Category: Slavery

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Hacienda Labadie: A Center for Enslaved Descendant Heritage

Hacienda Labadie, Moca, P.R.

While there are multiple sites and approaches to engaging the past in Puerto Rico, I understand there is no one location that can attest to the variety of experiences that ancestors had as they moved towards freedom. In this excerpt from part 4 of “Reconstructing the Missing Registro de Esclavos for Northwest Puerto Rico”, (Hereditas, 20.2,2024) I consider some of what I learned from attending meetings for different Enslaved Descendant Communities in Virginia to better understand how these gatherings and actions can work in the context of Puerto Rico. It is a privilege to see the work of these amazing groups that preserve the memory of these ancestors while providing access and resources for others who do this work.

Recently, the Municipio de Moca had a questionnaire about what the role of Casa Labadie is, however there was no questions that concerned the past before 1873. This kind of activity would supplement the efforts of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project and PROPA – Puerto Rican Organization for the Performing Arts.

Enslaved Descendant Communities in the Context of Puerto Rico

At various historical sites today, the many descendants of various enslaved communities are connecting via the pairing of DNA and the digitization of archival materials.  This increased access to digitized documents is happening alongside large-scale efforts to collect, preserve and share these experiences and family histories of enslaved descendants.  When we consider Northwest Puerto Rico as the site of such activity, the locations linked to trafficking span oceans across a myriad of histories and transactions that creates a lacework of relationships. Clearly there is space for commemoration and memorialization of the lives that passed through the process of enslavement to emancipation over hundreds of years. 

Hacienda Labadie, Moca, P.R.
Hacienda Labadie, Moca, PR. Front of main building, Barrio Aceitunas, Moca, P.R. Photo: EFS, 2007

      A potential site for a center for Enslaved Descendant Communities is the Hacienda Labadie in Barrio Aceituna, Moca. Once owned by the Pellot family, it was sold to Pedro Labadie, and to his wife, Cecilia who was formerly enslaved there. The original buildings were of wood and rebuilt in a French architectural style in 1903, as it appears today. The history of enslavement at Hacienda Labadie extends a century earlier, when cultivation began to shift to the production of coffee and sugar.  Before the rise of sugar cultivation, the barrio was made up of the open pastures of military outposts. Just after 1800, the hato located in Barrio Aceitunas of Moca were subdivided and sold, often to the European emigres who arrived under the Real Cedula de Gracias of 1815⁠.[1]  Slavery diversified, and while numbers never approached those of other Caribbean islands, the economic system still relied on enslaved labor. 

The development of Enslaved Descendant Communities can provide advantages for families to research their ancestries at different locations and find ways to commemorate, memorialize and explore what reparations mean for descendants today.   The descendants of people enslaved by James Madison have organized into The Enslaved Descendant Community for Montpelier. Recently, they held a workshop to explore their options for memorialization of their ancestors who labored there. The results intend to recognize those who labored to create the landscape of Montpelier, whether it was those whose skills built the buildings, or those who worked at the big house in a variety of capacities or tended the fields of this plantation. This process offers a means to a fuller and more complex story of the site.

How to Proceed: The Rubric as Model

Fig 22: Cover, Engaging Descendant Communities in the Interpretation of Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites: A Rubric of Best Practices. (2018)

What Montpelier’s Enslaved Descendant Community uses as a blueprint for mapping potential projects together is a document called ‘The Rubric’ short for Engaging Descendant Communities in the Interpretation of Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites: A Rubric of Best Practices. [2] 

The Introduction opens with why this is necessary work: 

“What is the ideal relationship between descendent communities and institutions that interpret slavery? Historically, the relationship between these two groups is complicated: many institutions have avoided interpreting slavery, often from fear of estranging donors or visitors. While these fears are valid, by not interpreting the lives of the enslaved, institutions fail to tell a complete story. This failure perpetuates historical and ongoing trauma to the descendants of those enslaved there, and to anyone whose ancestors were brought to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. When institutions shy away from creating relationships with descendants, the failure speaks volumes to the descendant community, especially as these institutions continue to profit from their ancestors’ labor and pain⁠.”[3]

The enslaved people who provided the labor of plantations, farms and surrounding haciendas have had only passing acknowledgement over time — mostly as a class of enslaved workers rather than as a community with a shared experience in slavery. 

By making their participation visible, the historical narrative told can refocus on various aspects such as the law, architecture, even cultural trends that worked to constrain and expand their lives. Part of this shift “goes to the heart of genealogical practice regarding the ways that the families of enslaved people were documented. How do we record those enduring social links that existed despite their designation as mobile forms of property?” As genealogical practice undergoes desegregation, newer methodologies develop that can take advantage of what oral history, community history and DNA can offer.  While some of this activity is taking place online, access to records and a need for training others on working with these document sets is needed so that communities can find their ancestors and ancestral kin.  In turn, this process can continue to generate a better understanding of this past, its generational traumas and its profound resilience. 

