regulated the General Court alongside its separate code on servants and slaves.
- Intended audience
- Judges, litigants and witnesses in Virginia.
- Purpose
- Exclude specified religious and racial categories from testimony.
- Point of view
- Lawmakers deciding who can count as a witness; exclusion is presented as legal incapacity.
Hening, Statutes at Large, 3:298, October 1705, chapter XIX, section XXXI; Virtual Jamestown, Laws on Slavery.
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Letter to a plantation manager
Robert Carter to Robert Jones: the names imposed
Robert Carter · 10 October 1727
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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I would have this plantation go by the name of CARTERS RANGE and now I am about Names I hope you will take care that the negros both men & women I sent yo[u] up always go by the names we gave them for this reason I nam'd them here & by their names we can always know what sizes they are of & I am sure we repeated them so often to the[m] that every one knew their names & would readyly answer to them
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Writing from Corotoman, Carter gave Robert Jones extensive instructions for plantations, crops, housing and the people he enslaved. The naming passage is in the 10 October portion of a letter continued on the 14th.
- Intended audience
- Robert Jones, the manager of Carter's properties in northern Virginia.
- Purpose
- To enforce the names Carter assigned, using them to identify and categorize enslaved men and women across his properties.
- Point of view
- A large enslaver issues managerial instructions that put naming people beside naming a plantation. His claim that people answered to the names cannot establish that other names disappeared.
Robert Carter to Robert Jones, Corotoman, 10 and 14 October 1727, Robert Carter letter book, May 1727–July 1728, Robert Carter Papers, accession 3807, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed and digitized by Edmund Berkeley Jr.; revised online transcription, 13 May 2014. Naming passage on manuscript page 3. Editorial restorations yo[u] and the[m] retained in the longer excerpt.
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Statute · chapter XLIX, section XL
The 1705 act must be read at the church door
Virginia General Assembly · October 1705
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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And for the better putting this act in due execution, and that no servants or slaves may have pretense of ignorance hereof, Be it also enacted, That the church-wardens of each parish in this her majesty’s colony and dominion, at the charge of the parish, shall provide a true copy of this act, and cause entry thereof to be made in the register book of each parish respectively; and that the parish clerk, or reader of each parish, shall, on the first sermon Sundays in September and March, annually, after sermon or divine service is ended, at the door of every church and chapel in their parish, publish the same;
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia's October 1705 act consolidated rules for servants and enslaved people and ordered regular public readings.
- Intended audience
- Parish officials charged with reading it, and everyone who heard it at church doors, including servants and enslaved people.
- Purpose
- To make the law known and deny ignorance as an excuse. The specified occasions were the first sermon Sundays in September and March, after worship, not every Sunday.
- Point of view
- An enslaving colonial legislature makes church and county officers announce its authority. Our particular parish, clerk and listening Writer are reconstructed; we don't claim a documented encounter between them.
Virginia, 'An act concerning Servants and Slaves,' October 1705, chapter XLIX, section XL; William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, vol. 3, pp. 461–462. New fragment because existing va-slave-code-1705 contains sections IV and VII, not this reading requirement.
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Dramatized call · historical day names
A mother calls three Akan day names
Our dramatization based on documented naming practices · 1730s
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
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Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Enslaved Africans and their descendants maintained and adapted naming practices in the Americas. The scene imagines a mother calling two sons and a daughter in a Lowcountry quarter.
- Intended audience
- The three imagined children, then viewers.
- Purpose
- To let the audience hear names carried within a family after hearing Carter's instructions about imposed names. No relationship to Carter's particular captives is claimed.
- Point of view
- A modern reconstruction authorized by VISION section 4, row 29. These are colonial English spellings of Akan day names: Cudjo, Monday male; Quashee, Sunday male; Phibba, Friday female. The specific mother, children, kinship and call are invented, not recovered testimony.
Background: Keith Baird and Mary Twining, naming discussion in Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, ed. Mary A. Twining and Keith E. Baird (1991). This reconstruction does not assert a corrected bibliographic pagination. Day-name forms; modern equivalent forms Kojo/Kwadwo, Kwasi/Kwesi, Afua/Afiba.
