SYMHC Classics: Lettuce, Slavery, and the Bibb Legacy

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Speaker 1: Hello, and Happy Saturday. So the Bib family has popped up a couple of times in recent episodes, and we actually talked about this family and its legacy in our episode where we also covered the development of the variety of lettuce named after them, the Bib Lettuce. That episode ran on July fifth, twenty twenty two. During that episode, we referenced the work of Lenay O'Neill, and she recently published a book about the story and her connection to it, titled Bib Country Unearthing My Family, Secrets of Land, Legacy and Lettuce. That book is out now and it is in my audiobook Q. I am very much looking forward to reading it. And we are rerunning that twenty twenty two episode on The Bib Family today. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy. This episode was supposed to be another installment of eponymous food. Yeah, it went a different way though it is not. It is little, but as I got into the story of one of those foods, it really unfurled quite quickly into a much bigger and much more important story about the family of a man who cultivated lettuce in his later life just as it hits up. I promise there's another eponymous food coming at some point, but it's not today. This story is I think, really important because it offers a snapshot of a very rich person's choice to emancipate his enslaved workforce, the way his family received that information, and how their legacy, both good and bad, is all tied to having enslaved people building their familial wealth. Heads up, We're going to read a lot from writings that were composed in the eighteen hundreds, so of course some of the language there is a bit outdated. Uh. But first we are going to talk about bib lettuce and the man who cultivated it. Yes, I love it when episodes go in totally different directions from what they were playing, just a hard left. So John Bigger bib who was born on October twenty seventh, seventeen eighty nine, in Prince Edward County, Virginia. His parents, Richard Bibb and Lucy Booker bib moved from Virginia to Kentucky when John was about nine years old. We're going to get back to Richard in a moment and talk about him a lot more. They shifted around Kentucky for a bit. First they lived in Fayette County and then in Bullet, where Richard Bibb purchased assault works. Then they went to Logan County and established a large and successful farm. Bib's early education was largely under Joshua fry That was a fellow Virginia who had moved to Mercer County, Kentucky. Fry is a pretty interesting figure in Kentucky history because when he moved there, he didn't think there was an adequate educational system, so he opened up a school out of his house, and then a lot of prominent people in Kentucky's history were educated by Joshua Frye. After his primary education, John Bibb studied law under Judge HP. Broadnacks. But before he could get his law career underway, the War of eighteen twelve began and the twenty three year old bib joined the fourth Kentucky Volunteer Brigade. He began as a private and was promoted to the rank of major after the Battle of Thames in October of eighteen thirteen. Although the war continued into eighteen fifteen. John Bibb was discharged just a month after his promotion and returned to Kentucky. And it's a little unclear, at least in the documents that I had available to me, why he was discharged so soon after being made major. It very well might have been a health issue, though this is supported by the fact that although he passed the bar right after returning to Kentucky and opened his practice, he closed it down just a couple years later in eighteen sixteen, due to poor health. In eighteen twenty seven, bib ran for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives as a Whig and one. He was re elected in eighteen twenty eight and then ran for the Kentucky Senate one again. He served in the state Senate for four years, from eighteen thirty to eighteen thirty four. During that time, he also married Sarah P. Horseley. Their wedding was on August twenty fourth of eighteen thirty one. Bib was an amateur horticulturist, and in eighteen forty five he purchased land to support his hobby. He built his home, Gray Gables, on a property in Frankfurt Kentucky on Wapping Street. That's usually touted as he built it for his wife, and it included a large greenhouse, and there was a substantial garden, and today that's known as the Bib Burnley House and it has a historical marker, and it was there that he started working with lettuce. Over time, Bib developed something he called limestone lettuce. It was a lettuce that grew well in Kentucky's limestone rich soil. It was naturally resistant to a number of pests, including plant lice. It's also really tender, and it grows in a pretty compact head. And Bib was not cultivating this crop for profit. He gave most of it away and it actually was not renamed Bib Lettuce and commercially sold until decades after