Conclusion

My hope is that these initial family narratives show that there are many connections that can be made between the document sets produced through the process of emancipation- registration forms, census, municipal documents, parish records and the Registro Civil. There are some for whom an extensive tree can be constructed, and others, like the newborns inscribed by Laguerre, have no parent listed. Regardless, these documents lend visibility to the strategies and relationships that helped these communities survive. As social beliefs shift, these narratives serve as a confirmation of history and humanity, rather than a framework for a social problem.[14]  A plantation has multiple histories, not simply those of its owners. 

The process of forming Enslaved Descendant Communities in Puerto Rico at historic sites can work as an opportunity for connection and development.  Increasingly, people who are DNA testing are finding matches tied to Puerto Rico and are also seeking these ancestors. The coming years will see an increase in projects such as Enslaved Descendant Communities that combine digitization with archival materials to produce a fuller understanding of a past that connects so many ancestors, beyond the boundaries of Boriken. May we continue to learn their histories, may they rest in peace and power.  

[1]For more on Pellot and the rise of Hacienda Labadie, see Ellen Fernandez-Sacco “Reconstructing the Missing Registro de Esclavos Pt.1”  Hereditas, 20.2, 2019, 68-90. https://www.academia.edu/49048096/Reconstructing_District_3s_Missing_1872_Registro_Central_de_Esclavos_Part_1

[2] The Rubric: Deliverable from the 2018 National Summit on Teaching Slavery. Montpelier Descendants.org  https://montpelierdescendants.org/rubric/

[3] Engaging Descendant Communities in the Interpretation of Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites: A Rubric of Best Practices. https://montpelier-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/Interpreting%20Slavery%2011-12-19.pdf

[4] E. Fernandez-Sacco, “Bound to History: Leoncia Lassalle’s Slave Narrative from Moca, Puerto Rico, 1945.” Genealogy, 2020 4:93, 20. https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/4/3/93

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Finding Moses Williams: a virtual program, 19 Nov. 2025

silhouette of Moses Williams, about 1802

Thrilled to announce i’ll be presenting along with four other speakers at an upcoming virtual program. The Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in African American History and the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Art Museum are sponsoring the event.

My twenty minute talk, “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia, 1776-1830.” presents the results of an archival journey. While I searched for information on Moses Williams, I instead found indentures in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers for his family members that let me reconstruct his family tree. These records show how a Free Black family navigated a difficult economy in the decades before the 1838 census.

This talk draws on my article which appeared in volume 43 of the AAHGS Journal. The Sons and Daughters of the US Middle Passage awarded me the Phillis Wheatley Literary Award this past June for the article.

title slide, Not Yet Completely Free
title slide, Not Yet Completely Free,

Finding Moses Williams: the program

The other presenters are Carol Soltis, Nancy Proctor, Dean Krimmel, & Lauren Mulvey with an introduction by Sarah J. Weatherwax, Senior Curator, Library Company. Appreciate the knowledge shared & discussed over the preceding months with artists and scholars whose work focuses on Moses Williams. There is much to learn about Williams life, art and family.

Please register at the link below the program description:

profile of Moses Williams ca 1802

Finding Moses Williams

Free Virtual Program

November 19th , 2025 at 1 PM ET

This program of illustrated talks by five speakers focuses on the identification of the exceptional hollow-cut paper profiles created by Moses Williams (1776-1830) at Peale’s Philadelphia Museum and on presenting new historically accurate information about Williams’s life and family. Moses’s parents were manumitted by Peale in 1786 and Moses, who was born enslaved, was then indentured to Peale by his parents until age twenty-eight

Raised within the Peale family, Moses was literate and trained in skills for creating and installing the Museum’s displays of art and natural science. After the installation of a physiognotrace device for creating hollow-cut paper profiles in 1802, Moses was freed and given the concession to operate this new attraction. The popularity of this inexpensive form of portraiture and the highly accurate and elegant profiles Moses cut, made him financially independent.

Recent research into Moses’s life provides us with a clearer understanding of his artistry and other activities, as well as his death date and the identity of his descendants. And, the story of Williams’s birth family illuminates how the practice of indenture used by Free Black families, like the Williams family, was a strategy for seeking financial stability.

A small selection of Moses Williams’s profiles will be on display at the Library Company during November and December and in the Peale Gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

REGISTER HERE

This program is sponsored by the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in African American History and the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale

Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale
Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale

A few weeks ago, I saw a hint on my Ancestry family tree for Estevan Vale Caban. To my great surprise, it included a photograph! Could it be my great uncle? 

After finally locating the origin of a foto for Estevan Vale in Ancestry’s Passports database, I was struck by how much of a desire there is for an image of an ancestor. For some apparently, this desire was so strong, it overrode taking a closer look at the pages for the record the photograph came from. Yet I learned more about another branch of my family by searching for more on him.