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Biography
Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Priest of Boonda in Africa
Thomas Bluett · 1734
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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he therefore wrote a Letter in Arabick to his Father, acquainting him with his Misfortunes, hoping he might yet find Means to redeem him. … It happened that this Letter was seen by James Oglethorpe, Esq; who, according to his usual Goodness and Generosity, took Compassion on JOB, and gave his Bond to Mr. Hunt for the Payment of a certain Sum, upon the Delivery of JOB here in England.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- London, 1734. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, whom Bluett calls "Job", had just been freed and was about to sail home. Bluett had known him in Maryland and in England.
- Intended audience
- English readers, among them the gentlemen and Royal African Company officials who had helped to pay for his freedom.
- Purpose
- To tell how a man of learning and rank came to be enslaved, to praise his character, and to credit the English who raised the money to free him.
- Point of view
- An English clergyman and friend who recorded what Ayuba told him. Bluett is not a neutral witness: he wrote to honor his benefactors, and the words are his, not Ayuba's.
Thomas Bluett, Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Priest of Boonda in Africa; Who was a Slave about Two Years in Maryland; and afterwards being brought to England, was set free, and sent to his native Land in the Year 1734 (London: Richard Ford, 1734), 22–23; text as digitized by Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Ship's journal
Journal of the Sloop Revenge, June 5 – October 5, 1741 (the Nassau Vice-Admiralty case of Francisco Menéndez)
Peter Vezian, captain's quartermaster of the Rhode Island privateer sloop Revenge (Capt. Benjamin Norton) · 19 August 1741
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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Saturday Aug'st 1st. … Also the Negro prisoner, having been Informed that he was Capt. of a Comp'y of Indians, Mollattos and Negroes that was att the Retaking of the Fort att St. Augus'ne … the Negro went Under the Name of Signior Capitano Francisco. … Sunday 2d. Att 1 PM. We Examined the Negro who franckly owned that he was Capt. of a Comp'y as aforesaid and that his Commission was on board the privateer, that he went privatter'g in hopes of Getting to the Avanah and that there he might Gett a passage for to Go to old Spain to Gett the Reward of his brave Actions. … [Vezian's speech in court, 19 August:] Does not their Complextion and features tell all the world that they are of the blood of Negroes and have suckt Slavery and Cruelty from their Infancy? … Headed by this Francisco that Cursed Seed of Cain, Curst from the foundation of the world, who has the Impudence to Come into Court and plead that he is free. … Then the Judge Gave his Decree that the Sloop and Cargo shoud be sold att Vandue and the one half thereof shoud be p'd the Captures for Salvage, free from all Charges, that Juan Baptisto Domas, Pedro Sanche and And'w Estavie, According to the Laws of England shoud Remain as prisoners of War till Ransomed, And that Augustine and Francisco according to the Laws of the plantations shoud be Slaves and for the use of the Captures. So the Court broke up. … Friday 21. This day made an End of Selling the Cargo of the prize. Sold 55 bus. of corn, 41 bbs. of pork, 6 bb. of beef, 13 bbs. of Tarr, 11 bbs. of pitch, 4 bbs. of Oyle. then Sett up Seignior Capt. Fransisco Under the Name of Don Blass who was Sold to Mr. Stone for 34 ps. 8.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Nassau, New Providence (Bahamas), August 1741, in the War of Jenkins' Ear; a Rhode Island privateer had retaken an English sloop from a Spanish prize crew that included Francisco Menéndez, captain of Mose's free Black militia, who had shipped as a privateer hoping to reach Spain and claim a reward.
- Intended audience
- The privateer's owners and crew, and the Vice-Admiralty judge before whom Vezian argued; the journal was kept for the voyage's accounts.
- Purpose
- To record the cruise and to win the captors the prize money, including the value of the men they claimed as slaves.
- Point of view
- A hostile captor who hated Menéndez for the English dead at Mose in June 1740 (which Menéndez denied ordering), who argued from skin colour, and who profited from the sale. Menéndez's own words survive here only in Vezian's reported speech.
Journal of the Sloop Revenge, 1741 (Massachusetts Historical Society), kept by Peter Vezian, captain's quartermaster, in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents (New York: Macmillan, 1923), doc. 145, pp. 381–429; Project Gutenberg eBook #24882 (fetched and searched 4 Oct 2026).
