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Copyright 2013 Sharony Andrews Green DROPPED “FROM the CLOUDS”: CINCINNATI and MANUMISSION AMONG the FANCY and NEWLY FREED, 1831-1901

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Copyright 2013 Sharony Andrews Green DROPPED “FROM the CLOUDS”: CINCINNATI and MANUMISSION AMONG the FANCY and NEWLY FREED, 1831-1901 Copyright 2013 Sharony Andrews Green DROPPED “FROM THE CLOUDS”: CINCINNATI AND MANUMISSION AMONG THE FANCY AND NEWLY FREED, 1831-1901 BY SHARONY ANDREWS GREEN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2013 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor David R. Roediger, Chair Associate Professor Augusto F. Espiritu Associate Professor Clarence Lang Professor Bruce Levine ii ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that numerous ex-slave mistresses and the children they produced with white men thoughtfully rebuilt their lives as newly freed people by capitalizing on earlier, sometimes ongoing, ties to white men, but also by relying on themselves and others sharing their circumstances. Some such women appear to have been “fancy girls,” the brand name for enslaved women and girls sold for use as prostitutes and concubines during the slavery era of United States history. Relying greatly on letters from ex-slaves and an ex-slave narrative, this study pays close attention to the ways in which some such women were highly valued in the slave market because of their fair complexion, but shifts attention to their experiences outside the market, specifically to their lives as “favored” ex-slaves. It does so by focusing on the migration of such ex-slaves from the Deep South to Cincinnati, a city that had the highest population of mulattoes outside the South before the Civil War. This migration occurred during the rising surveillance of people of African descent in the South during the 1830s and the concurrent rise of cotton as a premier crop, two factors that figured greatly into elite white men’s unwillingness to have their relations with women of African descent scrutinized at the community level. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to shed light on black-white intimacies and the ways in which Southern white men were hidden actors in antebellum black urban histories. It also hopes to reveal the degree to which focusing on a select slave expands our understanding of how oppressed bodies fit into both political and social histories because of their ability to draw upon the social capital that accrued from their connections to whites in authoritative positions. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is often the case on completing a huge project that one says, “I could not have done it without” this person and that person. Those who say this do so because it is true. I would like to thank first and foremost, David Roediger, my adviser. Dave is teaching me not only how to be a good researcher and instructor, but a good person. His faith in me gives me the courage to continue doing the work before me and the work still to come. I also extend thanks to my other committee members, Augusto Espiritu (for helping me to see the importance of being inclusive when telling stories that can be told from many viewpoints), Clarence Lang (for pushing me to color outside the lines) and Bruce Levine (for helping to remember that one must still color within the lines). Thanks are also owed to the Graduate College at the University of Illinois and the Department of History at the University of Alabama, for making it financially possible to write my dissertation. I am also truly grateful for the helpful feedback or affirmation of the merit of this study from the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago, the Gender and Women’s Seminar at The Newberry Library, the University of Illinois chapter of the Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA), and the American History Workshop in the Department of History at the University of Alabama. This study could not have been carried out without the libraries at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and the University of Alabama, whose staffs provided Interlibrary Loan assistance. Many archivists and/or institutions also helped me with sources, among them, M’Lissa Kesterman and Mickey Devise of the Cincinnati Historical Society, James M. Prichard, formerly of the Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives, B.J. Gooch, Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist, Transylvania University Library, the iv Filson Historical Society Library, the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, the Special Collections Department, Albert and Shirley Small Library at the University of Virginia, Kathryn J. Lillethun, of the Bainbridge (Ga) Historical Society, Lindsay Borman, Collections Assistant, Reference Services, the Indiana Historical Society; the staff at the D’Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago, Christopher Winters, Bibliographer for Geography, Anthropology and Maps in Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, the staff at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, University of Alabama, the staff at the Lexington (KY) Public Library, and the staff in the Manuscripts Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I wish to