Estevan Vale: dapper & traveling

Estevan Vale was born on Christmas Day, 1867, in Barrio Membrillo, Camuy, the son of Joaquina Vale. She is alive around 1892, when his brother’s grandchildren were born. Her death record remains unlocated,. It seems as though she evaded the pages of the Registro Civil, yet by chance, she is mentioned in her children’s records.

The photograph shows a seated dark skinned man with tight hair in a white shirt, light striped double breasted jacket and contrasting satin tie. The fact of his style and the tie dates the photograph to the early decades of the 1900s. His eyes are unusual. He appears to be staring because of the flash bulb used to take the photo, as his eye color is listed as black. His gaze takes in every detail as he moves between nations. He planned to go under an agricultural permit to Cuba, sailing on the Santiago de Cuba out of Ponce sometime in October 1919. He signed the document with his mark on 27 September 1919.

In order to find out more, my search broadened timewise, and I began by looking for him and his mother, Joaquina Vale, who is mentioned in the document.

Joaquina’s children: Camuy, 1872

JOAQUINA’S CHILDREN: Antonio, Aniceto, Dionisio, Estevan 1872 Registro de Esclavos, Camuy. FamilySearch

There, across two pages of the 1872 Registro Central de Esclavos for Camuy appear the seven children of Joaquina, all of them enslaved by Vincente Vale Caban (b. 1806, Moca-d. 1889 Camuy ) : Antonio 18, Aniceto 13, Dionicio 14, Ysabel 8, Ynocencia 6, Maria Antonia 11, and the last child on the first page– 10 year old Estevan. Aside from Joaquina’s children, there’s only 16 year old Nicomedes, the son of Martina who is also recorded as held by Vicente Vale in Barrio Membrillo, Camuy.


JOAQUINA’S CHILDREN: Ysabel, Ynoncencia, Maria Antonia, 1872 Registro de Esclavos, Camuy. FamilySearch

Vicente Vale Cordero, Barrio Membrillo

Vicente Vale Cordero (1806-1889) is my second great grand uncle, and I was unaware of enslavers on the Vale line until now. In part, that was because he lived not where most Vale lived, in Moca or Aguadilla, but in Camuy’s Barrio Membrillo, a different district. How he wound up there doesn’t have a concrete answer at the moment, however, there was an exodus out of many municipalities during the 1820s and again by 1849, due to drought and other conditions.  These Vale may appear on municipal documents or notarial documents that lend more details about their lives. Vicente Vale was an enslaver, and after the Moret Law and the administrative development of the Registro Central de Esclavos, Vale became a local official.

In the recent cluster of 865 sets of documents under the Gobierno de Puerto Rico that were uploaded to FamilySearch are four slips from 1868 signed and stamped by Vicente Vale as sindico suplente (substitute officer) of Camuy, verifying the identity and ownership of enslaved persons belonging to other enslavers. These documents supplemented the creation of cedulas (registration papers) for each person. Vale then, was employed by the Mayor’s office that sent documents to the Registro Central de Esclavos. I’m currently looking for more information about that post.

Vicente Vale Sindico suplente de este pueblo. Certifico que Ysabel, esclava de D. Miguel del Rio y de su propiedad y de oficio cocinera, y de estado soltera, y para que consta libro el presente en Camuy a los doce días de Abril de mil ochocientos sesenta y ocho. [Firma] Vicente Vales, Alcaldía Ordinaria, Camuy. FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-WQ1C-43PY-B?view=explore

What’s odd is that while Vale family appears in the 1872 Registro Central de Esclavos volume that includes Anasco, they are not among the individual 1868 cedulas for Anasco- apparently the set of cedulas are incomplete.

We know that Joaquina is criolla, born into enslavement on Puerto Rico. So far, Joaquina’s children decided to take on the Vale surname after emancipation. Where exactly they labored in Vale’s farm or home, isn’t specified beyond a barrio, and will need more research to locate.

Map of Barrio Membrillo, Camuy
Barrio Membrillo, Camuy. From Jose Sierra Martinez, Camuy: Notas para su historia. p.6

The Vale Family in Census Records

Family Tree of Joaquina Vale pt. 1 by author, May 2025

By 1930, Esteban’s sister Tomasa Vale lived next door to her sister Maria Antonia Vale Rico; both women left Barrio Membrillo and moved to the San Juan area to increase their chances for work. Tomasa Vale supported her household by working as a lavandera on calle Martin Pena Chanel in Santurce. Cristina lives with her second husband, Felix Ortiz Ortiz. Also with the couple are her three children.  She worked as a planchadora, an ironer, so it’s possible the sisters shared a business, or worked independently in the service industry.

In the 1940 US Federal Census for Camuy, Estevan, now 80 years old and his sister Ysabel Vale are in the household of Pedro Maldonado y Camacho and Emilia Gonzalez. They are listed as ‘tio‘ and ‘tia‘ respectively. The siblings appear with the maternal surname of Ahorrio, which may be a strategy to acknowledge their paternal lineage, safely used decades after their birth. Often this use comes up long after a father made his transition, so there is no familial repercussion.

