A Mount Vernon Slave Census, 1815-1861

 

Sources

 

The sources for this website include (a) private papers of members of the Washington family and (b) public documents such as estate inventories and U.S. census records.  Sources are listed in roughly chronological order.

Will of John Bushrod, Westmoreland County Deeds & Wills, vol. 13, pp. 307-311: written February 14, 1760; probated December 30, 1760; microfilm in Library of Virginia, Richmond.

John Bushrod left 35 slaves “and their increase” (i.e., the children of any female slaves) to his daughter Hannah Bushrod Washington, wife of John Augustine Washington (I). Many of these people were almost certainly the parents of people listed in 1783 and 1787 as John Augustine Washington’s slaves—and thus they were the ancestors of Mount Vernon’s post-1802 slave community. However, the gap of more than two decades between this 1760 list and those later ones makes it nearly impossible, at present, to ascertain the connections.

 

“List of John Auge. Washington’s Negroes 3d March 1783,” in John Augustine Washington (I)’s Ledger C, Mount Vernon Archives, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

This list of 44 people must be incomplete, given that more than three times that number were listed in the division of Washington’s estate four years later. It is nonetheless useful for providing the familial links between various people who would appear on later lists. For example, Bushrod Washington inherited a brother and sister, Ham and Sinah, and their spouses and (eventually) their children, while Bushrod’s brother Corbin inherited Ham and Sinah’s sister Eve and her family.

 

Division of John A. Washington [I]’s Slaves, c. 1787, George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Alexandria, Va. (photocopy in Mount Vernon Library, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association)

This list identifies and sets monetary values on slaves inherited by Hannah Bushrod Washington (widow of JAW) and by their two surviving sons, Bushrod Washington and Corbin Washington. The c. 130 people on this list became the core of Mount Vernon’s enslaved population after 1802: first, because Bushrod Washington took people he had inherited, from his father or from his mother after her death; and later, because John Augustine Washington (II) and then his son Augustine Washington (John Augustine Washington [III]) took people whom Corbin Washington had inherited from the JAW I estate, or descendants of those people.

 

Inventory and Division of Hannah Lee Washington estate, February 19, 1810, Fairfax County Will Book J-1, pp. 256-262, Fairfax County Courthouse Archives, Fairfax, Va.; allotment to John Augustine Washington (II), Jefferson County (W.Va.) Deed Book 6, pp. 292-294, Jefferson County Courthouse Archives, Charles Town, W.Va.

Corbin Washington and his wife Hannah Lee Washington both died around 1800, when their three sons were minors. When the eldest, Richard Henry Lee Washington, came of age in 1810, the estate was inventoried so that he could receive his third of it (slaves, lands, livestock, and material goods). This 1810 list, organized by family groups, includes the 132 slaves in this estate at that date and enumerates which people Richard inherited. The following year, another document enumerated John Augustine Washington (II)’s inheritance of slaves and land. In the absence of a third document, it is reasonable to assume that the youngest son, Bushrod Corbin Washington, received the remainder of the slaves from the 1810 inventory. After Richard Henry Lee Washington died in 1817, his surviving slaves were reapportioned between his brothers (no surviving document). The people whom John Augustine Washington (II), his wife Jane Charlotte, and their son Augustine brought to Mount Vernon in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s came predominantly from the inheritance codified in 1810 and 1811.

 

Bushrod Washington, “List of my Negroes, July 24, 1815,” and “Meal Allowance for 1814,” in John Augustine Washington (III), Mount Vernon Farm Book, Mount Vernon Archives.

The earliest surviving lists of slaves at Mount Vernon during Bushrod Washington’s tenure, these documents appear in a ledger book later re-used by Bushrod’s great-nephew. Bushrod Washington recorded people by family group, noted each person’s age, and listed how he had acquired each person or family. In many cases, people over 30 years of age had appeared in the 1787 division of Bushrod’s father’s estate—most of them apportioned to his mother, Hannah Bushrod Washington. (The “Meal Allowance” indicates how much grain each person was to receive; it also appears to indicate which people lived at each Mount Vernon farm.)

 

United States manuscript census, 1820, 1830, 1840.  Records available through National Archives, or through Ancestry.com.

These censuses recorded aggregate numbers of slaves (by sex and by age range) belonging to a particular owner (for Mount Vernon, Bushrod Washington in 1820, his estate in 1830, and Jane Charlotte Washington in 1840).  Before 1850, the U.S. census did not record information about each slave separately, so it is difficult to match the results against a master’s list or estate inventory. 

 

Personal Property Tax Lists, particularly for Fairfax County, Virginia, on microfilm in the Library of Virginia, Richmond.

