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Time, Space, and Jurisdiction in Atlantic World Slavery: The Volunbrun Household in Gradual Emancipation New York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2011

Martha S. Jones
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The widow Drouillard de Volunbrun and her household boarded the brig Mary & Elizabeth in November 1796, only after many failed attempts to leave the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Like many others, they sought refuge from the violence and deprivation of the Haitian Revolution. In the party were the widow, her mother, a male companion, Marie Alphonse Cléry and, at best count, twenty enslaved people. Catastrophe struck November 18 when the Mary & Elizabeth wrecked on the west end of the Miguana Reef, off the Bahamas. The vessel and cargo were “totally” lost, but the captain, crew, and twenty-nine passengers, including the Volunbrun household, were “saved.” By the following April of 1797, the household was again at sea, bound for New York City. New York was, Shane White explains, “the center of the heaviest slaveholding region” in the North. Slaveholdings were small, with slaves a shrinking minority of the overall population. Still, one in five households held at least one slave. The household maintained a modest profile during their first four years in the city, moving to what was then the city's northeast periphery, Eagle Street near Bowery. Their neighbors were skilled workers, including butchers, masons, and men working the maritime trades. The widow put most of those she termed slaves to work manufacturing cigars.

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Law and History Review , Volume 29 , Special Issue 4: Law, Slavery, and Justice , November 2011 , pp. 1031 - 1060
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2011

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References

1. ”La Citoyenne” Drouillard Vve Mallet Volunbrun, appeared before Claude Jean Baptiste Le Droit de Bussy, Chancellor of the French Republic, after arriving in New York, and narrated the details of her household's travels from Port-au-Prince to New York. “Declaration de J.ne Mathurine Drouillard et de L.ce Bigot.” 20 Pairial an 6eme [June 9, 1797]. Microfilm Outre-Mer 5MI/1437, frames 22-25, Fonds des Affaires Etrangerès, New York, Centre d'Accueil et de Recherche des Archives Nationales.

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34. A Friend to Order, “For this Gazette,” New-York Gazette, September 13, 1801, 2.

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37. Sharp was a correspondent to the Society in the years before 1801. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, May 21, 1789, May 12, 1785, November 15, 1787. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

38. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, August 11, 1785, May 15, 1788. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

39. The pamphlet referred to was An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Insurrection of the Negroes in the Island of St. Domingo (Philadelphia, London: Joseph Cruikshank, 1792)Google Scholar. For a discussion of this text, see, Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 105–8Google Scholar.

40. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, August 21, 1792. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

41. Ibid., March 7, 1794. The same committee reported on the case of the “Black Woman” said to have been sold by a “French Woman” that “upon enquiry they find the said Wench has been returned to her first mistress she having a husband absent, the Validity of the Sale was Questionable and made Null….” Ibid., August 12, 1794.

42. Ibid., June 23, 1875.

43. Ibid., June 2, 1795.

44. Ibid., August 13, 1795, April 5, 1796. Munro had represented the Manumission Society in a number of proceedings including Sable v. Hitchcock, Fish v. Fisher, and The People, ex rel. Allaire v. The Judges of Westchester, 2 Johns. Cas. 118. (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1800).

45. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, March 23, 1797, June 8, 1797, June 22, 1797, July 20, 1798. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

46. Ibid., September 17, 1797.

47. Ibid., April 25, 1800.

48. Ibid., June 10, 1800, June 26, 1799, July 20, 1801, July 28, 1801, August 28, 1801.

49. Ibid., April 25, 1800.

50. Ibid., August 22, 1800.

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55. Deposition of John Marie Garvaise. August 11,1801, The People v. Marcelle, Sam, et al.; and A Friend to Order, “Citizens of New-York,” New-York Gazette, September 1, 1801, 2.

56. The District Attorney's Indictment record noted that all of the twenty-three men prosecuted lived in the Seventh Ward and were employed as laborers, The People v. Marcelle, Sam, et al.

