I can almost hear Sandy now: “Come on, Dad!”
speaking of jefferson/hemings
3
gum springs
Gum Springs: A Slave’s Legacy
By Michael K. Bohn
This is an excerpt from a four-part series on the history and future of Gum Springs, a historically African-American community in the Mount Vernon area.
The founder of Gum Springs, a mixed race man named West Ford, began his life as a slave. His path to freedom started when his owner, George Washington’s younger brother, John Augustine, died in 1787.
West Ford, shown here in an 1858 drawing, founded the African-American community of Gum Springs in 1833. Fairfax County Public Library, Virginia Room.
John’s will left a third of his slaves to his wife Hannah, including a couple named Billy and Jenny, their daughter Venus, and her son West. Upon Hannah’s death in 1801, her will stipulated that young West be freed when he reached the age of 21. She also asked her heirs to inoculate West for small pox and bind him to a “good tradesman.”
Hannah’s son Bushrod assumed ownership of West, then 16 or 17. Also, Bushrod inherited Mount Vernon when Martha Washington died in 1802, and he moved there and took West with him. Following Hannah’s will, Bushrod freed West in about 1805. According to oral family history, West adopted the surname Ford upon gaining his freedom.
Ford remained at Mount Vernon, working as a wheelwright and carpenter. He could read and write, and ultimately became foreman of the house servants and a guardian of Washington’s tomb. In 1812, he married Priscilla Bell, a free black woman from Alexandria. Because of her status, their four children — William, Daniel, Jane and Julia — were also free.
Virginia required freed slaves to register, and the 1831 entry for West Ford described him as “a yellow man about forty-seven years of age, five feet eight and a half inches high, pleasant countenance, a wrinkle resembling a scar on the left cheek ….” Ford was a mulatto, a term of the time that was used to describe a person of one African and one European parent.
Bushrod Washington died in 1829. An associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years, Washington left West Ford 119 acres of land on the south side of Little Hunting Creek.
Ford sold his inherited land and used the proceeds in 1833 to purchase Samuel Collard’s Gum Spring Farm, a 214-acre tract on the north side of Little Hunting Creek. Collard sold the property to Ford for $500 and five annual installments of $84.80.
In 1857, Ford deeded his Gum Springs land to his four children, dividing the tract into equal parts of 52 3⁄4 acres. The property lines of those parcels coincide exactly with many of today’s lot lines, as well as the main north-south roads in Gum Springs — Holland, Andrus, and Fordson.
The present limits of Gum Springs correspond with the 214-acre parcel bought by West Ford in 1833.
By 1860, Ford and his daughter Jane’s husband, Porter Smith, were growing cash crops of corn, oats, and potatoes. The total tract was assessed at $1,800 in 1860, making West Ford the second-most wealthy freedman in Fairfax County.
Ford was near death in the summer of 1863 when staff members at Mount Vernon brought the weakened man back to the estate for his final days. He died on July 30 and The Alexandria Gazette marked his passing: “He was, we hear, in the 79th year of his age. He was well known to most of our older citizens.”
WEST FORD’S FATHER
“George Washington is my fifth great-grandfather,” Linda Allen Bryant declared on the CBS News TV show, “Sunday Morning” in February 2004. Her assertion, which she first made in 1996, created a stir on two fronts — historians regard George as childless, and Ms. Bryant is African-American.
Bryant, a descendent of Gum Springs founder West Ford, maintains that General Washington was Ford’s father. A health writer and pharmaceutical representative in Aurora, Colo., Bryant seemed to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings revelations in 1998 to draw attention to her claim.
The issue of southern plantation masters having their way with female slaves has simmered for years, largely among historians. But the controversy boiled over into the larger public consciousness following disclosures of Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings. Mulatto slaves were a common sight on Virginia’s plantations in the 1700s. They were the product of what some men then considered sport, and the slaves viewed as a loathsome manifestation of their plight.