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Letter
Letter to the Rev. Samson Occom
Phillis Wheatley · February 11, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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I have this Day received your obliging kind Epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa; and the Chaos which has reign'd so long, is converting into beautiful Order, and reveals more and more clearly, the glorious Dispensation of civil and religious Liberty, which are so inseparably united, that there is little or no Enjoyment of one Without the other: Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian slavery; I do not say they would have been contented without it, by no means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and get him honour upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive Power over others agree,—I humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Written in Boston on 11 February 1774, a few months after Wheatley was freed and two months after the Tea Party, while Patriots protested British 'slavery'. She was answering Samson Occom, a Mohegan Presbyterian minister, who had criticised Christian slaveholders.
- Intended audience
- Occom first; then, within a month, New England newspaper readers (Connecticut Gazette, 11 March 1774, and other printings), a largely white Patriot public.
- Purpose
- To claim that the love of freedom is God-given and universal, and to turn the colonists' own liberty language and the Exodus story against slaveholders ('our modern Egyptians').
- Point of view
- An African-born woman, kidnapped as a child, enslaved in Boston, a celebrated published poet and devout Christian, newly free, writing as a Black intellectual.
Phillis Wheatley to Samson Occom, 11 February 1774, printed in The Connecticut Gazette (New London), 11 March 1774. Transcription from Becoming America, ed. Wendy Kurant (CC-BY-SA), via LibreTexts (re-read 2026-10-04).
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Memoir (later family account)
Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave
Margaretta Matilda Odell (a collateral descendant of Susanna Wheatley) · 1834
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The poor, naked child (for she had no other covering than a quantity of dirty carpet about her like a fillibeg) was taken home in the chaise of her mistress, and comfortably attired. She is supposed to have been about seven years old, at this time, from the circumstance of shedding her front teeth. … She does not seem to have preserved any remembrance of the place of her nativity, or of her parents, excepting the simple circumstance that her mother poured out water before the sun at his rising--in reference, no doubt, to an ancient African custom.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Published in Boston in 1834, fifty years after Wheatley's death, from Wheatley family memory, during the rise of the abolition movement.
- Intended audience
- Northern readers sympathetic to abolition ('Dedicated to the Friends of the Africans').
- Purpose
- To preserve and honour Wheatley's life and to argue, through her, for the abilities of Africans.
- Point of view
- A white relative of her former owners, writing long after the fact; affectionate, but filtered and late. The one memory of her mother comes through this lens.
[Margaretta Matilda Odell], Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave (Boston: Geo. W. Light, 1834), pp. 10–11. Documenting the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill (Internet Archive copy read 2026-10-04).
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Autobiography
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (vol. 1, chapter 2)
Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa) · 1789
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. … The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- London, 1789. Equiano, a man who had been enslaved as a boy and later bought his own freedom, published his life story in two volumes while a campaign to end the British slave trade was gathering strength.
- Intended audience
- British readers, including the many people who bought the book by subscription, at a time when Parliament and petitioners were debating the trade.
- Purpose
- To show readers what the trade did to the people it carried, from a boy's view on the coast and below deck, and to argue that it should end.
- Point of view
- A former captive writing as a free man for free readers. Scholars still disagree about where he was born: his account places it in Igboland, while two records name Carolina. The ship scene does not depend on the answer.
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (London, 1789), vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 70 and 79; text as digitized by Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Journal article
Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the Atlantic Slave Trade
David Richardson · 2001
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase, not a quotation] Richardson's study of English and other slave-ship records finds that revolts aboard ship were far more common than once thought. He counts them in the hundreds, and concludes that captives' resistance shaped how traders planned voyages. By his estimate, revolts broke out on as many as one voyage in ten; more cautious readings of the same records put it lower.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Published in the William and Mary Quarterly in 2001, drawing on the records that later fed the SlaveVoyages database.
- Intended audience
- Historians of the Atlantic world.
- Purpose
- To show from ship records that captives often rose against their captors, and that the risk of revolt affected how the trade was run.
- Point of view
- A quantitative historian of the slave trade. He counts recorded revolts, so his numbers are a floor: many uprisings left no record.
