what happened to the lamothe plantation in rapides parish louisiana
"What'll become of me?"
When a free blackness man named Solomon Northup was rescued from 12 years of bondage in January of 1853, a boyfriend slave, a young woman named Patsey, chosen after him tearfully. One hundred 60-1 years later on, Northup'due south account of his kidnapping and fourth dimension as a slave on Edwin Epps's Louisiana plantation has been authenticated by scholars with annotated versions of Northup's book, supplemental textbooks and articles detailing his life. Last year'south big-screen accommodation of his narrative, 12 Years a Slave, is currently nominated for ix Academy Awards—including a best supporting actress nod for the woman who plays Patsey, Lupita Nyong'o. Yet Patsey's haunting question, "What'll go of me?", remains unanswered.
What became of this girl, Northup's close acquaintance and one of the major figures in his book, who was terrorized by her principal and mistress? Did she succumb to one of the bouts of affliction that swept the Louisiana-bayou slave communities? Did Epps'south severe beatings or his wife'due south unhinged jealousy accept their cost, or did he perhaps sell her some time later on 1853? Was she secreted away by members of the Underground Railroad? Did she survive until emancipation rolled through the area via the Red River Campaign in 1864, then travel elsewhere? Or did she remain in Louisiana?
For more than than two months, I have considered these possibilities and more, in an endeavour to respond to Patsey's plea. I have scoured annotated versions of Northup'south text, census records, court documents, online genealogy databases, libraries, and newspapers from the era. I've spoken with experts in the fields of genealogy and historical inquiry, consulted professors, archivists and historians, even traveled to the town in Louisiana where Epps's plantation, once stood—all in an attempt to track Patsey's life after Northup's deviation in 1853. I practically went cross-eyed after days of squinting at vital records recorded in miniscule cursive writing; I pulled archival books as heavy as small children from high shelves in clangorous, dusty warehouses; I nigh hydroplaned into ditches while exploring unpaved backroads during rainstorms. I drove through towns with a Louisiana-history picture volume on my lap in an attempt to lucifer the old and new. I mitt-cranked microfiche machines until my wrist was so stiff I couldn't move information technology. The investigation has unearthed two new theories for every i posed, protruding from the murk of inquiry similar so many cypress knees lining Louisiana's bayous. How tin it be this hard to find ane woman? The question seems as deceptively simple as Patsey's, but the difficulty in answering proves emblematic of the lost histories of many slaves.
"Do you have a twelvemonth of your life to spare?" I'd heard similar versions of this retort in the wake of introducing my article's subject, but information technology wasn't until my third mean solar day in cardinal Louisiana that I truly started to believe information technology. This one came from John Lawson, local historian and patron of the Alexandria Genealogical Library —a space flush with resources and rife with knowledgeable volunteers, all of whom accept a passion for the discipline. "Oh, only you'll find her eventually," Lawson quickly followed up. No 1 else I'd spoken with at that point seemed to think it possible.
I prepared for my time in Patsey's Southward for a calendar month and a one-half, offset with the facts of Northup's volume (my detail copy being an enhanced edition by Dr. Sue Eakin, the LSU of Alexandria professor and historian who devoted her life to researching Northup's story). Northup spent 10 of his 12 enslaved years as Epps'south belongings, the latter 8 of them on his plantation in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, in an area nigh Bunkie known now as Eola, then as Holmesville. He worked alongside Patsey and half dozen other slaves (Abram, Wiley, Phebe, Bob, Henry, and Edward)—all but Edward came to Louisiana from neighboring plantations in Williamsburg County, South Carolina. Piecing together the genealogy of a slave, as it turns out, almost always must happen through reconstructing those of his or her owners.
In 12 Years a Slave, Northup cites Patsey as "the offspring of a 'Guinea nigger,' brought over to Cuba in a slave ship, and in the class of trade transferred to Buford, who was her mother's owner." That owner, said in the book to be James Buford (more likely named William J. Buford, according to 1830 and 1840 demography records from Williamsburg Canton that I found), is said to have fallen upon hard times and sold her, forth with a group of others, to Archibald P. Williams of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, near Alexandria.