The detail that tells us something about Joaquina is in the relationship to the head of household listed– Estevan and Ysabel are aunt and uncle to Pedro Maldonado Camacho. This suggests that Joaquina used Camacho, or perhaps had a partner with the surname. when looking at Pedro’s half sister, Ynocencia Vale Camacho, her death record has her father as Ramon Vales (bca 1827) and mother as Joaquina Camacho. Yet no records for Ramon beyond this entry turns up- or was he actually Ramon Camacho? This Ynocencia is may or may not be the same Ynocencia that appears on the pages of the 1872 Registro, with listed as the daughter of Joaquina. Another death record for Leon Camacho (1853-1923) of Camuy lists only his mother, Joaquina Camacho.

At the very least, Joaquina had seven children between 1857 and 1867; she herself appears on no cedulas, suggesting that she may have already obtained her freedom. In her grandson’s birth certificate she is referenced as ‘Joaquina Vale Liberta’, as is her son, ‘Antonio Vale liberto sin segundo apellido’. Yet by appending liberto, the municipal government calls out a status that supposedly ended in 1876, when the emancipated also became full citizens. Maria Cristina Vale Rico’s Acta de Nacimiento was filed in October 1888.

May we learn more about the struggle & resilience of these ancestors.

References

Esteban Vale, No. 5330, 7 Oct 1919. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: U.S. Passport Applications, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Philippines, 1907-1925; Volume #: Volume 24: Passport Applications- Puerto Rico. Ancestry.com. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1174/records/2314650?tid=&pid=&queryId=135e671f-c092-46ae-9f31-787481ca2bca&_phsrc=rHz1&_phstart=successSource

Children of Joaquina, “Puerto Rico records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSV2-K76P-8?view=index : Mar 20, 2025), image 114 of 130;

Ysabel, “Arecibo, Puerto Rico records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-WQ1C-43PY-B?view=explore : Mar 20, 2025), image 11 of 147; .

“Puerto Rico, Registro Civil, 1805-2002”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVJ4-ZRFL : Tue Mar 11 20:12:35 UTC 2025), Entry for Inocencia Vales Camacho and Ramon Vales, 26 Jul 1938.

“Puerto Rico, Registro Civil, 1805-2002”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVJ4-Z34R : Tue Mar 11 14:13:47 UTC 2025), Entry for León Camacho and Joaquina Camacho, 13 4 1923.

“Puerto Rico, Registro Civil, 1805-2002”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVJ7-HK7X : Tue Mar 11 03:27:36 UTC 2025), Entry for Maria Cristina Vale y Rico and Antonio Valez Liberto.

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Not Yet Completely Free – An Evening with AAHGS Journal Writers: 12 Feb 2025

flyer An Evening with AAHGS Authors for 12 February 2025

So happy to announce i’ll be talking about my recent publication in the Winter 2025 issue of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Journal, “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, 1776-1833.”

I’ll discuss the 1780 Gradual Emancipation Act in Philadelphia, part of the lesser known history of Northern slavery. By tracing the family histories connected to the silhouette artist and museum artisan and assistant Moses Williams (1776-ca 1833) one can catch sight of the challenges experienced by African descended and multiethnic Free People of Color in their emancipation process in this city. Williams was among the children of John and Phylis Williams, a couple held in bondage until 1786. He worked in the Philadelphia Museum of Charles Willson Peale from his childhood to adulthood and was manumitted about 1802.

Shamele Jordon will present on the heritage of Green Book locations in New Jersey, and Mary Belcher and Guy Weston will discuss recovery and reclamation of Black cemeteries in Washington DC and Flushing New York.

The event is for AAHGS members, so join today!

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Moses Williams: The First Black Museum Professional

Silhouette of Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802
Silhouette of Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802
Silhouette of Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802. Library Company of Philadelphia

So happy to share that “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia 1776-1833. ” is in the latest issue of the AAHGS Journal!

Volume 43 Winter Edition of the AAHGS Journal is available via Amazon. Editor Guy Oreido Weston brought together articles that span several states. The issue delves into family and local histories, the recovery and reclamation of Black cemeteries in Washington DC and New York.

Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia 1776-1833.

Moses Williams is a paradigmatic figure for the 250th Anniversary of the founding of our country. Born into slavery in 1776, and eventually freed by 1803 under the terms of the 1780 Gradual Emancipation Act, Williams was the first Black museum professional. For a time, he owned property and a house at 10 Sterling Alley; he had a wife and at least four children. Raised in the museum, in proximity to the Peale children, Williams learned how to read, how to prepare birds and other animals for displays. Eventually he cut silhouettes there using a patented machine. In 1810, he considered his role important enough to tell the census enumerator that he ‘attended at the Museum’.

