  Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves An examination of a few of the great number of deeds and wills which are to be found on record throughout Virginia will serve to illustrate the motives of her emancipators and the many difficulties which confronted them. These emancipations may be grouped in three periods,—from 1782 to 1806, from 1806 to 1833, and from 1833 to the outbreak of the Civil War. Each of these periods had its peculiar characteristics with reference to the problem of emancipation in Virginia. From 1782 to 1806 the law permitted emancipation without qualification, and public opinion, in the state, while deploring the existence of slavery was willing to permit the slaveholders to control, in large measure, the times and methods of its abolition. The period from 1806 to 1833 marked the years when anti-slavery sentiment showed increasing strength. The antipathy, however, to the presence of the free negro was equally pronounced and resulted in the laws which required his removal from the state within a year after his emancipation. This requirement invested emancipation with new, practical, as well as ethical difficulties. This period opened with the act which denied to slaveholders the unqualified right of emancipation—and it ended with the Nat Turner Insurrection and the futile attempts of the General Assembly to successfully meet the difficulties of the situation. The years from An examination of the following extracts from the deeds and wills of emancipators will serve to illustrate the truth of these views. SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806 Extract from deed of Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight County, dated March 6th, 1783: "I, Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight County in Virginia, after full and deliberate consideration, and agreeable to our Bill of Rights, am fully persuaded that freedom is the natural life of all mankind, and that no law, moral or divine, hath given me a just right or property in the persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and desirous to fulfil the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by doing to all others as I would be done by in a like situation ... do hereby emancipate and set free all and every of the above named slaves, &c." Extract from deed of Charles Moorman, of Campbell County, dated September 1st, 1789: "I, Charles Moorman, from mature consideration and the conviction of my own mind, being fully persuaded that freedom is the natural right of all mankind, and that no law, moral or divine, has given me a right to or property in the persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and being desirous to fulfil the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by doing to others as I would be done by—do therefore declare that having under my care twenty-eight slaves, (naming them), I do for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, hereby release unto them Extracts from deeds of Robert Carter, of Westmoreland County, each dated the 1st day of January, 1793: "Whereas the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia did in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-two enact a law entitled 'An Act to Authorize the Manumission of Slaves,' know all men by these presents that I, Robert Carter, of Nomony Hall, in the County of Westmoreland, do under the said act for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, emancipate and forever set free from slavery the following slaves." (Here follow the names of the slaves, twenty-seven in number.) And on the same day a similar deed emancipating thirty slaves. Extract from deed of Francis Preston, of Washington County, dated the 20th day of September, 1793: "Whereas my negro man, John (alias) John Broady, claims a promise of freedom from his former master, General William Campbell, for his faithful attendance on him at all times, and more particularly while he was in the army in the last war, and I who claim the said negro, in right of my wife, daughter of said General William Campbell, feeling a desire to emancipate the said negro man John as well for the fulfilment of the above mentioned promise as the gratification of being instrumental of promoting a participation of liberty to a fellow-creature, who by nature is entitled thereto, do by these presents, Extract from the will of Richard Randolph, Jr., admitted to record in Clerk's Office of Prince Edward County, April 8th, 1797: "In the first place—to make retribution as far as I am able to an unfortunate race of bondsmen over whom my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen by their iniquitous laws in contradiction of their own Declaration of Rights ... have vested me with absolute property; ... to exculpate myself to those who may perchance think or hear of me after death from the black crime which otherwise would be imputed to me of voluntarily holding the above mentioned miserable beings in the same state of abject slavery in which I found them on receiving my patrimony at lawful age; to impress my children with just horror at a crime so enormous and indelible, and to adjure them in the last words of a fond father never to participate in it ... I do declare that it is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my negroes, all of them, be liberated, and I do declare them by this writing free and emancipated to all intents and purposes whatsoever." "Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves whom I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties on account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes as to excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences to the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my power under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held to manumit them." The will further provides that all slaves who at the time of their emancipation are unable, by reason of old age, bodily infirmities, or youth, to support themselves shall be cared for out of his estate, the testator declaring: "I do moreover most pointedly and most solemnly enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting slaves and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the epoch at which it