The Slave Family in Arkansas Author(s): Carl H. Moneyhon Reviewed work(s): Source: The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol.

58, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 24-44 Published by: Arkansas Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40026272 . Accessed: 25/04/2012 16:18
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The

Slave

Family

in

Arkansas

CARL H. MONEYHON
THE INSTITUTION SLAVERYis centralto the historyof the United OF Statesand especiallythe South.As IraBerlinrecognizesin his recentstudy, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North 'definitionof race. Since race remains America, slavery shapedAmericans a major force in our society today, understanding basis of our racial the thought continuesto be critical.The earliestscholarsof slaverytended to look at it as an institutionthe slaveholdersmade, but in the last thirtyyears researchers have turnedtowardunderstanding slaveryfromthe perspective of the slaves themselves. Whatmight be called revisionisthistorianshave examinedin detailthe developmentof the varioussocial dimensionsof the slave community.1 This new scholarship, however, has had little impact on our of understanding slavery in Arkansas.Orville Taylor's Negro Slavery in Arkansas remains the standardwork and was exemplary for its time. Publishedin 1958 before recentresearchdevelopments,it contributeslittle to the currentdiscussion of the natureof slave life.2 This study seeks to rectifythatdeficiencywith a look at one aspectof the slave community,the interestto scholars,since family. The slave family has been of particular understanding it has been considered critical to explaining the basic dynamics of the master-slaverelationshipand thus the characterof the institution.

CarlH. Moneyhonis professorof historyat the Universityof Arkansasat Little Rock. 'Ira Berlin, Many ThousandsGone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America(Cambridge, MA: BelknapPressof Harvard UniversityPress, 1998), see especially the prologue. 2OrvilleW. Taylor,Negro Slavery in Arkansas(Durham,NC: Duke UniversityPress, 1958).
THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY VOL. LVIII,NO. 1, SPRING 1999

THE SLAVE FAMILYIN ARKANSAS

25

Seriousscholarlystudyof the slave family began with the work of one E. who publishedTheNegroFamilyin Chicago individual, Franklin Frazier, in 1932 and The Negro Family in the United States in 1939. Frazier, concerned with what he considered to be the instabilityof the African Americanfamilyin the 1930s, locatedthe rootsof thatinstability slavery. in He concludedthatthe slave family was little morethanan accommodation

ArkansasStar, October8, 1840. Courtesy Special CollectionsDivision, Universityof ArkansasLibraries.

to the institution.It never had the capacityto tie togetherhouseholds into units of common interestand purpose.The reasonfor this failure,Frazier hypothesized,was thatthe slave family could not be protectedby its adult membersand,often dispersedby owners,seldomexisted over any lengthof time.3

3E. FranklinFrazier,TheNegro Family in the UnitedStates (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1939), 95-98.

26

ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Laterhistorians, such as KennethStamppand StanleyElkins, followed in Frazier'swake, agreeingwith him that even wherethe slave household existed it lackedcohesiveness.The frequentbreakupof families by masters preventedthe developmentof strongbonds amongfamily members.In the end, Stamppand Elkins concluded, as Frazierhad, that the slave family reflected little more thanthe slave owner's desireto createstabilitywithin the plantationcommunity.These conclusionsbecamethe textbookhistory for a generation even the basis for public policy. Daniel P. Moynihan's and book, The Negro Family in America: The Case for National Action, this analysis into his explanationof modern published in 1965, integrated of the African American family and his proposal for their problems solutions.4 Scholarship in the 1970s, by looking at the slave family from the viewpointof the slaves, developeda differentand revisionistinterpretation. Examiningnew sourcesthatrangedfromthe reminiscencesof ex-slaves to not records,historiansfound an institution simply shapedby the plantation interests the masterbutalso by the interests the AfricanAmericanslave of of than instability.The idea that community.They discoveredstabilityrather slaves sought to create two-parentnuclearfamilies that then became the vehicle for the formation a largeranduniquelyAfricanAmericanculture of in firstappeared 1972 in JohnBlassingame'sSlave Community. received It in RobertFogel and StanleyEngerman'scontroversial subsequentsupport Time on the Cross and Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. Herbert Gutman carried ideafurther his BlackFamilyin Slaveryand Freedom, the in concludingthatthe two-parent family was the normamongslaves.5
4KennethM. South (New Stampp,ThePeculiarInstitution: Slaveryin theAnte-Bellum York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), see particularly340-346 and 363-364; Stanley Elkins, Slavery:A Problemin AmericanInstitutionaland IntellectualLife (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1959), see especially 101-102 and the notes to these pages and 128-129; Daniel P. Moynihan, The Negro Family in America: The Case for National Action of (Washington,DC: Department Labor,Office of Policy Planningand Research, 1965). 5JohnW. TheSlave Community: PlantationLife in theAntebellum South Blassingame, (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1972); RobertW. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Timeon the Cross, 2 vols. (Boston:LittleBrown, 1974);EugeneD. Genovese,Roll, Jordan, Roll: The Worldthe Slaves Made (New York:PantheonBooks, 1974); HerbertG. Gutman, TheBlackFamily in Slaveryand Freedom,1 750-1925 (New York:PantheonBooks, 1976), and 118, 123. See also RichardH. Steckel,"SlaveMarriage the Family,"Journal of Family History5 (Winter1980): 406-421, and HermanR. Lantz,"Familyand Kin as Revealed in the Narrativesof Ex-Slaves,"Social Science Quarterly60 (March 1980): 667-675.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