David Richardson, "Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the Atlantic Slave Trade," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 58, no. 1 (January 2001): 69–92. The article was not opened this session; the "as many as one voyage in ten" scale was read in secondary summaries only.
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Law code
An act concerning Servants and Slaves (the Virginia slave code of 1705)
Virginia General Assembly · October 1705
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not christians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors in amity with her majesty, and others that can make due proof of their being free in England, or any other christian country, before they were shipped, in order to transportation hither) shall be accounted and be slaves, and such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to christianity afterward. … all masters and owners of servants, shall find and provide for their servants, wholesome and competent diet, clothing, and lodging, by the discretion of the county court; and shall not, at any time, give immoderate correction; neither shall, at any time, whip a christian white servant naked, without an order from a justice of the peace
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Williamsburg, October 1705. The colony's laws on servants and slaves had piled up over decades, and the Assembly gathered them into one code as Virginia's enslaved population grew.
- Intended audience
- County courts, masters and servants throughout the colony.
- Purpose
- To set out in one place what each group could be made to do and what protection each had. White Christian servants got rules on food, lodging and punishment; enslaved people got the harshest terms.
- Point of view
- The governor, council and burgesses, a body in which large planters held great influence. The statute names "christian white" servants when it grants protection.
Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, 3:447–463 (October 1705); text as published by Encyclopedia Virginia.
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Colonial law
An Act for Regulating of Slaves
New York Governor, Council and Representatives in General Assembly · November 27, 1702
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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they have been found oftentimes guilty of Confederating together in running away, or other ill practices … it shall not hereafter be lawful for above three Slaves to meet together at any other time, nor at any other place, then when it shall happen they meet in some servile employment for their Master’s or Mistress’s profit
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- New York, November 1702. The number of enslaved people in New York City, Albany and other towns was growing. This was the colony's first comprehensive slave code.
- Intended audience
- Slaveholders, magistrates and the public of the province.
- Purpose
- To bar more than three enslaved people from meeting except at work for their masters, on pain of up to forty lashes, and to forbid trading with them without their master's leave.
- Point of view
- A colonial legislature that feared enslaved people "Confederating together". The act names running away and other "ill practices" as the danger.
"An Act for Regulating of Slaves" (November 27, 1702), The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution, vol. 1, 519–521; text as posted at alansinger.net.
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Book
Black Society in Spanish Florida
Jane Landers · 1999
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase, not a quotation] Jane Landers uses Spanish records to follow the free Black community of Florida. In 1738 the governor settled fugitives from the English colonies at Mose, near St. Augustine, and a Black militia guarded the town.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Landers worked in Spanish archives in Seville, Havana and St. Augustine to recover the story of Africans in Spanish Florida.
- Intended audience
- Historians of colonial America, the Atlantic world and Florida.
- Purpose
- To show that Spain offered freedom to those who fled the English colonies and became Catholic, and that Black soldiers defended Spanish Florida.
- Point of view
- A historian who writes from the Spanish archives. Those records were kept by officials who valued the runaways as soldiers and settlers, so they show Spain's aims as well as the fugitives' choices.
Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). The book was not opened this session; the Mose facts were read through the Florida Museum's history-of-Fort-Mose material and secondary summaries.
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Interview
A Family Account of the Stono Uprising (interview with George Cato)
George Cato, as recorded by a white Federal Writers' Project interviewer · ca. 1937
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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My granddaddy was a son of de son of de Stono slave commander. … Commander Cato speak for de crowd. He say: ‘We don’t lak slavery. We start to jine de Spanish in Florida. We surrender but we not whipped yet and we is not converted.’ De other 43 men say: ‘Amen.’ They was taken, unarmed, and hanged by de militia.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Columbia, South Carolina, about 1937. The Federal Writers' Project was interviewing formerly enslaved people and their descendants. George Cato, then about 50, told the story his family had passed down for almost two centuries.
- Intended audience
- A white WPA interviewer, and through the Project, the archive and later readers.
- Purpose
- To record the Cato family's tradition of the 1739 rising and of their ancestor's part in it.
