Almost Free: A Story about Family and Race in Antebellum Virginia

3. Petitioning for Freedom in an Era of Slavery

53 chapter three petitioning for freedom in an era of slavery for a while samuel johnson could accept that he held his family as his slaves—but only for a while. As he aged, he worried more and more about it. Johnson knew that their legal status held great importance even if Warrenton’s residents and federal Census takers viewed his entire family as free. He knew that slave property, like any other property, could be seized to pay an outstanding debt, and he knew that the same was true if he waited to free his family in his will. If, for instance, he died owing more than could be paid by selling his other property, then his enslaved family would have to be sold to pay the debts; any emancipating provision would not take effect. What weighed most heavily upon him was probably less the issue of debt than his family’s legal right to remain in Virginia. If he had only wanted to make them free, Johnson could simply have called upon one of the many people he knew who was familiar with the law and asked him to draft deeds of manumission for Patty, Sam Jr., and Lucy. What stopped Johnson was his keen attentiveness to the law and to doing things in a proper, socially accepted way. More than most free black Virginians, and probably more than most people, Samuel Johnson yearned for legitimacy—a socially and legally secure place for his family and himself in his homeland of Virginia. 54 chapter three The quest for a legitimate place in Virginia had inspired his 1815 petition, and after its rejection he might have chosen to find a home with his family elsewhere. Pennsylvania was not so far away, and the family could all live freely there. But that is not the choice Johnson and his family made. From a modern perspective, it is difficult to understand their decision to stay in a slave state where they remained vulnerable rather than leave for a free state where they could all be secure in their liberty. Perhaps our difficulty in comprehending the Johnsons’ decision lies in the fact that we tend to see freedom and slavery in binary terms, as opposites. Samuel Johnson understood differently. He knew that the relationships he had built up in his community afforded him certain liberties, and that if he left his position at the tavern in Warrenton, he would not be able to replicate his special place at the center of the local community. He must have worried about how a man in his forties could build new connections and gain the respect and support of a new community. Would the white people elsewhere be as good to him as those in Warrenton? Would they support his dreams, declare that they wished him to live among them, write letters on his behalf to state senators? Would he gain the attention and aid of powerful political players? It did not seem likely, especially if Johnson considered, as he must have done, that even in free states black people often could not act as equals to whites. Furthermore, his was not a risk-taker’s personality, and by contemporary standards he was getting old. Fauquier County was his home, and he wished to stay there with his family. The simplest way to accomplish that was to free his family, and then they could remain together in Virginia in violation of the law. Johnson had considered that possibility when he had obtained his own freedom, and in the years since he had seen that officials hardly ever enforced the 1806 emigration law—another way in which white Virginians’ behavior diverged from the ideals they wrote into law. Fauquier County delegate Thomas Marshall, son of Chief Justice John Marshall, said as much on the floor Petitioning for Freedom 55 of the House of Delegates in 1832, noting that the 1806 law had “never been carried into effect”because “its provisions were in violation of the feelings of the people.” But “never”was not quite accurate . Every now and again an energetic local official determined to round up the illegal free black residents and sell them at auction , as the law provided, with the proceeds going to the Literary Fund of the state. (The Literary Fund provided monies to educate poor white Virginians, so free blacks’ freedom...