his death, which happened in eighteen eighty four. He had during his late lifetime given away both lettuce and seeds. That was in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and subsequently area farmers had started growing limestone lettuce for themselves. In nineteen nineteen, the green Wine Greenhouse of Louisville was the first to sell the lettuce with the name Bib attached to it. So that's the pretty benign story of where bib Lettuce came from. Now we have to take a look at the deeper legacy of slavery within the bib family and John B. Bibb's role within that. To do that, we have to go back to his father, Richard Bibb. So there's a historical marker outside of Major Richard Bibbs townhouse in Russellville, Kentucky. It was placed there by the Kentucky Historical Society in nineteen seventy five, and that marker reads quote bib a Revolutionary War soldier, was born in Virginia seventeen fifty two. He came to Lexington, Kentucky in seventeen ninety eight, moved to Logan County the next year, where he built Bibb's Chapel. Later erected this house for his wife. Major bib freed twenty nine of his slaves in eighteen twenty nine and sent them to Liberia. He died in eighteen thirty nine, and his will provided for the release of his other slaves and gave them land. Here's the more detailed story. Richard was born in Goochland County, Virginia, on April thirteenth, seventeen fifty two. His parents were John Bib and Susannah Bigger Bib, and during the Revolutionary War, Richard joined the Continental Army and rose to the rank of major. When Richard moved his family to Kentucky, he brought with them a large number of enslaved people. He had actually been the second largest slaveholder in Prince Edward County, Virginia. In eighteen seventeen, the American Colonization Society was formed in the US. Its goal was to provide an alternative to emancipation within the US for black enslaved people when the option of being shipped to Africa. This has come up in several previous episodes, most recently in our episode on Paul Cuffey. There were supporters of this idea who believed that it would truly be a viable option for free black people. There were also people who just saw this as a solution from a racist standpoint, it would get those free black people out of the United States. Both abolitionists and pro slavery white people used similar rhetoric about free black people never truly a similating into white society. So for the pro slavery crowd, this was seen as a condition of emancipation. The emancipated person would then leave the country, did not matter if they had been born and raised in the United States and had no real ties to Africa at this point, and Major Richard Bibb so again. Lettuce John Bibb's father, had at some point in his later life, realized that the institution of slavery was wrong. This was a position that is usually attributed to his religious studies and becoming a minister. There are some versions of his life story that indicate that one of the people that he enslaved had been the one to encourage him to become a Methodist minister, after he had initially been on a path to be an Episcopalian minister, and he had connections to the American Colonization Society. He was friends with Henry Clay, who was one of the society's founders. Richard eventually decided that the plan to relocate emancipated black peace people to Africa was a good idea, so in eighteen twenty nine, he announced that he was emancipating one third of his enslaved workforce on the condition that they would be sent to Liberia. There is a little bit of fractured logic about why only one third were going to be manumitted, and it's sometimes cited as Major Bib's reasoning here. He had just short of one hundred enslaved people working for him in eighteen twenty nine. Some of those were entire families self contained within the bib Families' holdings, but many were married to enslaved people who were owned by other families. So, according to this logic, he selected thirty one that no other white family could claim ownership over, believing that that would be better than breaking up families. Yes, there is some logic to that, but it also conveniently ignores the fact that Major Bibb almost certainly possessed the wealth to purchase and manument any number of enslaved people had he wanted to keep families together. The one exception to this whole scenario was a man named Richard Morton. He had been owned by Bibbs's son in law, doctor Bonarogos Roberts, and he was married to a woman named Hannah, who was part of Major Bibb's enslaved workforce. According to a number of accounts, the enslaved people that Bibbs selected were ones who also wanted to go to Liberia rather than remain enslaved, although there is no way to verify that, and sometimes it reads very conveniently in retellings of this story. We're going to talk about the only account of Bibb's emancipation of an announcement by a person who was there in just a moment first, though, will pause for a quick sponsor break. So