While useful in recording annual fluctuations in numbers of taxable slaves (generally those aged 16 and above) belonging to a master, these lists generally do not permit identification of individuals.

 

Will of Bushrod Washington, admitted December 21, 1829, Fairfax County Will Book P-1, pp. 350-360, Fairfax County Courthouse Archives.

This will assigned several enslaved individuals and families to specific people (particularly to his wife and her heirs), while naming several other heirs who would divide the remainder of his human property: nephews John Augustine Washington (II) and Bushrod Corbin Washington, the sons of his late brother Corbin and sister-in-law Hannah Lee Washington; nephews George Corbin Washington and Bushrod Washington “Jr.,” the sons of his late sister Jane and her husband William A. Washington; and great-nephews Bushrod and Noblet Herbert, the sons of his late niece Mary Herbert.

 

Inventory of Bushrod Washington estate, admitted January 28, 1830, Fairfax County Will Book Q-1, pp. 1-10, Fairfax County Courthouse Archives.

An essential document, which lists (and assigns dollar values to) the slaves at Mount Vernon two months after Bushrod Washington’s death—and does so by family groups.

 

Division of Bushrod Washington estate, March 16, 1830, Fairfax County Will Book Q-1, p. 317, Fairfax County Courthouse Archives; annotated manuscript copy, Bushrod Washington Family Papers, John D. Rockefeller Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Va.

These documents indicate the assignment of slaves to individual heirs. The allocation to John Augustine Washington (II) formed the core of his Mount Vernon workforce of the early 1830s. The Williamsburg manuscript adds several rich details, including slave family relationships inaccessible from any other document.

 

Inventory of John Augustine Washington (II) estate, admitted January 21, 1833, Jefferson County (W.Va.) Will Book 7, p. 148, Jefferson County Courthouse Archives.

This inventory lists slaves in two locations: those at Mount Vernon on August 13, 1832, and those at Blakeley sometime between Washington’s death in June 1832 and the admission of the inventory in court. The former group included people John Augustine and Jane Charlotte Washington had inherited from Bushrod Washington, as well as several people they had brought to Mount Vernon by 1832. The latter group, listed by families and giving each individual’s age, included many people Jane Charlotte and her son Augustine would later bring to Mount Vernon. Because John Augustine (II) left his entire estate to his widow, there was no division of the estate.

 

John Augustine Washington (III) slave lists, 1842-1858, in successive Mount Vernon Farm Books, Mount Vernon Archives.

Augustine Washington regularly began each new farm diary with lists of his slaves, which he updated during the period of that diary. Except for a brief period (1853-1856), these diaries cover the entire span from his assumption of Mount Vernon’s management until 1858.  Along with his correspondence, these diaries offer wonderful glimpses into the lives of enslaved people at Mount Vernon: families, work, and occasionally leisure and other pursuits.

 

United States manuscript census, slave schedules, 1850 and 1860. Records available through National Archives, or through Ancestry.com.

In these census years, a separate slave schedule recorded each person in slavery. Individuals were listed under their owner’s name, by age, sex (M or F), and color (B for Black, Mu or M for Mulatto), but not by name. The listings for Fairfax County in 1850 and for Fairfax and Fauquier Counties in 1860 permit identification against Augustine Washington’s slave lists. They also enable us to extend those lists to 1860.

 

Inventory of John Augustine Washington (III) estate, recorded December 2, 1861, Fauquier County Will Book 29, pp. 243-253, Fauquier County Courthouse Archives, Warrenton, Va.

After Augustine Washington was killed, executors inventoried his possessions at Waveland, the Fauquier County plantation where he had moved his household after selling 200 acres at Mount Vernon to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. This marvelously detailed inventory (including a room-by-room accounting of Waveland’s material objects) reveals the slaves who were there that December, including several children born since the 1860 census. It does not reveal people who had remained on Augustine’s Mount Vernon land or had escaped from Waveland in summer and early fall 1861.

 

Executor’s and Trustee’s Account for John Augustine Washington (III) Estate, 1861-1865, Fauquier County Will Book 30, passim; “Sales of Property” account by Richard B. Washington, January 15, 1862, Fauquier County Will Book 29, pp. 344-359; both Fauquier County Courthouse Archives.

The Executor’s and Trustee’s Account records the sale in December 1861 of several slaves from the Washington estate, including a few who attempted escape that November. (Augustine’s wife had died the previous year, and his children were all minors.) The estate sale account of January 1862 does not include slaves, but does record a remarkable array of household and farm items purchased by Augustine’s neighbors.