Ted Hudson
Centreville, VA
Excerpt from my fourth-great-grandfather’s 1790 Sussex County, Delaware, will:
It is my Will and I do order that the Negroes I now hold in bondage shall be free from me and my Heirs and at their liberty at the time hereafter mentioned to wit: Charles to be free & at his Liberty the first day of March One thousand Seven hundred and ninety three; and Betty to be free and at her Liberty the first day of March One thousand Seven hundred & ninety four, and Moses to be free and at his Liberty the twenty sixth day of April One thousand Eight hundred and Nine; and Rose to be free and at her Liberty the twenty sixth day of April One thousand Eight hundred and Ten; and Nice to be free and at her Liberty the twenty sixth day of April, One thousand Eight hundred and Eleven. I hereby publish and declare the above mentioned Negroes to be free at the time mentioned & if either of the Negro Girls should breed and bring forth a Child or Children, them also to be free at the Age of Twenty one years.
It is appalling that slave-owners thought of human beings as breeding stock. At least this ancestor of mine manumitted his as of various dates after his own death—propitiation for his sins? I sometimes wonder if Charles, Betty, Moses, Rose, and Nice survived to freedom, and if so, whether they had been prepared for it by any sort of education. Ones tends to doubt it.
My ancestor’s great-grandson, my great-grandfather, was wounded June 18, 1864, at the Battle of Petersburg, fighting in a Pennsylvania artillery battery to free the rest of the slaves. He suffered from his wound until his death in 1911.