The exact year of Patsey's relocation across land lines is unknown. Epps was an overseer on the Oakland Plantation, near Alexandria, patented by Williams, and he was given the slaves equally payment for his wages in that part. Conveyance papers from Williams to Epps for the group no longer exist, as the Rapides courthouse was burned by Northern soldiers in 1864, destroying virtually all records (not an uncommon scenario during the Civil War). But we know Patsey was with Epps as of 1843, when he purchased Northup and leased the Bayou Huffpower plantation of his wife's uncle Joseph B. Robert, before moving them to the 300-acre plot of his Avoyelles Parish plantation on Bayou Boeuf in 1845.
Northup'south book cites Patsey as being 23 years former, though his proclamation of that age could've occurred whatever fourth dimension during his x years with her, making it a sliding scale (nearly probable, he was referring to her age when he left her in 1853). Pre-1850 U.S. Census records merely separate slaves by gender and catalogue them within age-grouping intervals of five to 10 years, simply in 1850 and 1860 there were separate Slave Schedule census records taken. Regardless, no names were included with each slave entry, and ages were often approximated. Deducing from the general ages of the other slaves on Epps'due south subcontract inside Northup's text, Patsey appears as the entry for a black female person, aged 19, in Epps'due south 1850 Slave Schedule. Using all these factors every bit a guide, it's prophylactic to judge that she was born around 1830 in Southward Carolina.
If Patsey died of illness, fatigue, or abuse before 1864, there'd be no record of it. "Imagine a disease taking its toll much worse on the enslaved customs," explains Christopher Stacey, Ph.D., associate professor of history at LSU of Alexandria. "Measles, mumps, yellow fever, malaria . . . chicken pox. . . . They affected the enslaved population that much more than because of the abuse, considering of the hard living conditions in the slave cabins, because of damage to bodies and minds. In that location are accounts of slaves dying, literally, of repeated abuse from a psychological standpoint. It would be the same as looking at somebody with PTSD catching pneumonia and dying inexplicably. We know now that healthiness and existence salubrious is equally much psychological as information technology is physiological."
The deplorable reality is that slaves were belongings, considered very expensive livestock, and there were few regulations governing their treatment and whereabouts. "At that place were laws in the antebellum South which regulated and dictated how slave owners treated slaves—there was a minimum standard," explains Stacey. "Now, a record of the enforcement of those laws? That'south dicier. I don't think compliance was function of information technology. I retrieve every law that was written in each of the states restricted excessive abuse and violence, which is relative. The laws specifically were written to protect the institution of slavery." This besides means that if a slave died on an owner's plantation, they were not required to report the death and could choose where and how the body was to be interred—on their ain belongings, in a cemetery, or elsewhere. "There was not a compatible standard or dominion every bit far every bit burial slaves," says Stacey.
Near slave cemeteries and graves from the era remain unmarked. The closest African-American burial plots to Epps's country that stand today reside in the cemetery at Kickoff St. Joseph's Baptist Church. Later looking through archived papers, the church building's deacon, Willie Johnson, confirmed that information technology was established in 1875 and the state for its location was donated on July 26, 1888. If she survived beyond emancipation and remained in the area, information technology's entirely possible that she was a member of this church, and—if she had children—they would've attended the adjoining school.
On my second day in Louisiana, I scrutinized the weathered headstones of the Starting time St. Joseph's cemetery with Bunkie, Louisiana-based historian Meredith Melançon, searching for any record of Patsey. Nosotros met through Melançon's incredible University of Louisiana at Lafayette work on the website called Acadiana Historical. I happened upon it while attempting to piece together Patsey-centric locations of the Northup Trail in grooming for my trip to Louisiana, and the two of us became fast friends. "If I was Patsey and I survived to emancipation, I'd become the heck outta this place—as far away from Edwin Epps every bit possible," exclaimed Melançon, while squinting at a peculiarly illegible white marble marking. It was a drizzly, unusually cold day in early February—a fitting surround for a tour of the landmarks related to Patsey's life.
