Richard (Dick) Jones and his wife, Mary (Polly) were born at the end of the Revolutionary War and lived until the start of the Civil War in Queen Anne District of Prince George’s County. The vast majority of their life was spent on the estates of Marsham Waring. They and their children labored for Waring and his three children.
Waring died in 1860 and his probate records and inventory (WAJ 2:321ff; not online) include the names of 106 people enslaved by the Waring family. Among them are “Dick + Polly, 80 years, each, $00.00”. Of the people provided an age on the inventory, they were the oldest.
As Daina Ramey Berry writes in her book, The Price of their Pound of Flesh, enslaved individuals have the external value imposed on them by the oppressor who commodified the enslaved and the internal value that she describes as a “spiritual soul value” that spoke to who they were as human beings. Their self-worth and value was not determined by the financial appraiser, rather the wealth of knowledge they brought to their families and community as they navigated being held in bondage on Waring’s estate over several generations. Between 1780 and 1860, they lived through four generations of children and grandchildren.
One of their children lived until 1900; when Elizabeth (Betsy) Fletcher died, the family members were able to identify her parents as Richard and Polly Jones.
In addition to having identified Betsy Fletcher as their daughter, I have identified six additional children of Richard and Mary Jones, all enslaved by the Waring family. Due to the fragmentary nature of records related to enslaved people, there are likely unidentified connections among others he enslaved. Additionally, as other fragments are uncovered and pieced together, the connections may be redrawn.
(Census, Inventory, Prince George’s County Slave Statistics, Death Certificates, White Marsh Baptism Records, Freedmen’s Bureau Records, Fugitive Slave Cases)
Berry wrote in her book that enslaved women were valued by some enslavers for “their fecundity” as their “increase consists of much of wealth”. For Waring, Mary’s children increased his wealth, especially as transatlantic slave trading was abolished in 1808 and enslavers had to rely on domestic trades or the “increase” of the people they enslaved to enlarge their slave community. In 1860, Richard and Mary’s children and grandchildren make up at least 20% of the people he enslaved.
Allan Kulikoff wrote in his book Tobacco and Slaves that “childbearing and the childrearing that followed, however were highly important rites of passage for most slave women. Once she had a child, she moved from her mother’s or parent’s home to her own hut”. Despite the threat of separation as a specter on the horizon for any enslaved family, families on large estates were less likely to be separated from their families as the landowners were able to weather fluctuations in the tobacco markets. As such, Mary and her children were able to maintain familial bonds despite the commodification of her and her children by the Warings and other “planters” who forced labor from them.
The kingroup is evident in records connected to the 1862 affidavit sworn by James Waring that documents the escape of several of the Jones family group to the District. This will be explored further in future posts. It is also evident in the 1870 and 1880 Census records as the nuclear families tended to live near one another, either in the District or in Prince George’s County.
Inheritance
The following paragraphs hope to reconstruct the path that Richard and Mary Jones were forced to take prior to their enslavement by Waring. It is based on indirect evidence by matching names and ages in inventories of other enslavers in Prince George’s County who likely had connections with Marsham Waring. The search through inventories was not exhaustive. This path is based on indirect evidence and circumstances that suggest this as a possibility.
Marsham Waring was the son of Marsham (II) Waring, and grandson of Basil Waring, Jr and Susana Darnall. The Darnall family had connections with Stephen West, who acquired the Woodyard, which sat across the road from “Poplar Hill/His Lordship’s Kindness”. Isaac Lansdale (III) was the brother of Thomas L Lansdale, a merchant in Queen Anne, along the Patuxent River where a tobacco inspection site had been established in the 18th Century. They were both relatives of Violetta Lansdale Belt, Waring’s wife.
Marsham Waring appears to have inherited the legal authority to enslave Mary (Polly) from his father, Marsham Waring (II) who left his estate, real and personal property to his son. In the 1813 inventory of his estate, Polly, age 30, with an estimated birth year of 1783 was listed. (TT 1:473). The inventory is sorted by gender and age, making it difficult to infer family groups. As opposed to Marsham Waring’s 1860 Inventory, which appears to be grouped by adult males and women with children. Some adult children are grouped with elderly parents.
There are at least two possibilities for Richard (Dick) Jones [1780]; these possibilities are not mutually exclusive, meaning the two inventories could possibly refer to the same man:
1790 Stephen West, the owner of the Woodyard and an enslaver of over a hundred people died in 1790. Among the inventory for his estate is Dick, age 10 [1780], who is notated as “son of Nick” (ST 3:47). This notation provides circumstantial evidence of a likely connection between the Richard of West’s Inventory and the Richard of Waring’s inventory as Richard Jones had a son named Nicholas, suggesting an older family member named Nicholas.
1808 Isaac Lansdale (III), the son of Richard Lansdale, died prior to 1808 when his inventory was created. Among this inventory is Dick, age 27 [1781].
Stephen West or one of his heirs may have conducted business with the Lansdale family, who had mercantile trade in Queen Anne, which may have resulted in use of Dick to settle a debt or purchase. Lansdale, in his relationship to Waring as a cousin of Waring’s wife may have gifted or traded Dick, as well.
stories of Then 