In the mid-19th century, Lucy Yelverton Oliver lived on what is now Roanoke’s Old Monterey Golf Course. She was a wealthy woman, as her husband, Charles, an early settler, owned a large tract of land in northeastern Roanoke County. The home their son, Yelverton Oliver Sr., built in 1845 is still standing near the property today.
When Lucy Oliver made her will in 1859, she gave her clock, some silver spoons and an old gun to her grandchildren. Along with those items, she disposed of “my man Tom,” and another enslaved man named Martin Van Buren, just as casually as she had the silverware.
The story of slavery in Virginia began to be rewritten almost as soon as the Civil War was over. Former slaveholders, in an attempt to justify the fact that they had held other human beings as chattel, began to paint rosy pictures of the antebellum period, populated with a benevolent white gentry which was happily served by the grateful descendants of kidnapped Africans.
Those living east of the Blue Ridge could hardly deny their well-documented economic dependence on slavery, since the landscape was dotted with sprawling former plantations and included many majority-Black communities, some of which have persisted to this day.
But west of the Blue Ridge, the idea soon took hold that slavery was not important there — that most farmers enslaved “only” one or two people at most, and generally worked alongside them, the explanation being that the land was too rugged for large-scale farming. The western counties’ proximity to and the desire to share in the post-war prosperity of nearby “free” states may have prompted some Western Virginians to downplay slavery and the part they played in it.
Census reports from 1860 show that the enslaved percentage of the population in the eastern part of the state — in a line running roughly from Fauquier County to Henry County — ranged from about 40% in the Blue Ridge foothills to a high of 74% in Nottoway County. West of the Blue Ridge, the numbers were in the teens and 20s, with the lowest percentage being 1.5 in Wise County.
But the data also show a glaring outlier in the west. Roanoke County’s enslaved percentage of the population clocks in at 33.5% — perfectly in line with the statewide average, as reported in the Encyclopedia of Virginia. Neighboring Blue Ridge counties — Botetourt, Craig, Montgomery and Floyd — came in at 24.7%, 11.9%, 21.2% and 5.8%, respectively. Adjoining Bedford and Franklin counties, which are mostly located in Virginia’s Piedmont region, were at 51.4% and 31.8%.
So why was Roanoke County’s percentage so high? The likely answer is that just as now, Roanoke County was a center of commerce for the western part of the state. What would become the city of Roanoke lay at the intersection of the north-south road from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas and the east-west highway running between Kentucky and Richmond. Even average-sized farms located along these roads would have been prosperous and heavily developed, as the roads offered access to both local and far-flung markets.
The economy would also have been bolstered by travelers coming through needing food, lodging, blacksmithing, farm implements, wagon repairs and other services — much of which would have been provided by the free, forced labor of the enslaved.
In fact, all of the western Virginia counties with good access to the road now known as U.S. 11 had enslaved populations in the double digits, while Rockbridge, Bath and Augusta counties each weighed in at over 20%, due to the tourist industry surrounding their mineral springs, and the highways that led to the Midwest.
Slaveholding in Roanoke County occupied both ends of the spectrum. There were about 30 plantation-sized farms with more than 20 people enslaved on each of them, while one-third of the county’s slaveholders kept one or two persons in bondage. This represents a microcosm of the day-to-day workings of the practice of slavery for the entire state. Since the territory was separated from Botetourt County in 1838, the period in which slavery was practiced in Roanoke County spanned just 27 years of its history, beginning when the institution was firmly entrenched in the local culture, and ending when it crumbled. This means that unlike localities where slavery was part of the economy for up to two centuries, the information contained in Roanoke County’s court records is a manageable size.
One of the most enduring myths of The Lost Cause is that slavery was beneficial for both the enslaved and the enslavers. There were “good masters,” the story goes, who looked well to the needs of their human chattel, supposedly treating them like family. But that sentiment rarely held up against human nature and economic realities. When enslavers had to choose between the welfare of those they held in bondage and their own, their own interests usually won out. The proof is in the wills they left behind.
