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| The sale of Jane and Celia may have looked like this drawing of a slave auction of the time period. |
Research family history for any length of time, and inevitably, a slave-holding ancestor will surely show up. This is true for a few of my husband's maternal lines, with their deep Southern roots.
During my recent
Elizabeth Kite research, I discovered the probate minutes for her grandfather David Kite's estate. Elizabeth's father, Caswell Kite, was granted letters of administration for his father-in-law's property on 15 December 1857, in Butler, Alabama.
1 The first mention of David Kite's slave property was in a Petition to Sell Land dated 21 December 1857. Here, Caswell asked the court to allow him to sell both Kite's property and his slaves, because:
"...said slave property cannot be equitably fairly and beneficially
divided between said Heirs & distributees without
a sale thereof..."2
On 8 February 1858, Caswell's petition was granted:
It is now therefore ordered adjudged
and decreed by the Court that said Adm
-inistrator do expose to public sale
the Slave property named in the petition
to wit: a negro woman named Jane
and her child name Jane Celia
for the purpose of making a more fair
equal and beneficial division thereof
among the heirs and distributees
of said Estate, that he sell the said
Slaves before the Court House door in
the Town of Greenville in said County
on a credit until the first day of
January next, that he take small notes
with good security for the purchase money..."3
Butler County Courthouse in Greenville, where Jane & Celia were sold, as it looked about 1885.4
On 25 March 1858, Caswell Kite reports to the court on the slaves' sale:
David Kite Estate of ] Probate Court Butler County
Order on Sale Bill ] March 25th 1858
This day came Caswell Kite Administrator
of the Estate of David Kite Late of Said County
deceased, and presented a sale bill of the
slave property belonging to said Estate
amounting to Nine Hundred and Seventy five
Dollars, which is sworn to examined and
ordered to be recorded and filed in this office.~5
 |
Cover of the accounting document recorded in Butler Co. for the sale of Jane and Celia.6
|
Sold. For $975. Were they sold together? I wanted to learn if they had been separated, hoping that they had not. The Butler County loose estate files are digitized on FamilySearch. Here were other documents naming Jane and Celia, and I learned their fate:
The State of Alabama = Butler County
The following contains a correct
account of sales of a certain
negro the slave property belonging
to the Estate of David Kite decd,
sold on the 22nd day of March
1858, on a credit until the first day
of January 1859.- to wit;
one Negro woman named Jane
about 24 years of age and her child
Celia, about three years old. Sold to
David Thomas for $975.007
Documents such as these are vitally important to helping current-day descendants of slaves identify and claim their ancestors, and begin to build their family tree over time and place. Since slaves could not own property, did not have surnames, and created no records of their own while enslaved, researchers must look for evidence of their ancestors' lives in the records of the slaveholders—records like probate files and census slave schedules. It's an incredibly difficult task.
The Beyond Kin Project was created to address this problem, by enlisting the help of researchers of slaveholders to extract evidence of slaves from the owner's records. This is accomplished through attaching information on the slaves to the slaveholder's profile in Ancestry family trees.
I'm just beginning to add Jane and Celia's information to the profile of David Kite of Butler, Alabama. In all I found eight mentions of each of them in various probate minutes and documents. It was incredibly fortunate to have their names, ages, and the names of both their owners: Kite, and David Thomas.
I'm hoping it will allow Jane and Celia's descendants—if there are any—to someday connect records their ancestors created after Emancipation with those created during slavery.
Click HERE more information on the Beyond Kin Project.
IMAGE
"Slave Auction in Richmond, Virginia," The Illustrated London News, 27 Sept. 1856, p. 315; digital image, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/98510266/ : accessed 21 February 2023); citing Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. In the public domain.
NOTES
1 Court of Probate, Butler County, Alabama, Probate Minutes, Vol. 3, p. 247, Estate of David Kite, Letters of Administration granted to Caswell Kite, 15 December 1857; images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C957-HS8P-2 : accessed 2 February 2023); citing County Courthouse, Greenville.
2 Court of Probate, Butler County, Alabama, Probate Minutes, Vol. 3, p. 254-256, Estate of David Kite, Petition to Sell Land, 21 December 1857; images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C957-HS8G-Y?i=634&cat=456105 : accessed 2 February 2023); citing County Courthouse, Greenville.
3 Court of Probate, Butler County, Alabama, Probate Minutes, Vol. 3, p. 318, Estate of David Kite, Order to Sell Slave Property, 8 February 1858; images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C957-HS8D-C : accessed 29 January 2023); citing County Courthouse, Greenville.
4 John Buckner Little, The History of Butler, Alabama from 1815 to 1885 (Cincinnati: Elm St. Printing Co., 1885), p. 65; digital image, Google Books (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_Butler_County_Alabama_181/I08UAAAAYAAJ : accessed 21 Feb. 2023); citing Harvard College Library, Boston. In the public domain.
5 Probate Court, Butler County, Alabama, Estate Case Files, Box 7, Folder 23, David Kite Estate, Sale of Slaves; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C957-F6XH : accessed 12 February 2023); FHL film 007651354, image 238-239; citing County Courthouse, Greenville.
A wonderful post touching on an uncomfortable but important genealogical topic. Thank you for reminding me about the Beyond Kin Project.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm glad I learned of the Beyond Kin Project as well, and happy to provide the reminder. Still working through my first set of additions to my tree.
DeleteYou learned so much about these enslaved people...thanks for sharing what you discovered and how.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised to see the level of detail, and glad it was there. I realize that is pretty fortunate. I hope it helps someone.
DeleteIt's great that you had found those records, and it's wonderful that you are saying their names and digging further into them! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree, so happy to have found them. I need to see if they are on the slave schedules as well. It's only right to acknowledge where we can.
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