Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina 1790-1860 by Larry Koger

Author:Larry Koger [Koger, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2009-12-10T19:00:00+00:00

Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Eighth Census of the United States, 1860: Schedule II, Georgetown County, South Carolina, p. 134; Ibid., Schedule IV, pp. 13-14; Dale Evans Swan, "The Structure and Profitability of the Antebellum Rice Industry 1859" (Ph.d. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1972), pp. 57-80.

The benefits derived from slavery and rice planting were not utilized only by Robert Michael Collins, but also by his relatives from Charleston District. In 1850, Andrew James Anderson, the cousin of Robert Michael Collins and Margaret Mitchell Harris, owned twelve slaves and a rice plantation called Bulls Head in St. Thomas & St. Dennis Parish. Anderson received the majority of his property by descent. Between 1818 and 1828, he was given slaves by his grandmother, Esther McIntoish, and his mother, Esther Holman Anderson, while his father, James Anderson, left him the Bulls Head Plantation after the death of his mother. With both slaves and land, he planted 24,000 pounds of rice, 500 bushels of sweet potatoes, and 100 bushels of Indian corn in 1849. During the late fall of 1849, he sold his rice crop for about $763.20.81

As long as rice planting was profitable, the colored planters would not divest themselves of their slaves or land. Indeed, several colored planters like Andrew James Anderson used the labor of slaves to cultivate their plantations as late as 1860. Sarah Collins Boag, the cousin of Andrew James Anderson and Robert Michael Collins, employed the labor of her slaves in the planting of rice until the Civil War. In 1860, she owned ten slaves and 270 acres of land called Pleasant Hill. On her small tract of land, she produced 6,000 pounds of rice, 200 bushels of sweet potatoes, and 150 bushels of Indian corn. Without the labor of slaves, Sarah Boag could not have tilled the soil of her farm.82

Sarah Boag, like her cousin, received her slaves and land by descent. In 1842, Sarah Collins Boag as well as her brother, Robert Collins, and her two sisters, Martha and Charlotte Collins, were given the means to plant rice. On March 24, Robert Collins, Sr., transferred the slaves named Bella, Charles, John, Hannah, David, Isreal, Pino, and Dick to his children for $100.83 Although he transferred eight slaves to his offspring, the bondsmen were not his property. His wife, Margaret Holman Collins, had requested in her will that "my earthly property consisting of Negroes names as follows Charles, John, Beller, Mensee, Hanna and her three children I give and bequeath unto my Dear Husband Robert Collins ... And at his death the negroes be equally divided to my children ..."86 The slaves acquired by Margaret Holman Collins were part of her inheritance from the estate of her deceased father, John Holman, Sr. She, in turn, passed the slaves on to her children. Sarah Collins Boag inherited the slaves named Pino and Dick. She also inherited a slave named Peggy from her aunt, Charlotte Boone, in 1837.85

In addition to the slaves, Sarah Boag acquired the tract of land called Pleasant Hill, which contained 130 acres of land, from her father in 1842.

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