is directed to take place without evasion, neglect or delay, after the crops which may then be in the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm; seeing that a regular and permanent fund be established for their support as long as there are subjects requiring it." Extract from the will of Jesse Bonner, of Dinwiddie, dated 8th April, 1797, and admitted to probate 17th April, 1803: "Item: I leave the use of the plantation whereon I now "Item: My will and desire is that all the above negroes which I have lent to my beloved wife, Rebecca Bonner, namely (here the slaves, fifteen in number, are named), with all their increase from this day, be emancipated and go free at the death or marriage of my beloved wife, Rebecca Bonner. "Item: My will and desire is that if I have no child the plantation whereon I now live together with my New Survey, be given to my negroes and their heirs forever, after the death or marriage of my beloved wife, Rebecca Bonner." The reader will observe, that in many of the foregoing extracts the anti-slavery sentiments of the emancipators are freely and vigorously expressed and the act of emancipation is, in many instances, based upon the conviction that slavery was repugnant alike to the political institutions of the state and the principles of the Christian religion. SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833 During the time from 1806-1833 there seems to have been a diminution in the number of emancipations, especially in the earlier years of that period. This was doubtless to be accounted for by the difficulties, resulting from the law, which required the removal of the slave from the state within twelve months next succeeding his emancipation. However, with the increase in the facilities of travel, some of these practical difficulties were overcome, and during the latter years of the period the number of emancipations annually made were as large as, if not larger than, previous to the enactment of the law. Extract from the will of Charles Ewell, of Prince William "It is my will that all the increase of my negroes named shall be free at the age of twenty-five, and their increase, if any, to be free at the same age (those only who were born before their parents arrived at the age of twenty-four), those born after to be liberated with their mothers," Extract from the will of John Smith, of Sussex County, dated 9th November, 1825, and admitted to probate 2nd March, 1826: "At the death of my beloved wife, I direct that all of my negroes, without regard to age, sex or condition, with all their future increase, be, by my executor, sent to the African Colonization Settlement, established for the removal of free black persons of color from the United States; and believing freedom to be the natural birthright of all persons and having spent many of my best days in defense thereof, I do hereby declare all of my said slaves or negroes, with their future increase ... to be emancipated and free ... from and after the death of my said wife. And I do hereby give and grant to each of said negroes so emancipated, without regard to age, sex or condition, one good serviceable hat, one pair shoes and stockings, blanket and one year's provisions, exclusive of ship provisions on board, to carry with them.... I hereby direct my executors to pay all expenses of removing said emancipated slaves out of any money that may be in their hands belonging to my estate." Extract from the will of John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania "It is my will and desire that all my slaves now living or which may be living at the time of my death be free and I do hereby bequeath to each and every one of them their freedom immediately upon my death in as full and unlimited a manner as the laws of Virginia will admit of. But should any of my slaves choose not to avail themselves of this bequest of their freedom with the conditions which the law may annex, then it is my will and desire that they have the privilege of choosing their master who may take them at the valuation of two good men, to be chosen by my executors, and should the females thus electing choose to keep any of their children with them it is my will that said children be at liberty to obtain their freedom at the age of twenty-one years in the same manner.... I give to all my slaves over fifteen years at the time of my death each the sum of twenty dollars—excepting Davy and Nancy, having already given them one hundred and fifty dollars each." Extract from the will of Martha E. Peyton, of Prince William County, dated the 30th June, 1831, and admitted to probate October 3rd, 1831: "Secondly, I do hereby will and direct that after my debts are paid in the manner aforesaid that all my negroes without exception shall be emancipated and have their freedom; they having served me during my life and as I am unwilling for them to be kept in slavery or owned by any person after my death." Extract from the will of Aylette Hawes, of Rappahannock County, dated the 9th August, 1832, and admitted to probate 7th October, 1833: Extract from will of John Randolph of Roanoke, dated May, 1819, admitted to probate in 1833: "I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of deepest regret to me that the circumstances under which I inherited them and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land have prevented my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it." The will makes provision for the purchase of land in some one of the free states and for removing the ex-slaves, Extract from will of William H. Fitzhugh of Ravensworth, Fairfax County, dated March 21, 1829: "After the year 1850 I leave all my negroes unconditionally free, with the privilege of having the expenses of their removal to whatever places of residence they may select, defrayed. And as an encouragement to them to emigrate to the American Colony on the coast of Africa, where I believe their happiness will be most permanently secure, I desire not only that the expense of their emigration may be paid but that the sum of fifty dollars shall be paid to each one so emigrating on his or her arrival in Africa." The will makes provision for a fund to carry out the foregoing directions.
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