27

modelhaddisplacedthatof Frazier, By the 1990s the revisionist Stampp and Elkins. Scholars then began developing a more complicated understandingof the slave family that put a brake on revisionism. Ann Malone's 1992 studyof slaveryin Louisianafoundthe slave familyto be a aboutwhichto generalize.She concludedthatit was very difficultinstitution to the manydifferentcircumstances createdby the sociomutable,adapting economicenvironment withinwhich it existed.In an even morerecentstudy that focused on slavery in LoudonCounty,Virginia,BrendaE. Stevenson discovered conditionsin an Upper Southcommunitythatmade the family stabilitythatrevisionistshad discoveredelsewherepracticallynonexistent. In Loudon Countythe laborconcernsof plantersled to the more frequent sale and rental of men, women, and children away from their families. African American cultural concerns differed as well, with some blacks to attempting developalternative familyformsto cope with local conditions. The resultwas a community with morenumerous exceptionsto the standard nuclearfamily thatrevisionistshad hypothesizedas the norm.6 The work of Malone and Stevenson stands as a caution against our of that oversimplifying portrait the slave family.Both have demonstrated the slave familymay have differedacrosstime, region,economic condition, and a wide variety of other factors. Their work suggests it is critical to examinethe slave family withinvariedcontexts if we are to understand its This conclusion has been reinforcedby Ira Berlin, who has dynamics. emphasizedslaveryas a remarkably changeableinstitutionthat slaves and mastersalteredthroughtime.7 In examining the slave family in the differingenvironmentsin which slavery existed, Arkansasoffers particularly advantageous groundsince it was differentfrom most of the rest of the slave South in the 1850s. Firstof all, it was still part of an economic frontierexperiencingrapid economic of growththatwas attracting largenumbers new settlers.In 1850 the overall of the state had been 209,897; by 1860 it had reached435,450, population a 107 percent increase.Much of that growthhad been caused by a steady of Tennessee, but immigration people from other slave states, particularly

6Ann P. Malone,Sweet Chariot:Slave Familyand HouseholdStructurein Nineteenth CenturyLouisiana (Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1992); Brenda E. in Stevenson,Life in Blackand White: Familyand Community the Slave South (New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1996), xii, xi. Berlin, Many ThousandsGone, 2-3.

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ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

also Mississippi,Louisiana, even the Carolinas. these people poured and As ontothe landsof Arkansas, triedto replicate economiesthey had left the they behind. Farm land in cultivationincreasedfrom 781,530 acres in 1850 to 1,983,313 by 1860, an increaseof 154 percent.As would be expected of these particular migrants, they devotedmuchof thatlandto growingcotton, and between 1850 and 1860 the cotton harvestincreasedfrom 65,344 to 367,393 bales, a rate of growth of about 400 percent. By 1860, at $16,165,292, the value of the cottoncrop was greaterthanthe value of any otheragricultural commodity.8 As the new settlerscame, they broughttheir slaves with them. From 47,100 slaves in 1850, the numberincreasedto 111,115 in 1860, making Arkansasthe twelfth largestslaveholdingstate in the Union. Despite this rapidgrowth,however,Arkansasremained,at the end of the 1850s, a land of relativelysmall slaveholdings,a fact that addedto the peculiarcharacter of slavery in the state. Plantationsof considerablesize with hundredsof slaves had developed in some countiesalong the Arkansasand Mississippi who ownedunder rivers,butelsewhereslavestypicallywereheld by masters slaves. In fact, in 1860 an estimated 50 percent of all slaves in twenty Arkansas were on holdingsof under20 slaves, a figure considerablyhigher than the 38.0 percentin the Lower South. In many ways slavery's state of developmentmost closely resembledthat in Texas at the same time, where 54.4 percentof slaves lived on smallerholdings.9 In this world of rapid economic expansion yet relatively small slaveholdings, slave families clearly developed. An examination of the census returns 1860 suggeststhat,at leaston plantations, for manuscript of slaves living togetherin what appearto be family organizations practice of some sortwas pervasive.These groupings includedmen andwomen,men and women with children,and even groupsof childrenhoused together.It
8U.S. Bureau of the Census, A Compendiumof the Ninth Census (June 1, 1870) Government (Washington: PrintingOffice, 1872), 8, 688; see GeraldT. Hansonand CarlH. Moneyhon, Historical Atlas of Arkansas(Norman:Universityof OklahomaPress, 1989), figure 36. Carl H. Moneyhon, The Impact of the Civil Warand Reconstructionon Arkansas: Persistencein the Midstof Ruin(BatonRouge:LouisianaStateUniversityPress, 1994), 67; Clement Eaton, History of the Old South: The Emergenceof a ReluctantNation, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 253; RandolphB. Campbell,An Empirefor Slavery: The Peculiar Institutionin Texas, 1821-1865 (Baton Rouge: LouisianaState UniversityPress, 1989), 194.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