THE FORD FAMILY ARGUMENT
Linda Bryant has written that John Washington sent Venus to comfort his brother George as a “sleep partner” during a visit by George to his brother’s home. The two surviving portraits of Ford show a resemblance to Washington men, and Ford’s freedom and inheritance reflected special status. Bryant expands her version of the family’s allegations in her novel, “I Cannot Tell a Lie.” She called it a “narrative history,” but the dialogue she injects into the subject is all hers.
Knowing that DNA testing resolved the Hemings’s family claims, the Ford descendents have pressed Mount Vernon for hair samples from the General. The Ladies Association has refused the request.
THE LADIES ASSOCIATION’S POSITION
The Mount Vernon Ladies Association has adamantly denied that General Washington fathered West Ford. “The Ford family contention is based on a family tradition,” said Dennis Pogue, Mount Vernon’s associate director of preservation in 2000. “We respect that, but if this is true, there should be other evidence to support it.” Pogue’s polite approach took a sharper edge in 2004, when he said, “there’s not a shred of evidence” to support the Ford family allegation. In late 2009, Pogue again reiterated Mount Vernon’s position.
Linda Allen Bryant continues to press her case in the court of public opinion, but her views are creating less and less interest.
long awaited unfinished second novel
I remember reading Invisible Man at the University of Michigan and being uncomfortable wanting to discuss the biracial aspect in my African American studies class. I did it anyway and of course came up against some opposition. But I held my ground. That was probably my first clue that this topic and the ensuing debate would become a passion of mine.
‘Important day for American literature’
CU prof helps publish Ralph Ellison’s unfinished novel
The Associated Press
BOULDER — Adam Bradley was a freshman in college and taking an African-American literature course when he first read “Invisible Man,” a novel that vivified America’s racial divide.
The book changed his life.
Ralph Ellison’s classic novel helped Bradley explore the complexity of his own biracial identity.
Adam Bradley is an associate professor of English at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
It also shaped the direction of his career, as Bradley became a writer and scholar — spending 15 years conducting the literary detective workneeded to bring Ellison’s second novel to fruition.
Ellison’s incomplete, posthumous piece “Three Days Before the Shooting … : The Unfinished Second Novel” goes on sale Tuesday (2/2/20).
Bradley, a University of Colorado associate professor, is one of two editors who made the book’s release possible.
In the book, a racist, “white” U.S. senator is assassinated by a black man who, it turns out, is the senator’s son. The senator’s surrogate father, who is black, tries in vain to save the senator.
“I’m feeling this tremendous degree of excitement at the prospect of sharing this book with Ellison’s readers,” Bradley said.
Bradley said he’s received e-mails from people who read “Invisible Man” in the 1950s and have since been waiting for a second book from Ellison.
“It’s an important day for American literature,” Bradley said.
He said that because the novel is incomplete, it prompts readers to become co-creators of the fiction.
“It’s a natural response — when presented with an incomplete story — to complete the story yourselves,” Bradley said. “
At the same time, it presents another opportunity to come to terms with indeterminacy.”
Later this year, Bradley will teach a CU graduate seminar on Ellison, and Yale University Press will publish “Ralph Ellison in Progress,” his critical exploration of Ellison’s fiction.
Ellison died in 1994, leaving behind 27 boxes of manuscript for his second novel that included handwritten notes, typewritten pages and 460-some computer files.
Just two months before his death, Ellison told The New Yorker Magazine that he was working on the second novel and that “there will be something very soon.”
As an undergraduate at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., Bradley became intrigued with Ellison, whose father died when he was a child.
A character in “Invisible Man” tells the protagonist: “Be your own father, young man.”
The rich theme of father-son relationships struck Bradley, who was raised by his white mother and met his black father for the first time in his 20s.
“Ellison was a clarifying voice for me during that part of my life,” Bradley said.
His professor at Lewis & Clark — John Callahan — happened to be a friend of Ellison’s and executor of Ellison’s estate.