Against all odds, Patsey was young and very strong—she was one of Epps's most valuable and profitable workers. Northup writes, "Such lightning-like motion was in her fingers as no other fingers ever possessed, and therefore information technology was, that in cotton picking time, Patsey was queen of the field." Despite that, she suffered incalculable emotional and physical corruption at the easily of Epps and his wife, Mary. "Her back diameter the scars of a thousand stripes; not because she was backward in her piece of work, nor because she was of an unmindful and rebellious spirit, only because it had fallen to her lot to be the slave of a licentious master and a jealous mistress," Northup describes. "She shrank before the lustful middle of the one, and was in danger fifty-fifty of her life at the hands of the other, and between the two, she was indeed accursed. . . . Naught delighted the mistress so much as to see her suffer, and more than one time, when Epps had refused to sell her, has she tempted me with bribes to put her secretly to decease, and coffin her body in some solitary place in the margin of the swamp." Could it exist possible that Mary'southward request brutal to someone with fewer moral scruples than Northup later on his departure? It's entirely possible.
Of all the injustices outlined in Northup'southward narrative, one specially roughshod whipping of Patsey at the hands of her chief and Northup (who was forced into the act confronting his volition) left her near death. The description of the scene resonated with readers, and was oftentimes cited in newspaper reviews of the volume at the time; it provides the devastating emotional climax of the moving-picture show 12 Years a Slave, as well. Northup'southward account of Patsey's whipping is horrifying, made even more than unbearable past the circumstances that led to it. Because Mistress Epps refused to give Patsey soap for washing, she left the plantation without permission in order to borrow some from a neighbor. Master Epps was so enraged upon her render that she was immediately staked to the ground, and Northup was ordered to whip her. Obliging out of fearfulness, he "struck her every bit many every bit thirty times" before attempting to stop, just after beingness forced, he "inflicted ten or 15 blows more," until refusing to continue, "risking the consequences." At that point, Epps assumed the whip and connected until she was, Northup describes, "literally flayed." Though Patsey survived the unimaginable punishment, "from that time forward," he writes, "she was non what she had been."
Information technology's heartbreaking to ponder how someone so immature, who possessed such dignity under unimaginably inhuman circumstances, finally had her spirit broken in this mode. And this brings united states back to Melançon's idea that Patsey would "become the heck outta in that location" after emancipation, and some theories most where she may accept gone. Alas, theories are almost all I take to work with—so much of constructing Patsey's history involves small pieces of fact linked by large gaps caulked with conjecture.
The Secondhand-Newspaper AccountBrowsing the Library of Congress's newspaper archive website, Chronicling America, I came upon perhaps the biggest discovery of my research—an 1895 clipping from the Idaho Register (a wire story from the National Tribune in Washington, D.C.) chosen "Near the Campfire: Truthful Tales Told by the Veterans." It detailed—under a department titled "Bayou Boeuf"—a veteran'due south recollection of Northern soldiers recounting a visit to Epps'due south plantation, "shortly subsequently the war." The soldiers (and the narrator) had read Northup's volume, and were curious almost the truth of the story. It's said that they "told of seeing and talking with his former slave comrades, whose names were Uncle Abram, Wiley, Aunt Phoebe, Patsy, Bob, Henry, and Edward." Misspelling bated (quite common), this is a fairly huge breakthrough equally far every bit validating Patsey'due south presence on Epps's plantation right before emancipation. The rub: this was recounted 30 years afterwards the fact, and information technology's entirely possible that the narrator just cracked open his copy of 12 Years a Slave so equally to properly cite the names of every slave on Epps'southward plantation. It's equally plausible that the soldiers merely told him they spoke with some of Northup'southward beau slaves, simply didn't name names.
The 1860 Avoyelles Parish Slave ScheduleEpps'south 1860 U.S. Census Slave Schedule cites a total of 12 slaves—merely 4 more than he endemic a decade prior. There is an entry for a 34-year-sometime female, who could possibly be Patsey (once again accounting for the license used with recording of ages on these records). No conveyance of her sale before that time exists at the Marksville courthouse, which holds all remaining records for the Avoyelles Parish area from that time.