Henry Snyder, for instance, called two women named Eliza and Judah “very good servants” in his 1843 will. He asked that they be kept together and sold within the family, but only “if it can be done without much loss to my children.”
The fates of the enslaved, who were generally referred to as “Negroes” — though some preferred the more euphemistic “servants” — varied widely.
Ann Branch, who made her will in 1854, didn’t mince words. She called the 16 people she held her “slaves” and dispassionately instructed her sister to “dispose of them as she sees fit.” Some didn’t even provide the names of those they considered their property, despite the fact that in most cases, they knew each other well. This generally was the choice of those with the largest numbers of enslaved persons. Henry Fowler, who made his will in 1860, devised “two choice Negro men, two choice Negro women, and one Negro boy” to his wife, Mary.
Others made detailed lists of the persons they’d enslaved. Despite the well-documented practice of addressing grown men and women as “boy” and “girl,” slaveholders were careful to differentiate adults from children in their wills, as their value was based on gender and age. Some slaveholders did seem to recognize they owed something to those they enslaved.
While Frederick Thrasher, whose will was made in 1851, stipulated that two enslaved men, George and Jarrett, be sold at public auction if his children didn’t want them, Lucy McClanahan, whose will was dated 1854, asked her executor to retain money to support two old “servants” as long as they lived, and requested that “Ellen and children … be sold to Henry Hurt, who owns their father.”
In 1856, Elijah McClanahan carefully parceled out several of those he’d enslaved in lots to his children. The rest were to be sold on the public market “for a good price,” though he did make an attempt at recognizing family bonds by asking that mothers and their “younger” children not be separated, and he asked that “both my men servants and women servants be accommodated that they will not be taken out of reach of their wives and husbands.”
Others ordered dispositions that may have seemed magnanimous, but actually weren’t. Henry, enslaved to Joseph Woods, who made his will in 1845, was granted permission to “stay with his mistress if he’s obedient.” It was not unheard of for enslaved people in Southwest Virginia who were considered rebellious to be sold into worse conditions in the Deep South or the Caribbean, where they would be worked to death in the sugar cane fields, far from family and friends.
Jane Lewis, in her 1846 will, left a man named Washington to her son, John. Washington’s reward for “the regard and esteem I have for this man, having ever been to me so faithful and trusty a servant for ever showing so tender a regard for me and my welfare” was the right to emancipate himself for the sum of $300 — the equivalent of at least three years’ work, depending on his skills and age. Even if he were able to earn the money, there was no guarantee her son would grant him his freedom, since he was a valuable asset to the estate.
In his 1856 will, William Sims gave his two “servants,” Billy Howard and Stephen, $500 each “to enable them to go where they please.” Unfortunately, he did not specifically grant them their freedom, which likely rendered the second part of the bequest meaningless.
Frances Deaton, who wrote her will in 1848, set up a situation that apparently was deliberately designed to fail. The 10 people she listed by name were to remain in the possession of her husband. They were then to be hired out long enough to earn $650 to pay a debt she owed, then hired out again for as long as it took to earn another $650 to pay into her estate for the benefit of her children, after which, they had the “privilege” of moving to a free state. But if they agreed to go, they were then required to work long enough to raise the funds to get there and to provide for themselves once they arrived.
If they declined the offer — and many probably did, as these were working-age people and their parents, spouses and children weren’t included — they would be allowed to choose whom they would be sold to, with the proceeds going to Deaton’s stepson. But Deaton no doubt thought of herself as a pious and God-fearing woman. The stepson was requested to give $50 of the proceeds to the American Board of Foreign Missions.
Of the 56 wills filed in Roanoke County from 1839 to 1865 that mentioned enslaved people, only one granted individuals their freedom with no strings attached.
In 1861, Patterson Hannah Snyder wrote about those he called his servants: “I bequeath to them their freedom” along with any money left over from the estate.