29

is also clear from the correspondenceof slaveowners that they usually considered these households as families, at least within the slaveholders' 10 of understanding the black family. While family units seem to have existed among Arkansasslaves, little is known about them, how they were formed,what functionsthey served within the slave community, or how stable they were. Taylor's Negro Slaveryin Arkansashad little to say aboutthe slave family. Writtenwithin the framework Frazierand Stampp'smodel, it emphasizedthe power of of the masterin definingslavery(anddefinedthe familyas primarily creation a of the master).11 At least in part,Taylor's work was limited by the evidence. Scholars have been able to use extensive plantationrecordsand the correspondence of slaveownersto providedetails aboutthe slave family in otherstates,but such evidencebarelyexists. As a result,almostall of what we for Arkansas can know aboutthe lives of slaves in Arkansascomes from interviewswith former slaves carriedout by the Writers'Project of the Works Progress Administrationin the 1930s. While some four volumes of interviews conducted in Arkansashave been published,unfortunately only seventyeight persons who had actuallyexperiencedslavery in the state are to be found in those volumes and in volumes for neighboring Texas and Oklahoma.Nonetheless,these provideconsiderableinformation family on of life that,if used cautiously,lend insightintothe character the state'sslave families.12

10Moneyhon, Impactof the Civil War,66-67. The conclusionconcerningthe existence of family-basedhouseholds comes from an examinationof the slave returnsin the 1860 census for Arkansas. Censustakerswere supposedto simplyregisterthe number manuscript of slaves on a plantation age andsex, but in manycases they listed the slave individually by by sex and age, althoughnot by name. In the lattercases they appearto have gone through the quarter house, listinga man,woman,andchildren,then moving on to the next house. by families or even households is not certain,but the pattern Thatthese groupingsrepresented is highly suggestive that they did. 11 few titled"Jumping Broomstick" the The pagesthatappearin a chapter recognizethat slave marriagesexisted in practice, although not recognized in the law, but provide no further insight into the characterof the slave marriage.See Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, 189-193. 12 Many of the Arkansasinterviews were made almost useless by interviewerswho in to appear have been moreinterested havingthe formerslaves talk aboutwhite society and the Old Souththanabouttheirown and their families' lives. The publishedinterviewsmay be found in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A CompositeAutobiography

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ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

In the view of most current scholars, the creation of families took place as the result of complex processes. Revisionist scholarship dashed the idea that families were the creations solely of masters seeking to encourage reproduction, secure a quieter and more pliable workforce, or ease their own consciences. Instead, these scholars have seen families as an outgrowth of slaves' own desires and interests. Recent studies of slave families elsewhere have recognized a more intricate interplay of concerns and have seen families as an accommodation of interests that could vary greatly from slaveholding to slaveholding. The latter appears to have been the case in Arkansas.13 Slaves paired off in ways as numerous as the couples themselves. Still, the process of courtship or choosing a mate shows something of the forces that were at work in the slave community and particularly the respective roles of the slave and master. In the cases for which evidence exists, the pairing of a man and woman seems usually to have been the result of a decision by the slaves themselves. The details of that process, however, are not clear. In some cases, the couple formed with little formality. Columbus Williams, a slave in St. Francis County, remembered that on his plantation, "[s]ometimes you would take up with a woman and go on with her." Williams continued, "[y]ou could court a woman and jus' go on and marry." Williams 's remembrance suggests that at least on his plantation the master made little effort to intervene in the process of selection.14 In other cases a more formal process occurred that indicates how important the slaves and slave families could be in the selection. Lou Fergusson from Hempstead County remembered that after a man decided that he would like to marry a woman, he usually had to ask her mother for permission.15 Orville Taylor observed that no evidence exists to suggest that a master ever forced a union between a slave couple. Still, in the end the master necessarily had a say in what took place. The couple and their potential children were his property and the master's authority had to be maintained.

material CT:GreenwoodPublishing,1972). The Arkansas appearsin vols. 8-11, (Westport, ArkansasNarratives, and are cited hereafteras AN. Some materialalso was located in the Oklahomainterviews,vol. 12, supp. 1, Oklahoma Narratives,andarecited hereafteras ON. 13 77-103. Berlin, Many ThousandsGone, 162-163; Blassingame,Slave Community, 14 vol. 1 AN, 1, pt. 7 (Williams), 157.

"AN, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Fergusson),280.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