- Point of view
- A descendant, four generations removed, speaking from oral tradition. The interviewer wrote his speech in a stereotyped dialect and shaped what was written down. Historian Mark M. Smith judges much of the account to be corroborated by other sources. The official 1739 Account names the captain “Jemmy”; this family tradition names Commander Cato.
George Cato interview, Federal Writers' Project (South Carolina), ca. 1937, as reproduced in National Humanities Center, "Two Views of the Stono Slave Rebellion," Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690–1763 (2009); see also Mark M. Smith, ed., Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 55.
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Colonial law
Act repealing the prohibition of Negroes in Georgia
Trustees for the Colony of Georgia · 1750
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase, not a quotation] In 1750 the Trustees of Georgia gave way to the colonists' demands and repealed their ban on slavery. The change took effect on January 1, 1751, and slavery became legal in all thirteen colonies.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Georgia, 1750. Its founders had banned slavery in 1735, but settlers pressed the trustees for years to lift the ban.
- Intended audience
- Georgia's colonists, the trustees in London, and neighboring colonies.
- Purpose
- To allow enslaved labor in Georgia under regulation. The trustees gave in to settler demand.
- Point of view
- The trustees, a London charity board. The repeal answered settler pressure, not a change in the trustees' own stated aims.
Georgia Trustees' repeal of the 1735 prohibition on slavery, 1750, in force January 1, 1751; summarized from Wikipedia's "History of slavery in Georgia" and related articles. The act text was not read.
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Court record
A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy Formed by Some White People, in Conjunction with Negro and Other Slaves, for Burning the City of New-York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants (title page)
Daniel Horsmanden, Recorder of the City of New York (published as "the Recorder") · 1744
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
A journal of the proceedings in the detection of the conspiracy formed by some white people, in conjunction with Negro and other slaves, for burning the City of New-York in America, and murdering the inhabitants … by the recorder of the City of New-York
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- New York, 1744, three years after the 1741 fires and trials, which ended in executions and banishments. Horsmanden had been the city recorder, one of the judges and the leader of the investigation.
- Intended audience
- Readers in New York, the other colonies and Britain who wanted to know what had happened and whether the punishments were just.
- Purpose
- To justify the court's verdicts by showing that a real plot had been found, and to warn that slaves and poor whites might combine again.
- Point of view
- A judge and prosecutor defending his own court. The title already states his conclusion: a "conspiracy formed by some white people, in conjunction with Negro and other slaves". Historians still disagree about how much of a plot there was.
Daniel Horsmanden, A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy Formed by Some White People, in Conjunction with Negro and Other Slaves, for Burning the City of New-York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants (New York, 1744); title as catalogued by the Internet Archive (item gpl_2724162).
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Treaty
Articles of Pacification with the Maroons of Trelawny Town (Cudjoe's treaty)
Colonel John Guthrie and Captain Cudjoe (Kojo) · March 1, 1739
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase, not a quotation] In March 1739, Captain Cudjoe and the Maroons of Trelawny Town signed articles of peace with the British. The treaty ended the war and recognized the Maroons as free, on land of their own. In return they agreed to help catch runaways from the plantations.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Jamaica, March 1739, after roughly a decade of guerrilla war between the Leeward Maroons and the British colony.
- Intended audience
- The Maroon communities, the colonial government of Jamaica and the planters.
- Purpose
- To end the war. The British gained peace and the Maroons' help against future runaways. The Maroons gained recognized freedom and land.
- Point of view
- A treaty signed by a British colonel and a Maroon war captain. It won freedom for one community and bound it to catch and return others who escaped, which the narration names as "the price."
Articles of pacification between Colonel John Guthrie and Captain Cudjoe (Kojo), March 1, 1739 (Trelawny Town treaty), as transcribed by A Parcel of Ribbons (aparcelofribbons.co.uk). The transcription could not be fetched this session (the site returned "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded"), so no wording is quoted.
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Dramatized calls within a reported exchange
John Key's two calls — dramatized from Bayles's report
Our dramatization, based on John Bayles's sworn deposition · Scene undated, before 1655
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
John Keye calling her Black Bess mrs. Speke Checked him and said Sirra you must call her Sister for shee is your Sister and the said John Keye did call her Sister
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Bayles recalled John Keye using a racialized household name before Mrs. Speke instructed him to call Elizabeth his sister.
