SLD
Contributor
I looked for some more sources and one pointed out that the phenomena was very rare, but had no statistics. I think part of the problem may have been in how you classified people's color. Jefferson had two daughters from Sally Hemings that actually fled the plantation and lived as white people in DC. They married white men. But not sure if they owned slaves or not.
The original website, in other articles makes the point that amongst the free blacks, color was a huge social marker. Thus having a white father (which would be quite common) could elevate your status significantly. Getting more white into your genes, as Jefferson's two daughters did, could effectively erase your African Heritage.
So I wonder if part of the problem in counting these people as Black slaveholders is that they were really pretty much white. They may actually have tried to pass themselves off as white. Of course, the "one drop" rule was still around, but how could you enforce that?
The first link, to Mr. Ellison, pointed out that he was his master's son. But he actually bought his wife out of slavery. That too could be part of the problem with the numbers. Did she technically become his slave? It was difficult to manumit your slaves by the time of the Civil War. I had read previously of slaves who'd been freed, but their wives and children weren't so they lived on the plantation pretty much as a slave with the hope of eventually buying their wife and children's freedom. You would think that the South, subject to the 3/5th's rule would like to count these people as whole to get more congressional seats. But I do know that the manumission laws got tougher and tougher the more it became obvious that Slavery was going to have to go.
SLD
The original website, in other articles makes the point that amongst the free blacks, color was a huge social marker. Thus having a white father (which would be quite common) could elevate your status significantly. Getting more white into your genes, as Jefferson's two daughters did, could effectively erase your African Heritage.
So I wonder if part of the problem in counting these people as Black slaveholders is that they were really pretty much white. They may actually have tried to pass themselves off as white. Of course, the "one drop" rule was still around, but how could you enforce that?
The first link, to Mr. Ellison, pointed out that he was his master's son. But he actually bought his wife out of slavery. That too could be part of the problem with the numbers. Did she technically become his slave? It was difficult to manumit your slaves by the time of the Civil War. I had read previously of slaves who'd been freed, but their wives and children weren't so they lived on the plantation pretty much as a slave with the hope of eventually buying their wife and children's freedom. You would think that the South, subject to the 3/5th's rule would like to count these people as whole to get more congressional seats. But I do know that the manumission laws got tougher and tougher the more it became obvious that Slavery was going to have to go.
SLD