31

After the slave couple on Lou Fergusson plantationhad received the 's mother's permission to wed, the pair then went to the master for his If approval. he approvedhe then built a house for the couple. Sometimesa slaveowner may have played an even greaterrole, although the slaves' interest was an important of the process.Moses Jeffriesrecalledthat still part on the plantation nearPine Bluff wherehe lived, if a man wanteda woman thathe had seen on another he plantation, askedthe masterto buy her. Even if she was alreadyanotherman's wife, the mastercould pay for her and would say, '"John,there's bringherhome. The masteron Jeffriesplantation wife. That is all the marriage therewould be."16 your The rituals associated with the slave marriagediffered greatly from to that slaveownersprobablyheld a variety plantation plantation, indicating of views on the character such unions. In many cases the marriage of took with little ceremony at all. Columbus Williams remembered, place wasn't like now. . . . No license, no nothing.. . . Didn't have no "Marriage Even though ceremonyat all."Otherformerslaves had similarrecollections. on the of courtship herplantation required approval the wife's familyandthe planter,Lou Fergussonrecalledthat afterthe planterapprovedthe couple, "You moved in and thereyou was. You was married."17 In othercases the slave marriage involveda ceremonywitnessedby the masterand the rest of the membersof the slave community.In the case of masters with strongly professed religious views, some sort of religious ceremony took place, often presidedover by the master.Taylorreportsa masternearLittleRock who enteredhis slave couples' names in the family Bible. HarriettPayne of DeWitt recalledher masterhad the couple stand before him while he "readout of a book called the 'discipline' and say, 'Thou shalt love the Lordthy God with all thy heart,all thy strength,with all thy mightandthy neighboras thyself Thenhe'd say they were man and wife and tell them to live rightand be honest and kind to each other."18 In additionto ritualsgovernedby the master,ritualemergingfromthe slave communityalso played a role in some marriages. The most common rememberedin Arkansaswas the practice known as "jumpingover the in broomstick," whichthe couplejumpedbackand forthover a broomstick.
16 vol. AN, 8, pt. 2 (Fergusson),280, vol. 9, pt. 4 (Jeffries),39; Taylor,Negro Slavery in Arkansas, 192. 17 vol. 1 AN, 1, pt. 7 (Williams), 157, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Fergusson),280. 18Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, 192-193; AN, vol. 10, pt. 5 (Payne), 302.

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ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

As HerbertGutmanhas pointed out, this irregular marriageritualwas of unknownorigins,althoughit may have connectionswith Africanwitchcraft beliefs. However, what is significantis that it was a practiceof the slave communityusually carriedout without the master's involvement.Such a practiceagainindicatesthe rootsof the slave familyin the AfricanAmerican communityas well as in the desires of the individualslaveowner.19 Once formed,the slave familythen playedan important withinthe role slave community. JohnBlassingamehas called the family "one of the most importantsurvivalmechanismsfor the slave." Withinthe family the slave found"companionship, love, sexualgratification, sympathetic understanding of his sufferings;he learnedhow to avoid punishment,to cooperatewith other blacks, and to maintain his self-esteem." The evidence does not indicate how fully the Arkansasslave family realizedthese benefits, but it does demonstrate clearly that stronghusbandand wife bonds existed and that parentsdid exercise a significantinfluenceover theirchildren.20 The ideal conditionwas that of the co-residential nuclearfamily. This was a family in which a couple residedtogetherand rearedtheir children. Some of these familiesexhibitedconsiderable The family long-term stability. of William Baltimore, whose family belonged to a Dr. Waters, who maintained largeplantationin JeffersonCounty,includedhis motherand a father,who hadtwelve childrenduringtheirlife together,but also one set of who lived nearthe family.21 grandparents The testimony of the slaves is clearest in its account of the feelings betweena manandwife withinsuchfamilies.Couplesloved and engendered to respectedeach otherand demonstrated strongattachment theirchildren. These accounts offer the clearestproof that the slave marriageultimately became something much stronger than the slaveowner probably ever envisioned. At least a few Arkansasslave childrenremembered somethingof the betweentheirmothersandfathersandprovideddirecttestimony relationship of how they attemptedto protect one another within the system. Peter Brown, whose family was on a plantationnear Helena, offered one of the most dramatic storiesof a husbandtryingto protecthis wife. WhenBrown's
19 AN, vol. 11, pt. 7 (Williams), 157, vol. 11, pt. 7 (Wilborn), 445; Gutman,Black Family, 275-278. 20 78-79. Blassingame,Slave Community, 21 AN, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Baltimore),97.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

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mother was made to work by the master,even though she was not able, possibly because she was pregnant,his father"stole her out."The two ran Therethe father'sprotective role away,althoughonly to a nearbycanebrake. becameeven moreimportant when "onenighta smallpanther smelledthem andcome on a log up over wherethey slept in a canebrake. killed it with Pa a bowie knife. Ma had a babyout therein the canebrake." Brown's father's action had made a point, at least accordingto what most likely was family tradition.After the birthof the child they went back and the owner did not make the wife work again.22 The Civil War and its aftermath providedsome of the most powerful to the value thatthe slaves placed on theirfamilies. Earlyin the testimony warmuch of Arkansasbecame subjectto raidsby the Union Army and the state's plantersbegan to move their slaves out of the way by takingthem eitherto northwestern Louisianaor to Texas. In such circumstances slaves take extreme measures to make sure that the family remained might unbroken. In the case of the family of Eva Strayhorn,whose master abandonedhis plantationnear Clarksvilleand headed for Texas when the war broke out, little could be done when the male slaves, including 's Strayhorn father, were moved out. When Union soldiers entered the 's county,however,Strayhorn motherwas able to make a choice to preserve herfamily.Encouraged leave, she told the soldiers,"Henry in the South to is andI'll neversee him againif I leave the old home place for he won't know where to find me." She chose to remain a slave to preservethe family. Ultimatelythe women in the familyjoined the men in Texas.23 Former slaves' childhood memories indicate that the parents had feelings of deep affection for their children. Even the slaveowners of JamesGill of Phillips County recognizedthe strength these attachments. remembered when his family's mastermoved to Texas duringthe war, that the entirefamilywas sent despitean originalintention only to send the adult slaves. "Ole mars,"Gill remembered, knowedmy mammyand pappy, "he dey wasn't gwine be satisfiedwidout all dere chillun wid 'em, so en course I was brungon to."24 Even withinthe limitsimposedby the slave system, manyparentswere able to transmittheirvalues to their slave children.These values persisted
12 AN, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Brown) 311. 23 ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Strayhorn),303. 24 AN, Vol. 9, pt. 3 (Gill), 20 (quote), 19-26.