- Intended audience
- Elizabeth and Mrs. Speke in the reconstructed household exchange; the historical report addressed the court.
- Purpose
- Stage the correction as an exchange between living people.
- Point of view
- The record supplies the names he used, but not two isolated utterances, their punctuation, his precise age, or his emotional response. These are dramatized, not verbatim dialogue. The first term belongs only to this quoted historical naming practice and is never the narrator's name for Elizabeth.
Based on John Bayles's deposition in the Northumberland County Elizabeth Key records, 20 January 1655/6. The two calls are reconstructed from indirect wording.
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Labelled dramatic reconstruction
Greensted’s plea · dramatization
William Greensted · January 20, 1655/6 · reconstructed
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
Her father was free. She is christened. Nine years were promised; nineteen have passed. Hear the people who knew her.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- Words survive through the county clerk. Direct recollection, reported speech and rumor must be distinguished; this is not Elizabeth’s own testimony.
Northumberland County Record Books 1652–1658, fols. 66–67, 85; 1658–1660, fol. 28; Order Book 1652–1665, fols. 40, 46, 49; USGenWeb transcription. Original spelling; collapsed web line breaks restored as spaces.
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Labelled dramatic reconstruction
Speke addresses the juror · authorized dramatization
Our writers; assigned to Thomas Speke in a labelled reconstruction · January 20, 1655/6 · reconstructed
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
The inventory says 'Negro.' She belongs to the estate. Will you overturn it on gossip?
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- An explicitly invented address dramatizing the estate’s claim; no historical speaker’s exact words survive.
Basis: Mottrom estate inventory (4 July 1655), quoted by Brent Tarter, Elizabeth Key, Suit, Appeals, and Freedom; the January court record establishes Speke as an estate overseer. Not a surviving quotation.
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Labelled dramatic reconstruction
The foreman asks · dramatization
Our writers; unnamed reconstructed juror · January 20, 1655/6 · reconstructed
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- A fictional juror’s question, not an attributed historical quotation.
not surviving dialogue. The jury verdict itself is separately quoted from the court record.
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Database essay
A Note on the Voyage of Venture Smith
SlaveVoyages (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database) essay; with the Venture Smith timeline at venturesmith.org · 2000s
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase, not a quotation] The voyage that matches Venture Smith's story is the Rhode Island ship Charming Susanna, Captain James Collingwood (voyage 36067). It bought captives on the Gold Coast in the spring of 1739, reached Bridgetown, Barbados in late August, where tax was paid on the sale of 74 people, and reached Rhode Island in September 1739. The database's figure is more reliable than the 260 and 200 Venture remembered.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Historians matching a dictated memoir to ship and customs records two and a half centuries later.
- Intended audience
- Students, teachers and researchers using the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
- Purpose
- To identify the ship that carried Broteer and to weigh his remembered numbers against the records.
- Point of view
- Database historians who trust the customs record over memory; the identification is a match, not a certainty.
SlaveVoyages, 'A Note on the Voyage of Venture Smith', https://legacy.slavevoyages.org/blog/note-voyage-venture-smith ; Venture Smith Project timeline, https://www.venturesmith.org/time-line-1 (1738–1739 entries); see also Paul E. Lovejoy in James Brewer Stewart, ed., Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom (2010).
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Labelled dramatic reconstruction
The viewer’s juror replies · fiction
Our writers; fictional viewer-juror · January 20, 1655/6 · reconstructed
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
Background: not shown on screen.
She has served her years.
The inventory lists her. She belongs to the estate.
Free.
Bond.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Elizabeth Key contests the Mottrom estate’s claim to her service and that of her child.
- Intended audience
- Northumberland justices and the twelve jurors hearing the claim.
- Purpose
- Establish what witnesses remember, what the agreement required, and whether she ought to be free.
- Point of view
- A fictional juror’s question, not an attributed historical quotation.
Both verdict choices preserve the recorded January verdict and estate appeal. Standing or staying seated is a silent invented action.
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Narrator’s historical summary
January verdict, March reversal, July freedom and banns
Our writers, after Brent Tarter · 1656
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
Narration summarizes the documented sequence. The Assembly committee also cites her baptism and her father’s freedom; its report returns to the county court. Reconstructed snow light, the precise hall, gestures, and all eye-lines are staging, not documented facts.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The estate contests Elizabeth’s freedom.