As the Civil War was drawing to a close and the eventual outcome was plainly obvious, James McClanahan was unwilling to give up on the institution of slavery. In his will he stated: “if any of my children or grandchildren should be aliens according to the laws of Virginia or the Confederate States of America at any time,” their interest in his estate would be extinguished. In a codicil dated April 10, 1865, McClanahan left to his daughter a woman named Joanna and her children. The Civil War had ended just the day before.
These names appeared in the lists of those who were enslaved:
Jacob, Cyphax, Ishmael, Royall, Charles, John, William Morris, Edmund, Jefferey and Tilla, his wife. Bill Williams, Adam, William Lawson, Hector and Caesar the Younger, Marion and her children, John, Maria and Evaline. Mulatto girl, Betty. Blanche and her infant child. Josephine, Joseph, Martha, May, and her children, Henry, Gabriel and Isaiah. Minerva and her children, Martha Ann, Patrick and Laura. “My old woman, Milly.” Claiborn and his wife, Ann and their infant child. Stephen, Amanda, Mariah, Fransie, Rachel, Hob, Tom and Frank. Isaam, Harriett, Collin, Sam, Branch, Calina. Margaret and Caroline, children of Amanda, and Little Tom. Ned, Winny, and her three children, Charlotte, Giles and Harry. Martha and her children, Jim and Mary. Ned, Margaret, Esther, Henry and Adaline. Maria, Patience, Amelia, William, Henry, Blanch, Priscilla, Hariette, Peggy, James, Mary, Mary, Bob, Leonard, William, Priscilla, age two. Dick, Davy, Robert, Martha Ann, Mary, Charles (child) and Betsy (child). Old Negro Woman Matilda. Barney, Julian, Patsy, Betsy, Jim, Tom, Deeley, Patsy, Mary, George, Bob, Ellick, Elijah, Sally, Millyann and Madison (children), Davey (adult), Luckey, Nancy (children). Milly (old woman), Henry Clay, Edward, Stephen, Ferdinand, Mary, Warner, Peter. Washington, Tolliver, Pompy, Bill, Hannah, Loerman (boy), Mary (girl), Moorman, Jane and her two youngest children. George Washington and James, Newton, (boy). Michael, Rachel, Mary Ann, Fanny, Mary Jr., Martha, Louisa, Spenser, Everette, Sandy, David, Dick, Perry, Jim, Angelina, Esther, Suck, Ellen. Nelson, Milly, Helen and children. Judah. A small Negro boy, Austin. Betsy and Bob. Joanna and her increase, Shelton. Armstead and Nancy, his wife. Harriett, Columbus, Ellen and Jimmie and Paydo, Charles and Verna, Archa, Ann. Charles, Peyton. Stephen, Alexander, Phil, Rose and two children, Henry and Harrison, James, Clarkey, Ann, Mary, Maria and Violet. Washington, Jack, Sam, Napoleon, Frank & Gilbert. Tom, Robert, Cyrus, Martin Van Buren, old servants, Matildy, Doshy, Hatty, Peyton. Richmond, Rachel, Betty, Crisp, Betsy’s child Caroline and Edmond. Johnson, Malinda. George, Palentine, Ben, Phil, John, Shirkey, Alfred, Lally, Maria, Annie, Rhoda, Margaret, Elias, Adaline, and her two boys, Bill and George. Charlotte, Jordan, Evalina and her child, Katy. Maria and her children Ben and Betty. Nannie, twin Negro children Robert and Ann, Kitty. Nancy and her child, John. Zadok and wife, Amy, Cherry (a child). Billy Howard and Stephen. Frances, Jerry, Griffin, Nance, Charles, Bob, Phillip, Rhoda and her son, Dick. Eliza, Juda, David, Emeline and her children, Ed and Jeff. Marshall, Bob and Caswell. Abraham, Richard, Robert B., Eliza, Selina N., Sally. Stephen, Matilda, Sian, William Missouri, Eliza, Lucy, Harriet. George, Jarrett. Little Fanny, daughter of Louisa, Robert, Henry, son of Anthony. Henry.