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in the formof treasured memoriesof childhood.Mostpersistent amongthese values were freedom and the effort to secure whateverfreedomcould be taken.JosephBadgett,althoughbornat the very end of the antebellumera, recalled vividly his mother, part Indian, who "would fight." She was whipped for leaving the plantationwithouta pass, despitethe fact that she could have had one. Badgettrecalledhowever,that "she was too proudto ask. She never wantedto do things by permission."Such rebellionclearly becamepartof familytradition.AnthonyTaylorremembered afterhis that and had grandfather grandmother been whipped,they fought back in their own way, neglecting"to feed the horseor to milkthe cows- somethinglike that."25 On the other hand, the slave children identified a variety of other attributes with their parents. Mittie Freeman of Ouachita County remembered father,who hadworkedas a manager one of his owner's her on as a "gentleman; He had been brungup that-a-way." ... farms, MaryJane remembered parents being "verystrict," thatshe "was her as and Kingbridge madeto mind."Kingbridge's situationshowedthatherfamily had achieved a uniquedegreeof independence, she associateddisciplinenot with her for masterbut with her family.26 The childrenalso took obviouspridein theirparents'accomplishments. CharlesDortch,whose parentswere slaves in Dallas County,remembered that his father was a carpenter,as well as a farmer,and that his mother worked as a cook and weaver. Mollie Barber,who lived on the relatively smallplantation NathanielTurner PhillipsCounty,warmlyrecalledthat of in her mother"work'roundde house and in de fields too; seem lak she done 'bout ever'thing."Likewise, even though she lost her fatherwhen he left him duringthe warto join the Union Army, she remembered as a man who was allowedto work in the evening to earn"outmoney"makingboots and shoes. FannieBorumalso respectedherfather'sabilityto makemoney with his skills. Workingas a ginner, he was rentedout to neighborswho paid wages. She recalledof herfather,"Theytrustedhim. . . . On accountof the money my fatherearnedhe was considereda valuableslave."27

25 vol. AN, 10, pt. 6 (Taylor),261; vol. 8, pt. 1 (Badgett), 78; v. 8, pt. 1 (Brown), 311. 26 AN, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Freeman),347; vol. 9, pt. 3 (Kingbridge),159. 27 AN, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Dortch), 169-179; ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Barber),29; vol. 8, pt. 2 (Borum), 183.

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A more systematicstudyof namingpracticeswould be useful, but it is evidentthatin manycases slaves purposefullypassedtheirnames on to the children,once againassertingtheirown influenceover theirfamilies. Peter Brown, who was a slave on a plantation in Phillips County, was the of grandson PeterBane, his father'sfatherand recalledthathe was "named afterhim."Otherchildren, of usuallysons, also weregiven the surname their fathers.28 While the nuclear family was present and played an importantrole among slaves, a varietyof othertypes of families existed. An examination of the relativeimportance the co-residential of nuclearfamily is essentialto ourunderstanding the character the slave familywithinthe state.Using of of the seventy-eight individuals who provided information in the WPA interviews it is possible to determinethe numericalimportance the coof residentialfamily. While the numberinvolved is relativelysmall and not a true randomsample, it does provide a representative cross section of the state's counties, since intervieweeshad residedin twenty-fiveof the fiftyseven that existed in 1860. When matchedwith information fromtax rolls and census returnsaboutthe numberof slaves theirmastersowned, it was also apparentthat the seventy-eightcame from a representative sample of slaveholdings (only forty-nine,however, could be placed with a specific owner, either because they did not identify their owner or the individual identifiedcould not be locatedin the censusof countytax rolls).Eightof the were on holdingsof fifty or moreslaves,twelve on holdings from forty-nine between 25 and 49 slaves, and twenty-ninein holdings less than 25. This reflects roughlythe statewidedistribution slaveholdings. of The evidence provided by the former slaves indicates that, while a nuclear households,overallco-residential majorityhad lived in two-parent familieswere less commonin Arkansas thanin older slave states.Although not strictly comparable,the conclusions of Malone's study of Louisiana slave families offers the best statisticsfor measuringArkansasagainst an olderstate.In Louisiana between1850 and 1859, 77.9 percentof households with childrenwere families with both parentspresent.In Arkansas,among the total sample, forty-four slaves or 59.5 percent came from family wherethe child remembered bothparents situations being presentat leastup

vol. 1%AN, 8, pt. 1 (Brown), 311; ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Bean), 46, (Harshaw),169.