57. In re Tom, 5 Johns. 365 (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1810). Later examples exist of enslaved people who pursue litigation using two names, for example in the cases of Mima Queen in Mima Queen v. Hepburn, 11 U.S. 290 (1813) and Dred Scott in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Such is not the case in New York during the years of gradual abolition.

58. Regarding slaves and naming in Jamaica, see Burnard, Trevor, “Slave Naming patterns: Onomastics and the Taxonomy of Race in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31 (2001): 325–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in Cuba, see Zeuske, Michael, “Hidden Markers, Open Secrets: On Naming, Race-Marking, and Race-Making in Cuba,” New West Indian Guide/Nieue West-Indische Gids 76 (2002): 211–41CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

59. Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 105–6Google Scholar.

60. Neither Berlin nor other scholars who have examined naming customs in the North have commented upon the frequency with which some African-Americans were known by only one name. Nor have they commented upon the significance of adopting non-Anglo American names by former slaves. Much of the attention to slavery and naming in the context of the colonial and early republic United States has focused elsewhere, particularly on the ties between naming practices and the retention of African cultural practices and rituals. See, for example, Thornton, John, “Central African Names and African-American Naming Patterns,” William & Mary Quarterly 50 (1993): 727–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61. In 1800, each state provided its enumerators with a standard form or schedule. This form called for the “name of the head of the family.” “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000,” United States Census Bureau. United States Marshal (Massachusetts,) “District of Massachusetts, Marshall's Office, Boston, [blank] Sir, Wishing to avail the public of your services….” [Boston: s.n., 1800], Early American Imprints, Series 1, no. 49516 (digital supplement, May 7, 2008).

62. In the year 1800, the census data includes 690 black or mulatto heads of household, of which 42 were designated by one name only. In the Seventh Ward, a total of 171 such households were noted, with twelve noted by only one name. There were instances in which white householders were noted by only one name. There were 21 such instances overall in the 1800 census. But white householders when noted as having one name were always noted as having one family or surname. The city directory for the year 1799 is dissimilar. Its delineation of an “alphabetical list of the Heads of Families, etc. in the city of New York” never reports a family head by only one first name. There are, however, many instances in which family heads are reported by something other than a first and second name, for example: “Widow Ackerman,” C. Adams,” “______ Barrett,” and “Madame Dubois.” Longworth's directory did not distinguish between black, colored, and white city residents as did the census. Longworth's New-York Directory,147–397.

63. Yoshpe, Harry B., “Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods,” Journal of Negro History 26 (1941): 78–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64. For a perspective on postemancipation naming practices, see Zeuske “Hidden Markers, Open Secrets,” 235–66. Zeuske notes that in late-nineteenth century judicial and notarial records individuals names were recorded with the “addendum” s.o.a. (sin otro apellido/without any other surname) or s.s.a. (sin segundo apellido/without second surname). These designations were likely intended to denote individuals as former slaves and/or of African descent.

65. On the cultural significance of naming practices and the acquisition of names by former slaves see, on Brazil, Hébrard, Jean, “Esclavage et dénomination : imposition et appropriation d'un nom chez les esclaves de la Bahia au XIXe siècle,” Cahiers du Brésil contemporain 53/54 (2003): 31–92Google Scholar; and, on Saint-Domingue, Dominique Rogers, “Les libres de couleur dans les capitales de Saint-Domingue : fortune, mentalités et intégration à la fin de l'Ancien Régime (1776-178),” thèse de doctorat, Bordeaux, Université Bordeaux III, 1999.

66. Louverture promulgated his constitution for Saint-Domingue in July of 1801, but word of these events does not appear to have reached New York City's newspaper editors until the following month. “Extract of a letter from Cap Francois…,” Commercial Advertiser, August 6, 1801, 1. On Louverture's constitution generally see, Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 238–46.

67. The meaning of freedom for the many thousands of rural agricultural workers was still to be determined, and many would soon be subjected to strict work regimes that some criticized as akin to forced labor.