Callahan, impressed with Bradley, asked him to co-edit the second novel.
At age 19, Bradley began cataloging Ellison’s writings. He earned his Ph.D. in English and American literature and language from Harvard University before fully devoting himself to the project.
In 1999, Callahan released a small portion of Ellison’s second novel in a work titled “Juneteenth.”
Today’s release of “Three Days Before the Shooting …” will give readers their first view of the most complete and cohesive version of Ellison’s magnum opus.
dumas disappointment
FRANCE: Race row in France after white actor used to play mixed race French national hero
FURIOUS BLACK campaigners in France have protested after filmmakers used a white actor to play legendary mixed race French writer and national hero, Alexandre Dumas.
In a film called L’Autre Dumas, Gerard Depardieu, who is blond and blue-eyed, was given darker skin and curly hair to play Dumas.
Dumas, the grandson of a Haitian slave and the son of a Napoleonic general, was mocked for his African features even as he created well-loved books such as the Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers. They are also high grossing hit films.
Patrick Lozès, the president of the Council of Black Associations of France (CRAN) told the Times: “In 150 years time could the role of Barack Obama be played in a film by a white actor with a fuzzy wig? Can Martin Luther King be played by a white?”The filmmakers also reportedly credited a fictional white assistant with creating some of Dumas’ well-loved books, The Times newspaper reported.
The campaigners said they are furious because the film not only uses a white actor, but seems to attempt to discredit Dumas’ genius, further bury his black origins and keep black actors off the screen.
“Possibly for commercial reasons they are whitewashing Dumas in order to blacken him further,” the Council said on its website.
do you know what today is?
hmmm
Initially upon reading this article I thought, “This is great! Mixed kids today are fairing better.” By the third time I read it though, I found it laughable. As if it’s some great revelation that for these individuals to actually embrace who they quite literally are will yield positive results. Not just for them, but maybe for everyone! Woweee!! Sounds like common sense to me. Common enough that I came to that conclusion without doing any studies at all. Well, I guess in all fairness I studied myself. Anyway, though I realize that because we have historically not been encouraged to do all of this embracing the notion may be considered “progressive,” I suppose it’s the assertion that this is merely ‘preliminary evidence’ that’s rubbing me the wrong way. As if the jury’s still out and maybe we’re better off with the twisted way we’ve been approaching this subject for centuries. On the other hand, maybe I should just be glad that the studies are being conducted at all. After all, I still come up against vehement opposition to my choice to identify as biracial daily. On youtube of course. Which doesn’t have much affect on me personally, but just goes to show that there’s more embracing to be done and that we’re definitely living in a society that needs some positive results as far as shifting the racial paradigm goes.
Multiracial identity associated with better social and personal well-being
Many people assume that individuals who identify with one race should be better off than multiracial individuals who identify with a mixed race heritage. However, a new study in the Journal of Social Issues found that students who reported they were from multiple ethnic/racial groups were more engaged at school and felt better in general than those who reported they were from a single group. Kevin Binning, Ph.D., Miguel Unzueta, Ph.D., Yuen Huo, Ph.D., and Ludwin Molina, Ph.D., surveyed roughly 180 high school students to see how they were doing in school and how they felt in general: were they experiencing stress, isolation, etc.? The study compared multiracial students who reported being from a single racial or ethnic group (i.e. Black, Mexican, White) with multiracial students who reported they were from various racial and ethnic groups (i.e. multiracial, Black and White, etc.).
On several indicators (i.e. happiness, stress, citizenship behavior, and school alienation), students who reported they were from multiple groups were more engaged in school and felt better than those who reported they were from a single group.
Results suggest there may be a positive link between the tendency to embrace a multiracial identity and social and personal well-being.
“The population of multiracial individuals is currently large and is likely to grow over time,” the authors note. “Our study provides preliminary evidence that encouraging such individuals to embrace their multiracial identity may yield positive results not only for them, but possibly for society more generally.”
mulatto diaries 