Now in 2025, an amazing group of historians, curators, writers and artists from different institutions & independent professionals are focusing on Williams’ life and craft. This is a sea change from the shock I experienced listening to an exasperated curator ask why look at him? in the midst of the Peale exhibition touring nationally some two decades ago. I published my first article in Museum Anthropology detailing what I learned about Williams, who also figured in my dissertation. This built on then-current Peale scholarship on the audience for Peale’s Museum. Black history did not figure into the history of museums, even though to function, some institutions were dependent on the labor of enslaved and indentured persons. Similar to Monticello, the Peale project suffered from a segregated history that has changed since the late 1990s.

Since then, Williams has been recognized as an artist and artisan in his own right, part of a growing community through exhibitions organized by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw and other scholars. There is also an initiative by Faye Anderson, Director of All That Philly Jazz; she also serves on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and plans to have him remembered with a historical marker where his former home stood, to be featured in future walking tours of the city.

Thanks to Nancy Proctor’s leadership at The Peale Baltimore’s Community Museum, much is done to anchor Williams’ memory into the 21st century– through the Accomplished Arts Apprenticeship Program and the creation of a Moses Williams exhibit at the museum. All of these projects do not just focus in on Williams, but intersects with community, provide spaces for connecting to the fabric of historic Philadelphia and present day Baltimore.

Williams is a historical figure I can relate to. He knew a lot about many things, was literate and skilled with his hands. When I went to museums I found myself connecting to the people who worked there cleaning, protecting and maintaining the collections, and so I see him as a kindred spirit, an ancestor who deserves to be taken seriously. To see the constructed nature of the display, its arrangement, the acquisitions taken as booty in wartime, silenced behind display labels shows the larger threads that colonization wove to establish particular kinds of truth. There was a silencing or veiling of the destruction of Native settlements and the genocide that accompanied these early campaigns, also tied to an economy built on the backs of enslaved people. Despite these challenges, Williams’ presence is there, part of a larger story of this nation.

Beyond the display were questions of family. Even with what was reconstructed and recently discovered, there remain questions and the hope of finding more fragments to pull together. I’m part of a group that shares these new finds. Public historian Dean Krimmel working with The Peale found a probate file showing that he died 18 December 1830; of three daughters, two, Louise and Sarah are named, his son Carl became Charles. Now we know he had four children with Maria– whose surname remains unknown. The likelihood of finding descendants today increases with these additional names.

Descendants of John & Phillis Williams- The Williams Family Tree

But back to Williams and his family. Their experiences resonate, as they lived under the threat of kidnapping and forced deportation, the result of the constitutional amendment passed in 1793– the Fugitive Slave Act. They did everything to insure their family’s survival, even if that meant separation by indenture. My research uses details from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers, church records, the Peale Papers, newspaper accounts, census records and other items to reconstruct two generations of the Williams family. My hope is that this reconstruction makes it possible for descendants to connect.

Hope, resilience and faith in a better future drove their choices. To face the future despite the challenges is what defines the Williams’ family history.

May the ancestors rest in power.

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Remembering enslaved ancestors purchased by Pedro Pellot, Aguadilla, 1822

Margarita, death record Aguadilla, 1837

This post, based on transcriptions of a notary document from Aguadilla, speaks the names of several enslaved ancestors held in Aguadilla by Pedro Pellot. Pellot, one of four Peugeot siblings from Fuenterrabia (Hondarribia in Basque), Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country of the Atlantic Pyrenees in Spain. The siblings arrived in Puerto Rico in 1804.[1]

By 1810, Pellot became a partner in the company of d. Pedro Abadia (Pedro Manuel Abadia Valencia ca 1727-1828) and d. Martin Lorenzo de Acevedo y Hernandez (1749-1828; also my 4th GGF). Pellot first administered, then purchased Abadia’s hacienda in Barrio Aceituna and expanded it, acquiring some 105 souls to work the coffee plantation by 1847.

While Hacienda Yruena, was among the three largest haciendas in Aceitunas, Pellot held the largest number of enslaved people in the municipality. He sold the property to its administrator, Juan Labadie Larre. The big house was rebuilt in 1903, and today is known as Hacienda Labadie. [2]

Hacienda Labadie, Moca, PR. E. Fernandez-Sacco, 2007. This version of the house was built in 1903.

Margarita

At the end of December 1822, d. Pedro Pellot purchased Margarita (bca. 1806), a young 16 year old woman, born in Guinea from Da. Maria Lucia Domenech Arze (1792-1832). [3] Maria Lucia also came from a family of enslavers, as at least one enslaved person held by her father d. Jose Domenech, appears in the first Libro de Defunciones for Aguadilla.[4]

Maria Lucia Domenech was the wife of d. Francisco Rabasa Dalmaso, a Catalan who settled in Aguadilla and whom she married three years earlier. Rabasa was also involved in buying and selling humans in the 1820s. Domenech made the sale on the basis of her rights under marriage to conduct business, and eventually, Margarita became the property of Pedro Pellot.

We come to know of Margarita’s life in Puerto Rico as part of a series of transactions. How accurate was the recording of her age? How many Margaritas were there on the Pellot plantation? This is an issue one faces when researching enslaved ancestors, as the focus on familial details is reserved for the enslaver, while personal details are used to maintain the status of the enslaved as property, and later in the century, after 1868, they became citizens incrementally.