Patsey Williams/Patsey BufordUpon emancipation, slaves had no coin or means, and were oftentimes forced into a life of sharecropping. Those who left their former owners were sometimes assumed their master'due south surname, if they didn't already take one (this is how Solomon's father, Mintus Northup, received his last name, as it happens). "It depends on what they wanted," explains Elizabeth Shown Mills, sometime president of the Board for Certification of Genealogists and co-author of The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color. "In that location were times it went back to the female parent's owner, sometimes the owner of their grandparents. The premise here is that most slaves did not get out their comfort zones. They didn't leave that neighborhood in which they grew upwardly. Then y'all're going to find them, for decades after the war, by and large in that aforementioned community. Of grade exceptions existed, just they were less likely to exist with females." Her female parent'south possessor's surname was Buford, though it'south likely her mother also accompanied Patsey to the Williams plantation in Louisiana. I came across i record of a "Patsy Buford" in the 1910 U.S. Census from Flat Rock, Kershaw, Due south Carolina. She's listed as 80 years old (keeping with the 1830 birth date), and both of her parents are listed as having been born in South Carolina. Keeping in mind Mills's "comfort zone" rule, it's more likely that the 1870 U.S. Demography uncovered for a 40-year-old Patsey Williams in Cheneyville (Rapides Parish) could exist a pb. Also because Mills's enlightening bespeak that Patsey is, in fact, a nickname for Martha, it'south easy to meet how the possibilities can get endless.
The Underground RailroadNorthup's narrative makes information technology clear that Patsey was aware of the possibility of freedom. He writes, "Patsey'south life, peculiarly subsequently her whipping, was one long dream of liberty. Far away . . . she knew at that place was a land of freedom. A thousand times she had heard that somewhere in the distant North there were no slaves—no masters." This makes it possible to consider she sought aid through outside means. Though Northup's ultimate fate is too unknown (he disappeared in the early on 1860s), scholars have unearthed persuasive evidence that he was part of the Underground Railroad. It makes sense that Northup would've found his way into this line of work—his experience, along with Patsey's terminal words, had to haunt him. He almost certainly didn't travel back to Louisiana (Cloak-and-dagger Railroad agents rarely operated in the Deep South), simply that doesn't mean he couldn't accept helped engineer Patsey's rescue from up North. There's an Underground Railroad location in Pollock, Louisiana—51 minutes north of Eola—called Oction Business firm, established in 1861, which could've served as Patsey's first stop. Because of its clandestine nature, there are very few Secret Railroad records, but it remains a possibility considering information technology cannot, as of now, be officially refuted. Permanent work with the Underground Railroad could also corroborate Northup's disappearance, every bit joining meant separation from his life in upstate New York, and near sure anonymity.
Patsey Epps."Considering all of the suffering—emotional and physical—that he [Epps] inflicted on her, I cannot see Patsey, as a free woman, taking his surname," says Mills. Still, she admits, "You lot don't want to pass up any possibility, no thing how slim." Patsey might take assumed the Epps surname, which was a popular proper noun throughout the S. Patsey was also not an unusual first name, then—without a tie from Louisiana to one of these other areas to corroborate the prove—these listings remain afar possibilities. The most probable possibility was found within a search for a Patsey Epps born effectually 1830 in S Carolina (keeping in mind that spelling and ages on these documents are flexible), wherein I pulled a 1900 U.S. Census listing for a lxx-year-old Patsy Epps born in South Carolina and living in Washington, Mississippi—almost ii hours north of Edwin Epps'south plantation.
Scanned copies of these documents can be seen in the gallery below.
The Search for Patsey
The 1860 Avoyelles Parish Slave Schedule
Epps'south 1860 U.S. Demography Slave Schedule cites a total of 12 slaves—merely four more than he endemic a decade prior. (The 1850 and 1860 schedules are seen here side by side) There is an entry for a 34-year-old female, who could possibly be Patsey (again accounting for the license used with recording of ages on these records). No conveyance of her auction before that time exists at the Marksville courthouse, which holds all remaining records for the Avoyelles Parish area from that time.
