★ 01/30/2023
Lawyer-turned-historian May (Jefferson’s Treasure) offers a fascinating account of Virginia senator John Randolph’s posthumous efforts to free nearly 400 enslaved people and provide for their resettlement. A “relentless defender of states’ rights,” Randolph (1773–1833) was one of Virginia’s largest slaveholders, and his “deathbed declaration” that his slaves must be freed took many by surprise. After Randolph’s death, however, executors discovered two wills—an 1821 version that freed his slaves and an 1832 version that left his estate to his niece’s infant son and made no mention of manumission. Much legal wrangling ensued, with some of Randolph’s heirs seeking to have the 1821 will set aside by proving that Randolph was “mad” when he wrote it. (Randolph’s executor, Judge William Leigh, wanted the 1832 will set aside for similar reasons.) Though the 1821 will was eventually upheld, the story has an unhappy ending—before the freedmen could settle on land purchased on their behalf in Mercer County, Ohio, they were expelled from the county by a white mob and their community was dispersed. May lucidly untangles the legal proceedings and draws vivid character sketches of Randolph and others, while building an irrefutable case that freedom is only the first step to equality. This is history at its finest. Illus. (Apr.)
"Eye-opening and vigorously researched . . . May cogently reveals how white supremacy was not restricted to the South but permeated the nation, depicting a culture of fear and resentment around free Black settlement . . . Ultimately, May shows how such deprivations have lasting, generational consequences, illuminating inequities that persist to this day."
"[A]n invaluable narrative that sheds light on present-day struggles for racial justice and debates about reparations."
"In 1833, the Virginia congressman John Randolph freed his nearly four hundred slaves while on his deathbed. This detailed history untangles the much publicized legal dispute that ensued . . . May cautions against ascribing honorable motives to Randolph, and stresses that those he freed continued to face prejudice and violence in the North."
"Compelling, meticulously documented and beautifully written . . . May’s account shows that 'freedom' of any kind was virtually impossible for Black people in the United States in the early 1800s, no matter how carefully planned. This important book should be of interest to a wide range of readers interested in American history."
05/19/2023
Historian May (Jefferson's Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt) tackles John Randolph's legacy: a will that "freed" on paper the 383 people he had enslaved, but, in reality, it changed nothing for them. The book is divided into three sections: Randolph's life (1773–1833), the court cases, and the outcomes. Randolph wrote three wills: his 1819 one granted freedom to those he had enslaved; his 1821 version provided for the purchase of land elsewhere for their resettlement; and the third, in 1832, said the people he had enslaved could be sold, but he repudiated it on his deathbed, which validated the previous ones. When Randolph died, his brother argued that he had not been of sound mind, so he contested the will and kept the people enslaved. Thirteen years later, the courts granted the 383 enslaved people their freedom, paid them back wages, and provided funding for the purchase of land in Ohio, a free state. But resistance from white racists made it impossible for them to claim or do any of that. VERDICT Exhaustively researched but written for a general audience, this book urges readers to consider the consequences of enslavement, racism, and the reality that manumission was less about people and more about money and power.—Margaret Atwater-Singer
2023-02-07
The curious case of a much-contested antebellum will that freed hundreds of enslaved people in Virginia.
A second cousin of Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph (1773-1833) was a fiery believer in states’ rights and a limited federal government. Randolph amassed a fortune—and, like Jefferson, a mountain of debt—farming on the Virginia piedmont. After he died, it was discovered that Randolph had left several versions of a will and its codicils, some of which manumitted the nearly 400 enslaved people he owned. May, a former lawyer and author of Jefferson’s Treasure, creates a kind of Bleak House narrative early on, puzzling out the terms of that apparently magnanimous act, which “became a national sensation”—and which was litigated for a dozen years as Randolph’s relatives stepped forward to claim a share of his property. Finally declared to be free by virtue of a sympathetic judge, the enslaved people faced an unsympathetic body of law, one of whose statutes declared that free Black people must leave Virginia or be subject to reenslavement. The judge traveled to Ohio, where the law “prohibited any person of African descent from settling in the state unless two Ohio landowners posted a $500 bond for the person’s support.” He found a place for the freed Virginians to settle, though Ohio vigilantes immediately drove them out and forced them to settle elsewhere. Although the narrative threatens to come to a grinding halt at times in legal minutiae, May does a good job of pointing out the contradictions of the law in both free and slave states. He also paints a vivid portrait of Randolph himself, a man who, while privately opposed to slavery, was not shy about building his fortune on the backs of enslaved people and whose liberation was less than pure. “Because manumission was just an exercise of the giver’s rights,” May writes, “it changed almost nothing.”
A twisty story that illuminates the elaborate legal system built to defend slavery and silence its discontents.
