Our Family's Role in Slavery

Growing up in a family deeply rooted in Pennsylvania, I probably wasn’t conscious of how “Northern-centric” my thinking was with regard to the Civil War. Slavery, in particular, was a Southern thing, disagreement over it led to the Civil War, and it had little to do with our family. I was, in fact, a bit condescending. At least that was my mindset until I started examining our Virginian antecedents. Once it became clear that the Mannings (and the associated Hite and Darke families) had owned large Virginia plantations, the probability that they owned slaves was unavoidable.

The author of our Manning history, published in 1953, neatly sidestepped the issue and avoided mention of slavery. Louise Edrington Willis talked about locating the site of General William Darke’s homestead. “The home was burned years ago … The unusual size and appearance of the stone house evidently used for overseer’s quarters or to house house servants [sic], clearly bespoke the size and style of the home General Darke built.” When I visited the location some years ago, the local historical society directed us to the ruins as the probable slave quarters. Oh. That’s a little more to the point than “house servants” and “overseers.”

Beautiful Buena Vista Relied on Slave Labor in the 1850s

Likewise, on a visit to the beautiful home overlooking the Shenandoah once known as Buena Vista, the current owners specifically mentioned slave quarters on the property.  The home was built by Nathaniel William Manning about 1850. A map from 1852 shows how large the plantation was; the property was valued at $10,000. The 1840 census shows four free whites and 11 slaves. The 1850 slave schedule indicates holdings of 12 slaves: two adults aged 45 and 55, and children ranging from 2 to 19. Nathaniel W Manning is also listed on the 1860 slave schedule.

Digging a little further back in history, I located notices from the fall of 1818 related to the estate of William N. Manning’s father, Jacob Hite Manning. It indicated that Negroes were available for hire … men, women, boys and girls. It wasn’t uncommon to hire slaves out when they weren’t busy.

1818 Ad Sought to Hire Out Slaves

A generation earlier, the 1801 will of General William Darke specifically bequeathed three Negroes to a family in the same way as other “property.” It was interesting that General Darke came from a family of Quakers, who tended to discourage slavery (but they would also fail to embrace military careers).

So how far back did our family’s slave holding history go? We have seen that both Nathaniel William Manning, his father Jacob Hite Manning, and Jacob’s father-in-law General William Darke, all of Virginia, held slaves. Following the family further back, the German Hites may not have had slaves in New York or Pennsylvania, but obviously took up the practice when they came to Virginia and invested in large tracts of land. While we do not know whether Reverend Nathaniel Manning had slaves during his brief tenure as Anglican minister in Hampshire County, his wife Mary Hite Manning had grown up with them in her father Jacob’s household. She brought money and property into the marriage, so it is probable that the physical burdens of setting up a parish glebe (essentially a home and farm to support the minister) were lightened by the work of slaves. Mary’s mother, Catherine O’Bannon Hite, was herself the daughter of an Irishman with significant landholdings and slaves in Faulkier County, Virginia; Bryan O’Bannon specifically bequeathed slaves to family members in his will of 1762.

Excerpt from the 1801 Will of General William Darke of VA

But what of the Reverend Nathaniel Manning’s background before he came to Virginia, hotbed of the despicable practice of slavery? Manning hailed from New Jersey, and as it turns out, he was well acquainted with slave ownership before moving to Virginia. His father, Captain Nathaniel Manning, made provisions in his 1766 will bequeathing various slaves to family members. It seems that the English who established the New Jersey colony were extremely encouraging of African slavery as a means to promote agriculture and commerce. In 1664 they offered 60 acres of land, per slave, to any man who imported slaves, and there were ongoing efforts by those governing the colony to ensure a steady and affordable source of such labor. In the 1670s when our ancestor Jeffrey Manning moved from Massachusetts to the Piscataway, NJ area and took ownership of significant tracts of land, it is possible he bought slaves, although his will does not mention them, and specifically leaves a bequest for a servant. However, slaves were particularly numerous around nearby Perth Amboy. "By 1690, most of the inhabitants of the region owned one or more Negroes." *

Excerpts from the 1766 Will of Capt. Nathaniel Manning of NJ

What of Massachusetts, the Northern colony to which we trace our Manning/Andrews ancestors? It seems that Massachusetts Bay Colony had slaves even before our Andrews family arrived about 1635. A surprising find for me was that in the early days of the colony, when there was sporadic warfare between the colonists and the Indians, captured Indians were usually enslaved. Women and girls might be kept locally, but the males were deemed too dangerous. They were sent by ship to the West Indies and traded for safer, experienced Negro slaves who were brought back to Massachusetts. The first documented reference to this was in the journal of John Winthrop, Boston’s founder, in February 1638. In 1641 Massachusetts became the first colony to officially legalize slavery. Jeffrey Manning of Suffolk, England is believed to have been indentured as a youth to Captain John Cutting of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and thus made his way to the colonies. Captain Cutting made at least 13 trans-Atlantic crossings. There is no evidence that Cutting was a slave trader, but his Massachusetts estate included five slaves. By 1676, when the Mannings prepared to leave for New Jersey, the number of slaves in the colony was only 500, and most were used by craftsmen in larger cities for. As this profile does not seem to fit our Massachusetts Andrews/Manning ancestors, it seems unlikely that they personally owned any slaves. However, the slave trade was of great commercial importance to Boston, so the colony as a whole benefited.

Monument to the First Settlers in Hingham, MA.

It turns out that slavery was important in every one of the original thirteen colonies. Even William Penn, that devout Quaker who helped establish New Jersey and Pennsylvania, had slaves. As the colonies matured, there were periods of time when waves of German, Scots, and Irish immigrants provided cheap labor, often through indentured servitude, and the importance of slavery waned. Generally the institution of slavery continued in each colony until the commercial “need” for slavery was reduced to the point that the arguments against it as a matter of conscience could be heard.

It was likely not just our Manning line that used slaves. Any branch that we can trace back to early colonial days probably profited from the institution in some way. That means that while we may admire the bravery and tenacity of those of our ancestors who sought freedom from various kinds of oppression in this new world, we have to recognize that they may not have seen fit to extend freedom to others, particularly those of color.

By the Mid-1850s, Northern States Started to Reinvent their Images

Returning to my “Northern-centric” thinking, where did this single-minded blame of the South come from? The New York Historical Society, in promoting its exhibit, “Slavery and the Making of New York, states that ”In the years leading up to the Civil War, the distinction between slave states and free states became fixed in the popular mind and in school texts. Reading backwards, many northerners came to believe that their communities had always been bastions of liberty.”

I have now come to understand that if I pride myself in my colonial roots, I have to accept the burden that for at least 200 years my ancestors’ accomplishments may have been built in part on the traffic in human beings.

* Edgar J. McManus, Black Bondage in the North, Syracuse University Press, 1973.