Table of Contents

OAH Magazine of History
Volume 15, No 4
Summer 2001

Copyright ©
Organization of American Historians

Lesson Plan

A Will as a Source for African American Family History

Wilma King

Obviously concerned about her debts, inevitable demise, and the welfare of her three minor children, the nimble-minded Sompayrac parceled out five slaves to her offspring. Her son Darrick received one slave, the “boy Alexander;” another “boy,” James, along with Solomon, probably an adult, became her son Stephen’s property; and the “little negro girl named Elizabeth” and a woman named Jane were set aside for her daughter Sarah Ann. There were essential differences in the bequests, which go beyond Sompayrac’s sons receiving male slaves and her daughter receiving females.

Encumbrances prevented Stephen and Sarah from enjoying the labor of their two slaves permanently. Solomon would become Stephen’s property, but would receive his freedom upon reaching thirty-five years of age, in consideration of his position as Sompayrac’s godson. Similarly, Jane would become Sarah’s property only after satisfying all of Sompayrac’s debts. Rather than disposing of her real and personal property, Betsy chose to pay off her debts by renting the house in which she resided along with the enslaved woman Jane. When the debt was paid, Sompayrac’s daughter Sarah could take possession of Jane but not of her children, who were bequeathed to Sompayrac’s adult son Benjamin if he ever returned to Natchitoches. Nevertheless, Sarah’s legacy had the greatest economic potential, since she had clear title to Elizabeth and her progeny.

A will such as Betsey Sompayrac’s raises a variety of questions and is a rich source for probing the ways in which persons of color acquired and secured their own freedom and that of their progeny. Furthermore, the will provides a foundation for answering interrogations about race, class, gender, age, and region, along with questions regarding the relationships between enslaved and free women of color.

The same queries are appropriately asked of the children in Sompayrac’s home. We do not know how Sompayrac acquired her freedom. But it is clear that she, along with more than thirty-eight thousand other free persons of African descent in 1840, were anomalies in a society where nearly all black women, men, and children remained enslaved. As a slave owner, Sompayrac was perhaps less of an anomaly in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the home of Marie Thereze née Coincoin and her descendants, reputed to be the wealthiest black slaveholding family in the antebellum South. Sompayrac’s real and personal property paled by comparison, yet it is clear that she hoped to secure her independence and that of her children. In so doing, Sompayrac links her children’s economic future to her personal property that could be sold, traded, or rented. On one hand, her will was a symbol of economic well-being for her offspring. On the other hand, it held the potential for the separation of families and friends.

In addition, the will provides a means to examine the imagined community of race and gender. Emancipated women often retained linkages to slavery through family and friends who remained enslaved. Black women shared both gender and racial oppression, but these commonalities did not erase class distinctions. To ask why these class distinctions persisted will open a fruitful discussion about the bond between Sompayrac and Solomon’s mother as well as the relationship between Sompayac’s slave Solomon and her son Stephen.

The following assignment challenges students to explore these issues by transcribing the handwritten will and writing a paper that draws conclusions from the document. For the ease of the instructor, I have included a transcription of the document.

Filed Feby. 14th, 1845
C. E. Arceneaux, Parish Judge

Be it remembered, that on this fifteenth day of January of the year Eighteen hundred and forty-five, I, Charles E. Arceneaux, Parish Judge and ex-officio notary public, in and for the Parish of Natchitoches, State of Louisiana, being therein so requested by Betsey Sompayrac, a free woman of color, residing in the Town of Natchitoches Parish aforesaid, repaired to her residence, with the undersigned and hereinafter named witnesses when: and where she declared that she wished me to take down in writing her last Will and Testament, as she should dictate it: which she did in presence of Mssrs. Wiley B. Young, Peabody A. Morse and Michael Boyce, competent witnesses, all above the age of majority and residing in said Parish as follows to wit.