- Intended audience
- Present-day viewers.
- Purpose
- Explain the appeal sequence without inventing lost reasons.
- Point of view
- Historical synthesis; the county records preserve the ultimate judgment and banns.
Brent Tarter / Dictionary of Virginia Biography, “Elizabeth Key (fl. 1655–1660),” Encyclopedia Virginia, Suit, Appeals, and Freedom.
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Narrator’s historical summary
Elizabeth’s son takes a jury seat
Our writers, after Brent Tarter · 1686
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
Tarter describes two grandsons being bound out to learn a trade in early 1685; a year later their father, Elizabeth’s son, served on a jury. This indicates the county’s racial treatment; it does not identify the son here by first name or establish appearance. The occupied chair is a memory montage. It does not revoke the family’s actual freedom.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Later records of the freed family.
- Intended audience
- Present-day viewers.
- Purpose
- Set the family’s continued freedom beside laws closing other people’s claims.
- Point of view
- Interpretation of jury eligibility, not a visual diagnosis of racial identity.
Brent Tarter / Dictionary of Virginia Biography, “Elizabeth Key (fl. 1655–1660),” Encyclopedia Virginia, Later Years.
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Clearly labelled legal counterfactual
Born Later · legal counterfactual
Our writers · 1662–1705
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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1662: a child’s status follows its mother. 1667: baptism does not confer freedom. The 1670 and 1682 import rules do not cancel a Virginia-born person’s valid term or other lawful freedom claim. In the 1691 intermarriage provision the free English or other white spouse faces banishment for marrying a negro, mulatto, or Indian person, bond or free. Elizabeth’s husband was William Greensted, not Thomas. The 1705 real-estate act governs inheritance; the slave code restates maternal status. Grandchildren through a son follow THEIR mother’s status, not his. No hypothetical court victory is guaranteed.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Different legal settings applied counterfactually to the same family.
- Intended audience
- Viewers using the cradle scrub.
- Purpose
- Distinguish maternal descent, baptism, valid service terms, marriage penalties and inheritance.
- Point of view
- Modern analytical visual, not a recovered event or a simulation that determines a real case.
Hening, Statutes at Large, 2:170 (1662), 2:260 (1667), 2:283 (1670), 2:490–492 (1682), 3:86–88 (1691), 3:333–335 (1705 real estate), 3:447–463, especially 460 (1705 servants and slaves).
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Historical research article
African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion
John K. Thornton · 1991
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Paraphrase] Thornton argues that many Stono rebels probably came from the Kingdom of Kongo, where Catholic Christianity and military experience help explain features of their resistance. This is a historical interpretation of evidence, not an identified birthplace or religion for every marcher.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Modern scholarship interpreting the 1739 colonial accounts alongside African and Atlantic evidence.
- Intended audience
- Historians and students of Africa, slavery and the Atlantic world.
- Purpose
- Recover the African contexts of Stono rather than treating the marchers solely through planter descriptions.
- Point of view
- A historian’s reconstruction; the account’s label “Angola” is evidence for a regional connection, not a complete list of individual origins or beliefs.
John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (October 1991): 1101–1113, doi:10.1086/ahr/96.4.1101. Also reprinted in Mark M. Smith, ed., Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt (2005), 73–86.
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Course framework · modern curriculum
AP U.S. History: Slavery in the British Colonies
College Board · 2026
Source
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Topic 2.6 connects regional labor demand and colonial trade with racial, hereditary slavery and the overt and covert resistance of enslaved people.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- The 2026 course framework organizes required AP U.S. History content for teachers and students.
- Intended audience
- AP U.S. History teachers and students.
- Purpose
- Define the required concepts and learning objectives for Topic 2.6.
- Point of view
- A modern curriculum framework, not a primary account of colonial life. We illustrate Learning Objectives F and G and KC-2.2.II.A–C; individual historical claims also have their own sources.
College Board, AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description (Fall 2026), Topic 2.6, printed pp. 84–85 (PDF pp. 91–92). Repository copy ap-us-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf;.
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Advanced Placement