Searching for Margarita

Acta entierro, “Margarita esclava de Dn. Fran.co Rabasa de diez y nueve anos de edad” 15 December 1837, APSCB Libro 6 F115 No, 2589

In Libro 6, F115 #2589 of entierros for San Carlos de la Aguadilla is a record for another Margarita, born about 1818.  On 19 December 1837, she was buried at the age of 19 years. According to the entry she was also enslaved by d. Francisco Rabasa. As Margarita (b.ca 1806) from the 1822 sale does not appear among the cedulas of 1868-70 in Caja 4 of the Registro de Esclavos, she either managed to buy her freedom, was sold away, or died. The difference in age, together with the children born after 1837 suggests that Margarita survived, unless the children belonged to a different Margarita.

Other persons enslaved by Rabasa were born in Africa, such as Maria who died in 1828 (without noting her age or any other details), and Juana Rita 28, who died in 1843.  The 1826 Relacion de Esclavos de Aguadilla has a list of enslaved people held by d. Francisco Rabasa. At the top of the second column appears yet another Margarita, age 11 bca. 1815.

Enslaved persons held by Francisco Rabasa, Resumen de Esclavos, Aguadilla, Caja 62, 1826 AGPR
Caja 62, Relacion de Esclavos, d. Francisco Rabasa, 1826. AGPR

Another Set of Sales: Four Boys, Aguadilla, 1822

Four boys trade hands in Aguadilla in March 1822. While we have the record for Pellot’s purchase, there are another set of entries that offer the outlines of trafficking in small numbers of those enslaved. 

In March 1822, Pellot purchased four enslaved children born in Coro, Venezuela from D. Jose Antonio Vidal and D. Carlos Espinet. The boys were between the ages of 10 and 14, and worked as house servants. A host of questions come up– where were their mother or parents?  Were they separated earlier? When did they gain their freedom? Did they ever and when? What surname did they take on? Over how many continents did their origin reach? They are:

José Eduviges de 14 años, b, 1808

José Perfecto de 10 años, b.1812

Francisco de la Yuga de 11 años b.1811

José Manuel de 10 años b. 1812 [4]

As the century wore on, there was a growing preference for purchasing children, with the expectation of a longer term of labor. [5] According to the entry, they were first sold as a group for 725 pesos by Nicolas Franson (b. Genoa, Italy) to Jose Antonio Vidal and Carlos Espinet.  The price that Pellot paid is not recorded in their resale on the 23 March 1822. [6] Franson was a captain, specifically of the ship Monserrate, ‘goleta espanola’, a two masted schooner, that suggests he was also capable of transporting the enslaved. I am left with questions and the hope of finding something more.

Capitania del Puerto, Gazette de Puerto Rico, Apr 29, 1837
Capitania del Puerto, – “25 Abril 1837, De la Aguadilla goleta española Monserrate, su capitán d. Nicolas Franson” Gazette de Puerto Rico, Apr 29, 1837. Library of Congress.

The witnesses to the sale were D.Francisco Rabasa, D.Juan Bautista Doumeng and D.Jose Joaquín Miranda, all local plantation owners and enslavers. These documents show the small scale of human trafficking among married couples, emigres who shared French or Basque origins and local partnerships. By 1850, more formal businesses were involved. 

Trafficking from Coro to Aguadilla, 1822

Here are all of the enslaved persons from Coro who were trafficked in Aguadilla for the year of 1822

Chart- Caja 1291 Enslaved from Coro Venezuela
Chart listing enslaved from Coro, Venezulela to NWPR, Caja 1291, Aguadilla.

References

[1] Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, “Reconstructing District 3’s Missing 1872 Registro Central de Esclavos for Northwest Puerto Rico.” [Part 1 of 4] Hereditas 2019, 73. Antonio Nieves Méndez, Historia de un pueblo: Moca 1772-2000. Ediciones Aymaco, lulu.com 2008, 247.

[2] Nieves Mendez,  Historia de un pueblo: Moca 1772-2000., 247.

[3] Caja 1291 En Aguadilla 3-22-1822 fol 128 ante mi,el escribano Real y público y testigos que se nominaran compareció  D.Nicolás Franson de este vecindario y dijo que da en venta Real a D.José Antonio Vidal y a Carlos Espinet de la propia vecindad 4 esclavos de su propiedad nombrados José Eduviges de 14 años, José Perfecto de 10 años, Francisco de la Yuga 11 años y José Manuel de 10 años naturales del Coro y se los vende por la suma de 725 pesos. Testigos y vecinos lo fueron D.Francisco Rabasa, D.Juan Bautista Doumeng y D.José Joaquín Miranda.  Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, AGPR, Fondo de Protocolo Notariales, Caja 1291, Serie- Aguadilla, Pueblo- Aguadilla, Escribano Jesualdo Gaya 1821-1822. Transcrito por Carlos Encarnacion Navarro.     

