Category: JMU Undergraduate Work

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Seeking to Stay: Nathan’s 1833 Petition to the General Assembly

Nick Baker, Daniel D’Amico, and Nick Spadaccini

In 1833, a newly emancipated African American man named Nathan persuaded Jacob Lincoln, Jr. and dozens of other white Rockingham County men to “unite with him” in a petition asking the General Assembly to allow Nathan “to spend the remnant of his days, in the said county in which he was born.”   

African Americans, even once freed, were not equal in southern society. In Virginia, an 1806 law required all freed slaves to leave the Commonwealth within a year of emancipation (Guild, 72-73). Those who wished to stay had to petition for residency. Only white men were permitted to sign, vouching for the petitioner’s good character and testifying that they did not pose a threat to the community as a whole.

Nathan’s mark on the 1833 petition. Courtesy of the Library of Virginia.

The most common reason for seeking to stay was family. Many freed slaves had family members who were still enslaved and did not want to abandon them. This was especially the case because very few former slaves had the means to purchase the freedom of their family members.

According to the petition, Nathan, who by his emancipation in 1833 was “considerably advanced in years,” had a “wife and four children” who were enslaved by Rockingham County farmer George Sites. With “no way of purchasing” his wife and children “in any short time,” even if Sites proved willing to sell them, Nathan asked his white neighbors to help him persuade the General Assembly to let him stay.

Jacob Lincoln, Jr. was one of the signers. Like many powerful families of the antebellum period, the Lincolns owned slaves and were involved in the slave matters of their neighbors. Nathan had been owned by the Dunlap family. Jacob Lincoln, Jr. almost certainly knew him personally. He may also have known his wife and children, who lived not far away on Linville Creek. An enslaver himself, Lincoln thought highly enough of Nathan to testify that he was not a threat to the community as a free person.

Jacob Lincoln, Jr.’s signature on the 1833 petition. Courtesy of the Library of Virginia.

While enslavers sometimes sought to manipulate and exploit freed slaves, Jacob Lincoln, Jr. and the other petitioners appear to have had Nathan’s best interest at heart. This is clear because Nathan was old and had little to offer those speaking on his behalf, aside from being “a faithfull servant” in the past.

What happened to Nathan? Not much is known about his whereabouts after the 1833 petition. In 1834, residents of Rockingham County filed another petition on Nathan’s behalf. This petition had many of the same signatures, with the exception of Jacob Lincoln, Jr. The result of this petition is unknown.

If Nathan received permission and opted to remain in Rockingham County, he would have faced discrimination in labor and everyday life. He might have found work as a field hand, street sweeper, or outhouse cleaner, doing hard labor for low pay. He would have been a second-class member of society, subject to harassment and discrimination (West, 465). Nathan knew this grim outlook when he organized his petition to the General Assembly, but the bonds of family nevertheless persuaded him to seek to stay.

Works Cited

Citizens: Petitions, Rockingham County, 4 December 1833, Legislative Petitions Digital Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

Citizens: Petitions, Rockingham County, 2 December 1834, Legislative Petitions Digital Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

Guild, June Purcell. Black Laws of Virginia. New York, NY: Negro Univ. Press, 1969.

West, Emily. “‘Between Slavery and Freedom’: The Expulsion and Enslavement of Free Women of Colour in the US South before the Civil War.” Women’s History Review 22 (2013).

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Alcohol Abuse on the Lincoln Homestead

Brandon Carter and Kelly Ryan

In an 1840 letter from Jacob Lincoln, Jr.’s brother-in-law, John Lineberger, to a friend, John wrote that Jacob’s family was “running about dodging him constantly” as a result of his heavy drinking (Lineberger). According to the letter, Jacob was spending his wheat crop on whiskey and brandy, two of the most popular alcoholic beverages of the early nineteenth century along with other cheap distilled liquors (Carlson, 677). Jacob’s alcohol abuse led to economic troubles, as shown by his irresponsible spending and the fact that he was not able to have the same financial success as his brother (Wayland, 214). It was not uncommon for southern patriarchs struggling with alcohol abuse to sell their family’s possessions in order to fund their addiction, just one way in which alcoholism negatively affected their households (Sager, 81).

Excerpt from the John Lineberger letter referring to Jacob Lincoln, Jr. as “Jr.” and describing his alcohol consumption and intemperate behavior as “worse than usual.” Courtesy of the Lincoln Society of Virginia.

Jacob’s son, John Lincoln, explained to John Lineberger that he left home as he could not stand his father’s alcoholism any longer. The exact behavior that Jacob was exhibiting was not made clear, but his son described it as “if possible worse than usual” (Lineberger). In some Virginia families, alcoholism caused the patriarch to be abusive and violent, making the family fearful every time he was intoxicated. The trouble these families experienced caused them to look to their communities for help.

In the Lincolns’ case, their community consisted of kin in the greater Linville area. Lineberger asked both the unspecified letter recipient and the recipient’s brother to meet him in Harrisonburg to come up with a plan to “better the family situation.” As Jacob’s brother-in-law, Lineberger felt a duty towards his sister, Nancy, as well as towards Jacob. The patriarchal family structure was an important principle of southern culture, so communities intervened in order to preserve this way of life (Carlson, 677).

Before the Civil War, temperance advocates used images like this one to raise awareness of the
dangers of alcohol abuse. Nathaniel Currier, “The Drunkard’s Progress” (1846). Wikimedia.

The rapid growth of the temperance movement in Virginia in the 1820s and 1830s contributed to a more negative outlook on alcohol consumption which could explain why communities were intervening more (Pearson and Hendricks, 36-40). Family and friends harbored fleeing wives, conducted interventions, and participated in legal action against intemperate husbands (Edwards, 746-53).