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untilthe Civil War.Thirtyof the childrenor 40.5 percentcamefromfamilies where both parentswere not present.29 table 1). (See

Table 1. Structure of Child-Rearing Families in Antebellum Arkansas

Single-Parent Family (Cases) (Percentage) 30 405 Two-Parent Family (Cases) (Percentage) 44 59.5

The evidencefurther indicatesthata wide varietyof factorscontributed to the existence of householdsotherthanthat of the co-residentialnuclear family. Some of these factors probably existed in slave communities throughoutthe South. Others,however, appearto be peculiarto Arkansas and may help to explain the greater proportionof single-parentslave families. An examinationof the thirtyslave childrenbroughtup in non-nuclear householdsfoundthatnine (30 percent)of the cases couldnot be explained. The twenty-oneothers,however,providedsome indicationof the cause of their situation. The smallest number, three cases (10.0 percent), were childrenbroughtup in families with only theirmotherpresentbecausethe fatherwas white. In all cases the fatherwas eitheran overseeror the master. In one case the fatherplayeda role as protector, althoughhe never freedthe child.AugustusRobinson,slave andchildof L. T. Robinson,who ownedsix slaves in CalhounCounty,recalledthathis fatherultimately sold him to keep his wife frombeatinghim. "Shewouldhave killedme if she could have got the chance,"he remembered.Ultimatelythe fatherplaced his son in the hands of an owner who took care of him. Apparentlythe father always

Sweet Chariot,41; Blassingameand Gutmanoffer widely divergentfigures 29Malone, for the stability of the nuclearfamily based on marriagecertificatesissued by the Union Army and the Freedmen's Bureau in 1864 and 1865. Since these figures reflect destabilization producedby movementof slaves and their frequentdeathsduringthe Civil to War,I concludedthatthey werenot comparable my own findings.See Blassingame,Slave 90, Community, and Gutman,Black Family, 145-151.

THE SLAVE FAMILYIN ARKANSAS

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acknowledged his parentage, introducing his son to friends saying, "Gentlemen, he's a little shady but he's my son."30 The death of a parent was another reason for non-nuclear families. In three instances (10.0 percent) one or both parents had died. Ellen Thompson from Howard County was left alone when her mother died in 1849. Likewise, Anthony Taylor, a child on the plantation of C. S. Bullock in Clark County, was left with his mother when his father "was exposed and died of pneumonia." In such cases the child often came into the hands of other members of the plantation community. Mattie Fritz of Monroe County was left alone when her mother died. Her father had been left behind in Mississippi when her owner moved to Arkansas sometime before the Civil War. When her "dear mother" died, a woman that Fritz knew only as "Mammy" stepped in to take care of her. Mammy was an older woman who perhaps had already raised her own family.31 In six (20.0 percent) of the cases parents, though married, lived on separate plantations. Many of these, although not all, were slaves on farms or small plantations. Ann May, one of Thomas May's nineteen slaves at Cabin Creek in Johnson County, remembered living on the farm "with the white folks." On a farm with so few slaves, May's mother apparently looked elsewhere for a mate, and she found him on a nearby plantation. "My father belong to another family," she remembered, "a neighbor of ours." Charlie Norris, whose master, Tom Murphy, owned eleven slaves in Union County, also was raised in a situation where his mother was owned by one master, his father by another. The father of Julia Fortenberry, reared on a larger plantation belonging to Robert Tucker in Ashley County, also came from a different plantation. "I don't know how my father and my mother got together. I guess they just happened to meet up with each other," Fortenberry speculated. Nonetheless, the father visited his wife and child on Sundays and, it seems, occasionally at night. The couple had ten children but continued to live on separate plantations. The parents of John Jones in Arkansas County were similarly separated. Without question, the very

30 AN, vol. 10, pt. 6 (Robinson), 56; ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Williams), 389. 31 vol. 10, pt. 6 (Thompson),309, vol. 10, pt. 6 (Taylor),259, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Fritz), AN, 354.

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process of developing a family within a limited African American slave community was a difficult one.32 Overall, however, the most importantfactor destabilizing the family was the sale of a member. Thirty percent of the non-nuclear families in the Arkansas sample were the product of slaveowners' actions. Paternalistic planters may have hoped to keep their slave families together, but the evidence is fairly clear that few hesitated to break them up when they faced financial necessity. One former slave recalled that "ever' time dey need some money, off dey sell a slave, jest like now dey sell cows and hogs at de auction place."33 In four (13.3 percent) of the families children were either sold away from one or more of their parents or separated from them in some other way. Virginia Sims, who had been a slave in Virginia, remembered being sold with her mother, "put up on a stump just like you sell hogs to the highest speculator." They were purchased by Tom Murphy, who brought them to Arkansas and settled them on his plantation in Jefferson County. Sims's father, however, was not sold and remained behind. When she was only eight, Mary Ann Kroebs was sold by her master to settle a debt and brought to Arkansas by her new master, Dr. ArthurBrewster. Adeline Blakely, on the other hand, was given away at the age of five to the master's daughter on her marriage. Her new mistress was to be permitted to "raise me as she wanted me to be."34 In five (16.7 percent) instances one parent or both parents were either sold or moved off of the plantation for some reason. Situations varied, but a slave could be disposed of by a master whenever necessary. Mittie Freeman, slave of the Williams family at Camden, lost her father when their master died and the father, who had worked as a manager for his deceased owner, was moved to another plantation away from his family. When her father hit the manager of that plantation, the slave was sent to New Orleans
32 AN, vol. 10, pt. 5 (May), 66, vol. 10, pt. 5 (Norris),219, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Fortenberry), 328, vol. 9, pt. 4 (John Jones), 149. ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (quote), 29-30; see also Moneyhon,Impact of the Civil War, 68-69. 34 AN, vol. 10, pt.6 (Sims), 163, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Blackwell), 168, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Kroebs), 253, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Frazier), 340, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Blakely), 182. Blakely's mother,nevertheless, remained strongcharacter hermemory.Using a brassringandknottedstring,the mother a in would interpret the premonitions of young whites in the community. Her daughter remembered as having "a gift of telling fortunes." her