[4] Caja 1291 f370v-372, 31 Dec 1822; f131v – 132v, 23 March 1822

[5] According to Perez Vega, when the port of Ponce was opened in 1812, the port facilitated the direct arrival of free and enslaved people. For more on the traffic in children see Ivette Perez Vega’s “El trafico de ninos esclavos en el sur de PR, Ponce (1815-1830).” https://publications.iai.spk-berlin.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/Document_derivate_00001299/BIA_103_025_049.pdf

[6] Caja 1291, En Aguadilla 3-23-1822  fol.131-v a 132-v  ante mi, escribano Real y público y testigos que se nominaran comparecieron D. José Antonio Vidal y D. Carlos Espinet de este vecindario y dijeron que daban en venta Real a D.Pedro Pellot del mismo vecindario  4 siervos esclavos nombrados José Eduviges de   14 años, José Perfecto de 10 años, Francisco de la Yuga de 11 años y José Manuel de 10 años todos naturales del coro. Testigos y vecinos lo fueron D.Francisco Rabasa, D.Juan Bautista Doumeng y D.Jose Joaquín Miranda.

Citation: Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, “Remembering enslaved ancestors purchased by Pedro Pellot, Aguadilla, 1822.” Latino Genealogy and Beyond, 9 Nov 2024.

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Restoring the Legacy of Moses Williams: A Case Study of Emancipation

AAHGS 45th National Conference banner

Thrilled to announce that my presentation proposal, “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia, 1776-1833.” was accepted for the 45th AAHGS National Conference this October!  Appreciate the opportunity to share, learn and contact other genealogists and family historians at this wonderful event, hosted by AAHGS President LaJoy Mosby. 

The conference theme is “Fighting Erasure: Staying Visible by Keeping African American Genealogy and History in Focus.” This centers on the “role of preserving and spotlighting African American history and genealogy in the broader narrative of American history.” 

Silhouette of Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802
Silhouette of “Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802″Library Company of Philadelphia.

Here’s my abstract for my presentation, “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia, 1776-1833.” :

When the word slavery comes to mind, many think of the US South, rather than the Northern states. Northern slavery’s history is less well known, particularly in states with gradual emancipation—Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. This presentation focuses on the family histories tied to the silhouette artist and museum artisan Moses Williams (1776-ca 1833), to glimpse African descended, Free People of Color and the challenges faced in their process of emancipation. The reality of bondage challenges the image of Philadelphia, a city so closely identified with national freedom. Important clues for Moses Williams and his family are contained in archives that includes the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and records for his former enslaver, the Maryland-born portrait painter and Philadelphia-museum owner Charles Willson Peale (1746-1823). Peale held Williams’ parents between 1776-1786, and freed Williams in 1803. Most archival material on the Williams family is excavated from the Papers of the Peale Family, newspapers, deeds & census records. While the origins of Williams parents remain a question, records suggest the situations that Free Black Philadelphians contended with under the 1780 act for Gradual Abolition. Freedom was negotiated and paid for with terms of service at a tender age. This case study shows how the increased availability of digitized records and community research helps restore the experiences of free Black families to a larger historical narrative. 

My deep thanks to Nancy Proctor and Dean Krimmel of The Peale Baltimore, who have invited me to share my work on Moses Williams, who now has a museum space and internship program named after him; and to Carol Soltis, of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, who is currently studying Williams’ technique and style for the profiles he produced, that numbered nearly nine thousand. Williams’ family members experienced degrees of unfreedom in different ways, and I seek to acknowledge their resilience by considering the ways they sought freedom at the cusp of the nineteenth century.

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The New Moses Williams Gallery at The Peale, Baltimore

Daryl Lewis gives silhouette demonstration in Moses Williams Gallery

I’m delighted to share that on December first, Baltimore’s The Peale is opening a gallery named for Moses Williams, who was a silhouette cutter at Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia between 1803 to about 1827.

Daryl Lewis demonstrates a silhouette panel at the Peale Museum, Baltimore, 2023.
Daryl Lewis demonstrates a silhouette panel at the new Moses Williams Gallery at The Peale, Baltimore, 2023

Williams, born about 1776, was a skilled silhouette artist, born into slavery; he and his parents were enslaved by Charles Willson Peale. His parents gained their freedom and Williams grew up working in the Peale family’s Philadelphia Museum, where he learned to prepare and install exhibits.  In the summer of 1799, Williams learned taxidermy as an assistant to Peale, preparing birds collected on the New Jersey Shore. In 1801, he worked mounting the skeleton of the mastodon, and in 1803 became a silhouette cutter at the museum, on the second floor of Independence Hall.  Williams was literate,  probably picked up a bit of Latin, placed his own advertisements in the local newspaper, bought land, owned a home, and was known in the local community. 

Williams, the first Black museum professional in the U.S., now has a center and a gallery named in his honor.  Moments in his life are illustrated by silhouettes that visitors can see with a penlight as they go through the gallery as seen above.