Lineberger was not able to rebuild Jacob and Nancy’s family. Nancy would be committed to an asylum in Staunton and Jacob would be found dead in an Ohio field just eight years later, though it is unclear whether these incidents were related to his alcoholism (Wayland, 214).

Works Cited

Carlson, Douglas W. “‘Drinks He to His Own Undoing’: Temperance Ideology in the Deep South.” Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 4 (1998).

Edwards, Laura F. “Law, Domestic Violence, and the Limits of Patriarchal Authority in the Antebellum South.” The Journal of Southern History 65, no. 4 (Nov. 1999).

John Lineberger to —-, November 12, 1840. Collections of the Lincoln Society of Virginia.

Pearson, C.C. and Hendricks, J. Edwin. Liquor and Anti-Liquor in Virginia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1967.

Sager, Robin C. Marital Cruelty in Antebellum America. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016.

Wayland, John W. The Lincolns in Virginia. Staunton, VA: The McClure Printing Company, 1946.

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Squire, Fire, Repression, and Rebellion

Madeleine Hesler, Ryan Ritter, and Ashton White

Squire was an enslaved man at the Lincoln Homestead who in 1841 was charged with burning a barn “of the value of one Thousand Dollars” belonging to Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Public Claim). He had been acquired by Jacob Lincoln, Jr., son of the original builder of the Homestead, through his mother-in-law Dorcas Robinson in 1811 (Wayland, 253). As with many enslaved people in the antebellum South, there is, unfortunately, little information about Squire in the historical records. However, his story may be pieced together through the few available documents and recorded testimony.

Squire is listed in this undated inventory of “Abram Lincoln negroes.” Courtesy of the Lincoln Society of Virginia.

Squire was tried and convicted by a five-judge court of oyer and terminer, a type of court established specifically to handle slave crime, and was originally sentenced to be hanged on October 29, 1841.However, an act of “clemency” from the court ordered that he be brought to an unidentified penitentiary for transportation before he was likely sold for $280. At the time of his transfer to the penitentiary, Squire was 50 years old. What happened after his transfer is a matter of speculation, though it is most likely that he continued his servitude elsewhere.

Squire is listed (along with his age and the name of his enslaver, Jacob Lincoln, Jr.) in this index of “condemned slaves and free blacks executed or transported” between 1781 and 1864. Courtesy of the Library of Virginia.

Virginia had one of the most “repressive systems of criminal law regarding slaves” (Flanigan, 546). Court magistrates were often composed almost entirely of slave owners, and lack of evidence against an accused defendant often did not halt the issuing of a guilty verdict (Campbell 71-85). As opposed to the biennial circuit court sessions where white defendants were tried, courts of oyer and terminer met for only five to ten days after an investigation was filed and, according to historian James Campbell, largely existed “for the sole purpose of trying and sentencing […] specific slave[s].”

Though Squire was likely never executed, his original sentencing to be hanged was not an uncommon punishment for enslaved Virginians. For courts of oyer and terminer, capital punishment was often preferred. It served as a mechanism for white slave owners to assert power and intimidate those they enslaved. To instill further fear, slave owners would oftentimes display the heads of executed slaves as a reminder to others of their fate should they choose to rebel (Blackman and McLaughlin, 45). At the time of his sentencing, Squire’s crime was considered particularly egregious. According to Anne Willis, slaveholders feared arson the most as it was “impossible to guard against, and it endangered their own lives and property” (Willis, 37).

Slave rebellion is often associated with dramatic acts such as Squire’s alleged act of arson, with less attention paid to quieter forms of resistance (Scully). Yet practicing religion, fostering community and family connections, and staying true to oneself allowed enslaved individuals to experience a taste of freedom, agency, and hope even while under the oppression of their enslavers. Quieter forms of rebellion could contribute to the stirrings of (and success of) dramatic slave rebellions.

Squire’s case is an interesting, yet not uncommon one in the historical record. Due to the lack of information and documentation of Squire outside of his court case, we cannot determine what occurred to him after the trial. Squire represents one of many enslaved individuals who went through an unjust court system. His act of rebellion was one among many varieties. Rebellion could look different based on the motives and hopes of each individual living under a system of oppression.

Works Cited

Blackman, Paul H. and McLaughlin, Vance. “Mass Legal Executions in America up to 1865.” Crime, Histoire, & Sociétés 8, no. 2 (2004).

Campbell, James. “‘The Victim of Prejudice and Hasty Consideration’: The Slave Trial System in Richmond, Virginia, 1830-61.” Slavery & Abolition 26, no. 1 (2005).

Flanigan, Daniel J. “Criminal Procedure in Slave Trials in the Antebellum South.” The Journal of Southern History 40, no. 4 (1974).

Lincoln, Jacob: Public Claim, 1841-10-09. Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA.

Scully, Randolph Ferguson. “‘I Come Here Before You Did and I Shall Not Go Away’: Race, Gender, and Evangelical Community on the Eve of the Nat Turner Rebellion.” Journal of the Early Republic 27, no. 4 (2007).

Wayland, John W. The Lincolns in Virginia. Staunton, VA: The McClure Printing Company, 1946.

Willis, Anne Romberg, “The Master’s Mercy: Slave Prosecutions and Punishments in York County, Virginia, 1700-1780.” Master’s thesis. College of William & Mary, 1995.

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The Lincolns in America StoryMap

This StoryMap was created by JMU Undergraduate students Kelly Ryan, Jack Greentree, Devon Farrington, and Brandon Carter. It will take you on an interactive journey of the migration of the Lincoln Family in the 18th and 19th centuries.