It’s 2024 already! I took a break over the holidays to work on other things but I’m back at it now.
Documenting Post-War Land Records
I am still working on documenting land sales involving African Americans in Liberty County following the Civil War. In the mid-1880s, most land deed and lien records in Liberty County Superior Court involved local African American farmers. The lien records were transactions in which farmers mortgaged most of what they owned outright to lenders to buy supplies needed until their crops were ready for market. Often the lien would be to a cotton merchant in Savannah, and the farmer also committed to shipping his crop to them for resale. The property that was mortgaged was often land, and these records can tell you what land your ancestor owned.
Right after the Civil War, the situation was very different. The White planters were still buying and selling land or gifting it to family members. Sheriff’s sales due to non-payment of taxes were common, and the estate of Thomas W. Quarterman entered formal bankruptcy, triggering a sell-off of his extensive land holdings.
Right now I’m beginning to document the period in which the shift came toward African Americans buying land in Liberty County.
These records are being gathered into a spreadsheet and over the next couple of months it will be available for you to see if your ancestors were involved in these transactions.
Where Did That Surname Come From?
In Liberty County, it was not particularly common for freedpeople to formally adopt the surname of their last enslaver. This pattern also differed between the 15th District, where more of the large plantations were, and the 17th District, which were family farms and merchants. Over time, my research has shown many instances of adoption of the surname of a very early enslaver of the family who may have left Liberty County by the 1830s. Even if you have no interest in your family’s enslavers, figuring out who they were can help with understanding the environment in which your ancestor lived and even finding the specific area.
In the fall of 2023, I did a presentation for the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society’s national conference to present case studies from Liberty County and give general guidelines on searching for the source of the family surname. The recording is now watchable on the They Had Names website.
A Madman’s Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom
This week on Kenyatta D. Berry’s podcast, “Conversations with Kenyatta,” she interviewed author and historian Gregory May, whose latest book is “A Madman’s Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom.” It motivated me to get the book, as I’m very interested in the reasons enslavers (including those in Liberty County) emancipated the people they were holding in bondage. In the podcast, May says that the reasons did not involve altruisim but were much more complicated than that. The podcast is worth a listen: https://player.fm/series/conversations-with-kenyatta/a-conversation-with-gregory-may.