Bunkie is the kind of identify where you tin drive miles earlier seeing anything just a church or gas station, and the scenery—even amid the area's unusual early Feb snow flurries and frost—is haunting, seemingly plucked from another fourth dimension. This is lowcountry, where soybeans, corn, and sugar cane are produced in sprawling fields, homesteads perched aside them neatly. Drive along the bayous and the views are strangely preserved—the lots are narrow and long, just as they were in the 1800s, when they were situated to allow every plot waterfront admission for transportation of goods. Even when viewing the homes, it'south difficult to distinguish the time period—new residences are fashioned in the classic Creole style, and old dwellings are beautifully restored. Palmetto bushes line the bayou banks, lending credence to the accounts Northup wrote of escaped slaves hiding in the dense greenery for months. Ancient oaks (which get wider—not taller—with historic period) dot the horizon; cypresses soak in the bayous—their knees jutting from withal pools of water—and pecan copse line acres of land in orderly rows. Information technology's an area deeply steeped in its history, and its residents are fiercely protective of that fact. Equally a New Yorker shouldering the pressure of a fourth dimension crunch, my instinct was to economize—I speedily learned that every activity needed to be padded by at least 45 minutes. It didn't matter where I went—a library, hotel vestibule, or coffee shop—I was greeted warmly, identified almost immediately as an out-of-towner (yeah, it's that obvious) and, upon describing my projection, was privy to dizzying enthusiasm and a flurry of tips and anecdotes. In this town, everybody knows everyone who knows something most someone from someplace. The Louisiana welcome is a deep, cozy rabbit hole—I'1000 not entirely sure I've yet dug my fashion out.
My enquiry in Louisiana also centered upon finding a cause of expiry for Edwin Epps, in pursuit of some manner of cosmic justice for Patsey. (If his will was written prior to emancipation, she would be listed among his inventory if she was however with him at the time). It's documented that he passed abroad in 1867, and his wife died shortly thereafter—both are interred at Fogleman Cemetery, a short distance from where his plantation once stood, though their headstones have long since been lost. (The infinite itself is completely overgrown—a few original headstones, a historic mark and a debate are all that separate it from a forgotten patch of farmland).
Epps's will exists at the Marksville courthouse (I held the original, equally it happens). His inventory proved enlightening—his children and married woman Mary were named, as were all of the items currently on or inside his plantation. As it turns out, the papers were drawn up mail service-emancipation (on Apr 27, 1867, presently later he died), so there was no record of Patsey. At that place was mention of outstanding debts that included a cotton order from New Orleans, with the stated proceeds being split among his laborers—proving that he did accept either sharecroppers or hired laborers working his farm at the time of his death, one of whom could possibly have been Patsey.
"What we know well-nigh slavery is heavily weighted to the larger slave owners," explains Stacey. "Around 50 pct of slave owners in the antebellum South endemic 25 or fewer slaves over the course of their slave-owning 'career.'" Epps falls firmly within the average of that group, having endemic between eight and 12 slaves at any given time. "At that place'southward a whole yeoman or heart-class slave-owning group of people nosotros don't know a lot about," says Stacey. "Well-nigh of the largest planters kept thorough records, but it'south less likely that this group of people kept thorough records considering they didn't have enough resources. They were quite oftentimes working right next to their slaves picking cotton, breaking corn." This means that Patsey's fate was, in many means, directly tied to that of Epps. "These are men, women, and families who endemic a few slaves throughout their lives," says Stacey. "The recession would striking and they'd have to sell off a few of their slaves. How did they treat their slaves? I suspect it's just as uneven every bit their richer counterparts, only we don't know that. My sense is that they're ranges of extreme. Either they were very benevolent or they were very, very sadistic—considering they had to live and piece of work and exist in much closer proximity to their slaves than the larger plantation owners."
During my first day in Louisiana, I attempted to navigate from my hotel in Bunkie to the LSU of Alexandria campus. Bunkie is a small town (population 4,171, according to the 2010 U.S. Census) that envelops the area where Epps resided on his plantation from 1845 until his decease in 1867. I was utterly unfamiliar with the geography of these areas at the time; I had nonetheless to pinpoint or visit any local landmarks, and my iPhone One thousand.P.South. would prove both vital and flawless throughout my iv days in Louisiana—save this one outing. Every bit I set off from my hotel to LSU–A, I was directed away from the interstate. I didn't think much of it until the friendly automatic female voice told me to take a right onto a dirt road. It was pouring rain—so, naturally, the K.P.S. proceeded to lead me through the muddiest, narrowest pebble-and-dirt-strewn roads I've always seen—all of them cutting through the middle of countless fields, flanked past perilously deep puddle-encrusted ditches.