68. The term “household” as used here is adopted from studies of plantation slavery in the United States. Historians have suggested the slaveholding household as a critical analytic category that foregrounds labor, power relations, and political practices. As an urban slaveholding configuration, the Volunbrun household was also shaped by the same dynamics, although to this case we should add legal contestations. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 1988)Google Scholar; Glymph, Thavolia, Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69. The French Code Noir of 1685 regulated slavery in the colonial empire. Stein, Robert L., Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1985), 78–95Google Scholar. Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 154–68. Slaves in the colony's North had been freed the previous August by the proclamation of Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax.

70. Geggus, David, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint-Domingue, 1793-98 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 114–19, 142–52Google Scholar.

71. Dame Volunbrun. Procés-Verbaux des Deliberation du Conseil Privé de son honneur le Brigadier General Hozrek a compter du 22 7bre 1794 jusqua et compris le 26 fevier 1795. British National Archives, Public Records Office (Kew). CO [Colonial Office,] 245, 5 page 111 (December 5, 1794). Based upon a review of the folios and notarial acts contained therein of French colonial notaries public Monnerons, Cottin, Molliet, Hacquet, Fissoux, Vausselin, Thomin, Barrault in Port-au-Prince and Croix des Bouquets for the years 1793 to 1797. Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence.

72. Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 168–70.

73. The state's trial courts had been confronted with complex interpretations of the general prohibition against trading slaves through the state. Sable v. Hitchcock, 2 Johns. Cas. 79 (New York Supreme Court 1800) held, for example, that an executor's sale of slaves after an owner's death did not violate the general prohibition against the sale of slaves imported into the state. In Fish v. Fisher, 2 Johns. Cas. 89 (New York Supreme Court 1817) the Court freed an enslaved man who had been hired out across state lines, rather than sold, in an effort by his owner to avoid charges of illicit slave trading. Regarding these cases generally, see Finkelman, Paul, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 70–76Google Scholar.

74. “For the American Citizen,” American Citizen and General Advertiser, September 2, 1801, 3.

75. A Friend to Order, “For this Gazette. To the Friend of Justice,” New-York Gazette, September 5, 1801, 2.

76. For Saint-Domingue, the evidence of these arrangements remains anecdotal. The baptisms of slaves were not recorded in the colony's état civil, or parish records. For a discussion of Godparenthood and the baptism of slaves in Brazil, see Gudeman, Stephen and Schwartz, Stuart B., “Cleansing Original Sin: Godparenthood and Baptism of Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Bahia,” in Kinship Ideology and Practice in Latin America, ed. Smith, Raymond T. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 35–58Google Scholar.

77. Widow de Volunbrun to Citoyen Commissaire Général, August 24, 1801, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, Consulat de Philadelphie, Consulat Général, 125, Affaires Particulières. Thank you to Manuel Covo of the l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales for bringing this document to my attention.

78. Steinfeld, Robert J., The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991) 122–46Google Scholar.

79. The record is unclear as to how many of her slaves Volunbrun proposed to “remove” to Louisiana. The Court of Appeals decision indicates the number was five, but the power of attorney that authorized the sale of Volunbrun's sales notes only four.

80. Subsequent courts as well as treatises cite the Baptiste case on questions related establishing a party's domicile. Bowling v. Turner, 78 Md. 595, 28 A. 1100 (1894); Ringgold v. Barley, 5 Md. 186 (1853), Houston v. Texas Central Railway, 70 Tex 51; State ex rel. Phelps v. Jackson, 64 A. 657; Haney v. Marshall, 9 Md. 194 (1856); Siemer's Adm'r v. Siemer, 2 G&J 100; and Londerry v. Andover, 28 Vt. 416 (1856). See also, Jeffrey A. Schoenblum, “Section 9.08. Refugees and Stateless Persons,” Multistate and Multinational Estate Planning, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (discussing the Ennis-Baptiste distinction); and, Melville M. Bigelow, Commentaries on the Conflict of Law, Foreign and Domestic: In Regard to Contracts, Rights, and Remedies, 8th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1883). The case is also associated with considerations of the standard of evidence for the admission of the acts of foreign legislatures. Cappeau's Bail v. Middleton & Baker, 1 H&G 154 (1827).