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ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

for sale. Sometimessuch sales left a child withouteitherparent.In the case of the woman Hannah, sold away from her children by Bill Newton of Johnson County, the mother asked another slave to take care of them: "Cindy, be a motherto my children,will you? I hate to leave them, poor little things, but I can't help myself."35 Sale, separation,death all slave families were threatenedby these things.They were morelikely,for manyreasons,to happenon small farms, however. A strong correlationappears to exist between the size of a The slaveholdingand a family's stability.36 largerthe holding an Arkansas interviewee lived on, the morelikelya co-residential had familywas to exist and survive. Family life on the smallholdingswas much less stable. On holdingsin excess of one hundredand between fifty and ninety-nine,all of those interviewedremembered being raisedin a family where both parents were present. Among slaves from holdings of twenty to forty-nine,55.6 percentof the formerslavesremembered families, beingraisedin two-parent 44.4 percentwere not. In the smallerholding (one to nineteen)48 percent came fromtwo-parentfamilies and 52 from one-parent families. (See table 2).

Table 2. Structure of Child-Rearing Families in Antebellum Arkansas by Size of Slaveholding

Size of Holding 100+ 50-99 20-49 1-19 Single-Parent Family (Cases) (Percentage) 0 0 8 13 0 0 44.4 52.0 Two-ParentFamily (Cases) (Percentage 3 5 10 12 100.0 100.0 55.6 48.0

35 AN, vol. 8, pt. 2 (Freeman),346-347; ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Stayhorn),5. 36 In carryingout this assessment, I broke down the sample into the same types of holdings as Ann Malone, categoriesdevised by JosephK. Menn in his study of Louisiana slaveholders. In Arkansas none of the interviewees in the slave narrativescame from plantations with more than two hundred slaves, but each of the lower categories have members.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

41

This parallelsMalone's findings for Louisiana,where family units on largerplantationstended to be more stable than those on smaller. In the Louisiana holdings with one hundred or more slaves, 80.9 percent of children were reared in two-parentfamilies, while 19.1 were not. On were 72.1 and slaves,the relativepercentages holdingsof fifty to ninety-nine 27.9; for twenty to forty-nineit was 71.4 comparedwith 28.6; for one to nineteenit was 69.6 to 30.4.37(See table 3).

Table 3. Structure of Child-Rearing Families in Antebellum Arkansas by Size of Slaveholding Compared with Louisiana
Size of Holding 100+ 50-99 20^9 1-19 Single-Parent Family Arkansas Louisiana 0 0 44.4 52.0 19.1 27.9 28.6 30.4 Two-Parent Family Arkansas Louisiana 100.0 100.0 55.6 48.0 80.9 72.1 71.4 69.6

These figures suggest that at least in partthe instabilityof the slave family in Arkansas may have been aggravatedby the developmental character of the state's economy and society. With the plantationjust beginningto take hold, the largernumberof small slaveholdingscreateda situationwhere fewer co-residentialnuclearfamilies could exist. On large therewere enougheligible partners couplescould be created that plantations on the plantationitself. But, as studentsof slavery elsewhere have noted, those held on smallerfarmswere far less likelyto find matesclose at hand.38 The smallfarmalso provideda less stableeconomicenvironment the for slave family.In a developingeconomywith pronounced of boom and cycles wouldbe morelikelyto run into economic troubles bust,the smallerfarmer

Sweet Chariot,61. 37Malone, 38 See, for example, BarbaraJeanne Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 25-27; Steven Hahn, The Roots of SouthernPopulism: YeomanFarmers and the of Transformation the Georgia Upcountry,1850- 1890 (New York:Oxford, 1983), 31.

