Abstract

My biographical sketch of Winney Grimshaw is drawn from a larger study of the 973 slaves who lived and worked at Mount Airy plantation in Virginia between 1808 and 1865. My basic source is a series of 52 slave inventories, which enable me to track the careers of Winney's grandparents, parents, and siblings as well as to reconstruct Winney's life history. My sketch is illustrated by three letters written by or to members of Winney's family, documenting a stormy story of slave escape, of family breakup, of slave migration from Virginia to Alabama, and of interracial sex.

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