Silhouette of Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, 1802
“Moses Williams, cutter of profiles”, silhouette, 1802

Today, the Moses Williams Center is the Peale Museum’s teaching gallery and home to the Accomplished Arts Apprenticeship program, which offers training in exhibition preparation and the historic preservation trades. Their recruiting fairs for the program happen the third week of October for this 32 week program. Launched in 2020, this paid apprenticeship consists of “non-traditional mentorship and vocational training in fine art, curatorial practice, art installation, logistics, and historic building preservation to develop transferable skills using arts as the driving force.”

This is a wonderful way to memorialize Moses Williams’ skills, creativity and resilience. It is in stark contrast to the withering account of him and his family given by Rembrandt Peale in “The Physiognotrace.” published in an 1857 issue of The Crayon. My guess is that this was such an awful perspective that Lillian Miller found she could not bear to discuss it in her bibliography for her catalog, In Search of Fame: Rembrandt Peale 1778-1860. While Peale’s account held no expectations for Williams’ person or future, it is, ironically, the main building block for understanding the context that Williams lived and worked in.

Enslavement, the slave trade and Native dispossession are no longer marginal to the story of Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia. Moses Williams is now a very visible ancestor.

See my “Racial Theory, Museum Practice: The Coloured World of Charles Willson Peale.” Museum Anthropology, 1996. You can download a copy here.

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‘El Registro de Esclavos’: An archive you need to know’ at the 44th Annual AAHGS Conference

presentation title card

Taiguei (Greetings)!

This has turned out to be a busy month! I finished my last article for the series on “Reconstructing Missing Volume of the Registro Central de Esclavos, pt 4” for the forthcoming volume 24 of Hereditas: Revista de la Sociedad Puertorriquena de Genealogia. I hope to submit “Looking for Lorenzo Ubiles, Alcalde de barrio Humacao 1873.” for the AAHGS Journal shortly.

I’m happy to announce that on Thursday October 19, 1:30 PM-2:30 EST, I’ll be presenting “El Registro de Esclavos: An archive you need to know”, at “Hidden in Plain Sight: Recovering the erased stories of our ancestors in the United States and the Caribbean”, the 44th Annual 2023 AAHGS Virtual Conference. Excited to be among so many great presentations & presenters that includes friends & family from Black ProGen Live! Sessions will be available until Dec 31.

EFS El Registro de Esclavos An archive you need to know, title card for presentation

Here’s the description: The process of emancipation in Puerto Rico formally began in 1868, with the registration of over 30,000 enslaved persons using cedulas, small registration forms 6 x 8” in size. The information on these forms were copied to create the volumes of the Registro de Esclavos, issued in 1872. FamilySearch microfilmed two series of these documents from the enormous collection of Gobiernos Españoles collection. These are now searchable on the FamilySearch site as “Puerto Rico Slave Registers, 1863-1879”. These entries shed light on the identities of people as they transitioned to freedom just fifteen years before the establishment of the Registro Civil (Civil Registration) in 1885 and the formal end of slavery in 1886. The information covers name, origin, parents, partner, children, enslaver, physical details and issues around the purchase of freedom, manumission, or even the death of the person listed. The ages range from days old to persons in their 80s. These documents are useful for identifying family members and confirming their identities and locations pre-1885, and who may not appear in the 1910 census. Recently digitized archives on the Archivo Digital Nacional de Puerto Rico (ADNPR.net) that overlap with the information in the Registro de Esclavos will be covered. This work is a contribution to the ancestors, to help bridge them with their descendants.

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Antonio Rocha’s “Voyage through Death to Life upon these Shores”: The Malaga Speaks

Yesterday evening, the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) hosted Antonio Rocha’s performance of “Voyage through Death to Life upon these Shores”: The Malaga Speaks. Here’s the description of the program, which will soon be on YouTube:

The story of the Malaga, a 19th century ship built in Maine that transported captive Africans, was created and will be performed by Antonio Rocha. Told from the perspective of the ship, Rocha uses song, narration, and mime to weave his way through this historical tale that chronicles the history of the trans-Atlantic human trade and its legacy. Annually, on August 23rd, the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) hosts a program to acknowledge this day and the lives of those captive Africans who perished during the trans-Atlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage and the ten million who survived to build the Americas. Through the presentation of this creative work, The Malaga Speaks, MPCPMP offers a broader narrative of connection and the Diaspora – from ship building, to the ocean voyage, to arrival, into enslavement; from Maine, to Africa, across the Atlantic, to Brazil.

Rocha’s performance is a powerful one. He builds and weaves a narrative that reveal layers of history and experiences of the Middle Passage as a knowledge that is both painful and liberatory the deeper he enters into the story of the Malaga. There is a body memory, a visceral space where those who survive decide what they can carry, and what was left by the ancestors for us today.

For more information about Antonio Rocha visit www.storyinmotion.com

Check out the MPCPMP’s Resources page: https://www.middlepassageproject.org/resources/

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