42

ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

that might force the sale of a family member,and families divided among householdsfaced sale and separation any one of the members'mastershit if hard times. As alreadyseen, whenever farmersfound money short, they tended to replenishtheir pocketbooksby the sale of slaves. For the small farmer that occasion probablyhappened more frequentlythan for their wealthierneighbors. A comparison with figuresfor Texas, a statethatwas at a similarstage of economic developmentduringthis era, strengthens hypothesisthat this destabilization might be a result of the developmentalclimate. In his examination the slave family in Texas, RandolphB. Campbellfound 60 of of slave children in that state living in two-parenthouseholds. percent of Likewise, though Louisianaoverall appearsto have a largerproportion nuclearfamilies, newly opened parishesshowed ratesmore comparable to Arkansas's. Malone'sfiguresfor the Red River parishes,73.8 percentfrom two-parent families, reflect a less stable situation than elsewhere in Louisiana.Both of these developingareasshow stabilityratesmuch closer to Arkansas's59.5 percent.39 Thatthese developingeconomieson slavery'sfrontier could discourage the emergenceof co-residential nuclearfamilies by no meansmeantslaves were necessarilyleft bereftof nurturing companionship.Slaves proved or able themselvesto such circumstances filling in remarkably to accommodate criticalsocial needs. Thereis no indicationthat slave couples who lived on felt towardseach other.Whenthe Civil separate plantations any less strongly War ended, husbandsand wives in these circumstances their reconstituted familiesas nuclearunits.The fatherof JohnJonesof Arkansas Countywent to his wife, who had lived with theirchildrenon a separate before plantation the war, and took her and the rest of the familyto live on land providedby his master. The family subsequentlyremained together and farmed in Lincoln and JeffersonCounties.40 At leastin some cases parents enteredintonew marriages when old ones were brokenand the new partnersimply took over the role of the natural parent. Hulda Williams was the daughterof a slave and a plantation overseer.When her motherwas moved to JeffersonCounty,she marrieda slave on the plantationof WintryBond. Her stepfatherappearsto have

39 Campbell,Empirefor Slavery, 156; Malone, Sweet Chariot, 55. 40 AN, vol. 9, pt. 4 (Jones), 150.

THESLAVE FAMILY ARKANSAS IN

43

stories of his become an important personin her life, and she remembered that he sharedwith her. The reconstructed her family, particularly slavery controloverher,andherfamilyraisedher to exercisedconsiderable mother, "mind their folks- my mammy was the boss, and she whip me for In somethingwhen I was 27-yearold!"41 the case of the childrenof Hannah remembered "shetook care that in JohnsonCounty,a child of the stepparent of them and looked afterthemjust like they were hers."42 in Scholarship otherstateshas shownthat,whereboth parentswere not present,children'sneedsmightbe met by the single parentor otherrelatives, or even simply membersof the community,who often played a majorrole in providing a source of authorityrooted in the slave community.This clearlywas true in Arkansas,althoughless is known aboutchildrenreared than in others.In the few cases recorded,the people in such circumstances who steppedin to take care of the child appearto have become significant to contributors the young slave's life. In the case of MattieFritzof Monroe the older woman she came to know as Mammyprovidedat least a County, "She was so good to sense of securityand self-esteem.Fritzremembered, me."43 For all the resilience exhibitedby slaves individuallyand collectively, it is importantnot to sentimentalizethe slave family or exaggerate its Even an intactfamily could not shelterits membersfromharm.A strength. male slave could not in the end protect the female from any predatory behavioron the partof the master.AnthonyTaylorof Hot SpringCounty heard from his family that "if the boss man wantedto be with women that they had, the women would be scarednot to be with him for fear he would whip them. And when they startedwhippingthem for thatthey kept on till As they got what they wanted."44 with any institutioninvolving human were not alwaysgood.Not everyonehonoredthe bonds things relationships, they had created.Whenthe warended,some membersof these familiestook the opportunity presentedby the breakupto leave. In some cases this may have been to return to an earlier family, but the reasons for such abandonmentare generallyimpossible to determine.George Washington that Claridyof HowardCountyremembered his fatherleft duringthe war,
41 ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Williams), 391. 42 CW,vol. 12, supp. 1 (Stayhorn),5. vol. 8, pt. 2 (Fritz), 354. 4MjV, 44 AN, Vol. 10, pt. 6 (Taylor),261.

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possiblyto join the army,and"neverdid come back."Maggie Wesmoland, who had been a slave of the Holland family in the vicinity of Des Arc, that reported herfatherwas sentto Texas as a refugeeduringthe war, while the rest of the family remainedin Arkansas.Whenthe war ended he came backbutthen abandoned familyandwent backto Mississippi,wherethe his family originally had come from. Charlie Norris from Union County that who hadbeen ownedby different mastersand lived reported his parents, on separateplantations,separated. After freedom,"theynever did go back together."Each case is somewhatdifferent,but it indicatesclearlythatnot all slave familieshad achievedthe strongrelationships evidenced in earlier examples.45 Ultimatelythe WPA narratives providesignificantinsightsinto family life within the slave community,suggestingthey might shed light on other aspectsof slave life. They clearlyshow thatthe experienceof the Arkansas slave familywas more complex thanrevisionistscholarshiphas suggested. While the nuclearfamily was important, local conditionsmeantthat such familieswere less stablethanwas the case elsewhere.The evidencesuggests that this may have been due at least in partto the character the state's of economic development at this time. With a plantation economy just beginningto take off, the largernumberof small slaveholdingsprovideda worldin whichthe life of the slave familyremained stable.Nonetheless, less in Arkansasas elsewhere in the South where more extensive studies have been carried out, it is clear that both the family and the alternative institutions createdwhen the family fell apartplayed important roles in the socialization childrenandthe developmentof a slave world independent of of that of the mastersand provideda criticalsupportfor the formationof AfricanAmericanculture.
45 ON, vol. 12, supp. 1 (Claridy)105, 103-107, vol. 11, pt. 7 (Wesmoland), AN, vol. 99; 10, pt. 5 (Norris), 219.