thank them all as well as and Jeanine M. Mitchell for doing archival research on my behalf at the Boston Public Library. I would like to also express my gratitude to the staff, faculty and students in the Department of History at the University of Illinois. The staff, in particular, Tom Bedwell, Stephanie Landess, Elaine Sampson, Janet Abrahamson, and Scott Barlett, provided amazing support in completing necessary forms associated with graduate instruction. Though I never partook because of distance, I will miss the almost daily calls to the department to enjoy some fancy offering of gourmet coffee. I am also grateful for the assistance of the staff in the Department of History at the University of Alabama: Ellen Pledger, Fay Wheat and Christina Kircharr. You made me feel very welcomed there and I cannot thank you enough. I wish to also thank many students here at Illinois who provided encouraging words, among Ersin Akinci, Stephen Bruce, Courtney Pierre Cain, Heidi Dodson, Sarah Frohardt-Lane, Kwame Holmes, Ashley Howard, Stefan Kosovych, Tony Laing, Josh Levy, Kyle Mays, Veronica Mendez-Johnson, Kerry Pimblott, Deirdre Ruscitti, Stephanie Seawell, Zachary Sell, T.J. Tallie, and Megan White. v Others offered encouraging words or research guidance and to the following I also say, “thank you”: Adrian Burgos, Lisa Dorr, Kari Fredrickson, John Gamble, Rebecca Ginsburg, Jennifer Hamer, Fred Hoxie, Michael Innis-Jiménez, Heather Kopelson, Michael Kuric, Pattie Linton, Kimberly Snyder Manganelli, Erik McDuffie, Michael Mendle, Tiya Miles, Jessica Millward, Elizabeth Pleck, Dana Rabin, George Rable, Rob Riser, Margaret Peacock, Siobhan Somerville, Amy Dru Stanley, William C. Sullivan, Carol Symes and Janek Wasserman. I wish to also thank my family and friends for their support, among them Alton Andrews, Brice Andrews, Duane Andrews, the late Rev. Garcia Andrews, Iona Andrews, the late Gayle Andrews Gay, the late C. Donald Beall, Hazel Beeler, Nick Beeler, Keith Braynon, Georganne Burton, Sue Circone, Joan Cohl, Marvin Dawkins, Lillie Mae Earvin, Darnese Harris, Bianca Harris, Kandice Hill, Betsy Hendrick, Tamaki Levy, Amii McKendrick, Camille Mendle, Estella Andrews Myers, Tisha Andrews Pierre, Jean Pierre, Bill and Jane Sutton, Aniko Varga, the late Gloria “Gigi” Braynon Watson, and Wanda Lewis-Williams. The biggest thanks is bestowed on John Beeler and the five cutest little kitties in the world. I could not have done it without you either. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION – BLACK-WHITE INTIMACIES AND THE MIGRATION OF FAIR BODIES TO THE “QUEEN OF THE WEST”………………...1 CHAPTER TWO: CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY AND THE FANCY GIRL……………………………………………………………………………………..23 CHAPTER THREE: “MR BALLARD, I AM COMPELLED TO WRITE AGAIN”: BEYOND BROTHELS AND BEDROOMS, A FANCY SPEAKS………………………………………………………………………………….59 CHAPTER FOUR: “I WENT TO MOBILE…NEW ORLEANS…UP TO CINCINNATI”: MOVEMENT, KINSHIP AND AN “OCTOROON”………………………………………………………………………....112 CHAPTER FIVE: “HAS ANYONE HEARD FROM WILLIS?” THE CENTRALITY OF KIN AND A FATHER’S WILL FOR ONE ALABAMA FAMILY………………………………………………………………………………..145 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………185 CODA …………………………………………………………………………………..194 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………202 1 Chapter One Introduction Black-White Intimacies and the Migration of Fair Bodies to the “Queen of the West” Perhaps it was idle banter. Isaac Franklin had an idea for two slave women living in Richmond, Virginia. This man, reputedly the most successful domestic slave trader in U.S. history, wanted to see the “Old Lady and Susan…earn their keep by running a whorehouse.”1 It is unknown if the women’s master, a fellow slave trader by the name of Rice Ballard, took Franklin up on his idea. More seems to be known about the Old Lady and Susan’s life in another state. Four years after Franklin’s proposal, Ballard freed two women in Cincinnati. With four children in tow, Ballard, Avenia White, and Susan Johnson stepped down onto a levee so big fifteen steamboats could sit there, still leaving half the harbor empty.2 Ballard left enough money for his now ex-slaves to eat and sleep for three weeks in a boarding house. Now free, White and Johnson and their children seemed positioned to live better than they ever had as slaves. But within a month, White sent Ballard a letter, describing their woes. She mentioned a drought and the low waters that were slowing traffic coming into Cincinnati. Fewer boats meant fewer passengers and less cargo for area businesses. 3 Indeed, White also told Ballard that she and Johnson were struggling financially because they were remote from “business.” The kind of business White was referring to remains a mystery. 1Robert H. Gudmestad, “The Troubled Legacy of Isaac Franklin: The Enterprise of Slave Trading,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 62 (Fall 2003), 193-217; Sharony Green, “‘Mr Ballard I am compelled to write again’: Beyond Bedrooms and Brothels, a Fancy Girl Speaks,” Black Women, Gender and Families, 5:1, (Spring 2011), 24. For more on Isaac Franklin, see Wendell Holmes Stephenson, Isaac Franklin: Slave Trader and Planter of the Old South; With Plantation Records (Louisiana State University Press; 1938, 1968).
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