The GPS navigated my nigh peril for 20 minutes—atop rickety one-lane wooden bridges, through flooded slopes—until it finally, mercifully, directed me onto a paved street. I took a right and—drove past my hotel. Instead of the correct direct left from my hotel to the highway, I was driven in a senseless detour through a circular snarl of dorsum roads. I recounted the puzzling hilarity over dinner that dark while being handily schooled in the art of crawfish consumption by Melançon, her husband David, mother-in-law, Marjorie Melançon, LSU–A archivist Michelle Riggs and Professor Stacey. Their eyes widened as I described the ordeal betwixt twists and cracks of the spice-covered reddish crustaceans, recounting the local flair of the street names (Catfish Kitchen Road! Oil Field Road! Bear Corner Road!). "Practise you know where your 1000.P.Due south. took y'all?" Meredith asked. I shook my head. "Effectually the perimeter of what used to be Edwin Epps's plantation," she deadpanned.
It was a goose-bump-inducing moment, and remains a perfect metaphor for my dually frustrating and elating pursuit of Patsey. Have I simply been circumvoluted the truth of what happened to her, wading through the muck of missing links and leads pointing me in wayward directions?
"There is no mode to judge how long information technology could take to find Patsey," said Mills. "It could have months. It could take years. Records were non created for genealogical purposes; they were non created for historical purposes. Public records are created for legal purposes. Censuses were created for analytical purposes. And and so they created what was needed. We, every bit researchers, accept to acquire all of the dissimilar resource that be for an area, and and then nosotros have to acquire all of the different techniques to link footling different pieces of data into a whole person. In the stop, a person is more than a name—a person is a physical set of characteristics. We gather as many pieces of those characteristics every bit possible, and nosotros utilise that to help us narrow downward. It is an incredible amount of work."
Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., whose PBS genealogy television show Finding Your Roots enlists well-known personalities to explore genealogy, calls genealogical research "another manner of doing American History. [. . .] When yous find out that your great grandfather fought in the American Revolution or your very great grandfather fought in the Ceremonious State of war, you lot can never call back of the Revolution or the Civil State of war in the same manner." That bear upon tin exist even more significant for African-Americans," he says. "The well-nigh moving function [of Finding Your Roots] for African-Americans is when nosotros innovate them to their ancestors who were slaves, by name. Putting a face up and a proper noun on a historical event is what genealogy excels at doing. There's nothing quite like information technology."
I all the same desperately want to know what happened to Patsey. I want to believe she was able to survive, to prevail, and and then to thrive on her ain. As nobody'south property. Equally master of her own body and mind. I searched for her correct upwardly until the moment this slice was due—in that location's still a thick stack of notes and to-do lists next to my computer. I'm not fix to crumple them in the trash uncrossed, unchecked. It feels too much like discarding a life.
I hope this slice serves as a jumping-off betoken—equally a telephone call to activity and a call to dearest and healing. A boxing cry amongst Melançon, Riggs, and me became "Viva la Patsey!" She is long gone, but her story never died. We cannot exist hindered by what appears to be a lost cause—unearthing these narratives of our country'due south painful history volition set us on the path to understanding and willing ourselves non to repeat it. Let's allow Patsey's plea to resonate for countless others—because if we don't consider what became of them, what'll become of united states of america?
THE Author WISHES TO THANK
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Elizabeth Shown Mills, Michelle Riggs, Meredith Melançon, Christopher Stacey, David Melançon, Marjorie Melançon, John Lawson, David Manning, Lou Oats, Helen Sorrell-Goudeau, Maira Liriano, Meghan Doherty, Julia Röhl, Jon Costantini, Floyd Racks, Willie Johnson, Sara Kuhn, David James, Johni Cerny, Randy DeCuir, Theresa Thevenote, Clifford W. Dark-brown, Leon Miler, Sean Benjamin, Charlene Bonnette, Jerry Sanson, Hans Rasmussen, Judy Bolton, and the countless others who offered advice, expertise, and assistance throughout the form of my enquiry.
*This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that indentured servitude did not be after the Ceremonious War, and is more accurately referred to as sharecropping. Nosotros regret the error.
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Source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/03/patsey-12-years-a-slave
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