“I give and bequeath to my son Darrick my negro boy Alexander.”—

“I give and bequeath to my son Stephen my negro boy named Solomon and in consideration of said boy being my God son, I wish and such is my will, that he be free when he shall have attained the age of thirty five years.”—

“I also give and bequeath to my son Stephen, my negro boy James.”—

“I give and bequeath to my daughter Sarah Ann, my little negro girl named Elizabeth.”—

“I also give and bequeath to my said daughter Sarah Ann, my negro woman named Jane, upon condition that she shall not have possession of her nor of her services until my debts are all paid; which payment I wish may be made by the hire of said negro woman & of my house, where I now reside.”—

“Should the said negro woman Jane have any children hereafter, and my son Benjamin, who is now absent, should return, I wish and such is my will that these children should belong to him, and I hereby bequeath them and their increase to my said son Benjamin.”—

“I wish that my house and lot be rented with my slave Jane, in order to pay and satisfy all my debts, and when my children become of age if they do not agree as to the manner of disposing of it to their best advantage, then it is my will that it be sold, and the proceeds divided amongst them all.”—

“I hereby appoint for Executor of this my last Will and Testament, William Robbins of this Parish, and give him [illegible] in of all my property without requiring any security.”—

“I also appoint the said William Robbins of my minor Children, also dispersing him from furnishing any security for said Township.”—

“I wish that all my furniture should be kept by my Executor until my children become of age, and make such distribution of it amongst them as he may deem convenient, as well as of every other moveable effect which may belong to me.”—

The said last will and Testament having here thus dictated to me by the testatrix in presence of said witnesses, and having written it as it was dictated, I read it to her in an audible and distinct voice in presence of said witnesses; she declared to us that such was her last Will and Testament as she had dictated the same.—

The whole of which was done at one and the same time, without interruption, and without turning aside to other acts.

In Testimony whereof, after the whole had been read to said testatrix and witnesses she did hire to affix her ordinary mark of a cross, declaring she could not sign her name, not knowing how to write, and the said witnesses have signed with me said Judge and Notary, at the Town and Parish of Natchitoches, on the day and year first above written/signing Betsey Sompayrac X her mark

Witnesses/ W. B. Young
P. A. Morse
Michael Boyce
C. E Arceneaux, Parish Judge & ex-officio notary public

I hereby certify te above to be a true copy of the original on file and of in my office—

Given under my hand and official seal at Natchitoches, this 14th day of February A. D. 1845

C. E. Arceneaux, Parish Judge

Transcribe and interpret the attached document. Consult the suggested books, articles, or any other appropriate materials. You must anchor your interpretations with scholarly research rather than relying totally upon personal responses or folklore. Your typewritten transcription, along with the original document and interpretation, no longer than three typewritten, double-spaced pages, are due:

Address the following:

1. Describe the document. Is its significance and central focus social, economic, or political? How representative is it of the time in which it was written? Is it an accurate reflection of a common occurrence?
2. Give some attention to race, class, gender, region, age, and social context.
3. What is the relationship between the central person and others involved? What are the implications for the persons named herein and their loved ones? What are the long-range consequences?
4. Draw some conclusions about the reactions of the author’s family and friends.
5. What kinds of assumptions can be made about the conditions of their lives?
6. Comment about the significance of potential change over time in the life of the person(s) in question.
7. Cite sources used in your interpretation.

Davis, Edwin Adams. The Barber of Natchez. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954.

Halliburton, R., Jr. “Free Black Owners of Slaves: A Reappraisal of the Woodson Thesis.” South Carolina Historical Magazine (July 1975): 129-42.

Johnson, Michael P., and James L. Roark. Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984.

Koger, Larry. Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1985.

Schwarz, Philip J. “Emancipators, Protectors, and Anomalies: Free Black Slaveowners in Virginia.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 95 (July 1987): 317-38.

Woodson, Carter G. “Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830.” Journal of Negro History 9 (January 1924): 41-85.

Wilma King, Arvah Strickland Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Missouri—Columbia, is the author of Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America (1995); editor of A Northern Woman in the Plantation South: Letters of Tryphena Blanche Holder Fox, 1856-1876 (1993); and coeditor, with Darlene Clark Hine and Linda Reed, of “We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible”: A Reader in Black Women’s History (1994).