there is an account of that announcement that this group of enslaved people would be emancipated, and it is the only first hand account that we have. It is not without problems, and we'll talk about that in a moment. This account was given by a formerly enslaved man named Andrew Bibb, who related to a reporter in late eighteen ninety seven. Andrew would have been seventy three at the time, and he would have been five in eighteen twenty nine when the events that he recounted took place. And we're going to read this account, but before we do, please know that it is really very romanticized. It puts Major bib in a very very kind light. So this account reads, in part quote, in the center of the yard stood an old gentleman with uplifted hands, and beside him was a barrel on ends, on top of which was placed a Bible and a hymn book. In front and around him were nearly one hundred slaves. Twenty nine of these were about to start as free men and women in the land of their fathers in far off Africa, after several generations of servitude in America. The old man asked a divine blessing upon them. Since his youth he had cared for them, and before that they or their parents had belonged to his father. He believed slavery was wrong, and was taking the initial step toward putting into execution a long cherished plan. He was about to send one third of his slaves to Liberia, the others he intended to liberate at his death. He had read a chapter in the Bible and had given out a hymn, And when his prayer was finished, many a blackface was bathed in tears, and the slaves gathered about and shook old Master's hand for the last time and heard the accent of his kindly voice. This goes on to say that the people chosen for the journey were quote shiftless and refractory, obstinately resistant to authority or control, unruly. So that last quote, of course, contradicts the framing that bib was selecting the people who wanted to go to Africa. So Andrew Bibb's story was published in the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky. It was written by a reporter named M. B. Morton. Sometimes this story, as it's relayed, is told as though it's a direct quote from Andrew. I don't think that was ever the intention. It's a direct quote of mb Morton about the story as told to him, And we don't know if the account was edited or altered, although it certainly seems likely. I don't know anybody who speaks in such prosy, you know what I mean. I mean nobody. Mb Morton, we should say, kind of made a career out of talking about slave narratives. He went on to write extensively about Kentucky's enslaved population, including in a book he wrote called Kentuckians Are Different that didn't come out until nineteen thirty eight, so almost forty years later. That's also a book that he dedicated to the state's enslaved population. As his educators so there's a lot to unpack there. I just want to acknowledge sort of what was going on with it. We do know that it took several years for the plan to move all of those people to actually be executed. They were taken to Clarksville, Zuri by wagon, then boarded a steamship for New Orleans. In New Orleans, they were taken aboard a brig called the Ajax on April twentieth, eighteen thirty three. The oldest member of the group bibsent was a man in his thirties named Andrew, and the youngest was just a little over six months old. All of them, according to research done by Michael Morrow, museum director for the Sikh Museum that now exists on Bibb's former property, all the people Bib emancipated for this journey were the direct descendants of enslaved people known by the names Lucy and Keziah. That couple had been enslaved by the Bib family going all the way back to Virginia. We also don't know exactly why it took two and a half years to get them onto this ship after the announcement. That's all a little unclear in these retellings, and there doesn't seem to be like a journal or anything kept by any of the wagon drive anybody that explains why that took two and a half years. Even then, that seems like an extraordinarily long time. The voyage of the Ajax was paid for with funding from the American Colonization Society and the Kentucky Colonization Society. And in addition to Lucy and Keziah's family from the Bib properties, there were one hundred eighteen other enslaved people being emancipated through this journey. They were mostly from Kentucky. There was also a white missionary and an agent of the Tennessee Colonization Society named H. D. King. This journey was really rough. There was a cholera outbreak on the ship which killed several dozen people. Those numbers are usually quoted as between thirty and forty, but it's not one hundred percent clear. A Black minister named Abel Long visited Liberia years later, and he reported that he was unable to make contact with any of the people from the Bib group, although he was told that two of the women had survived and had gone into the jungle to live. That account is very strange. I read it in one newspaper, and it's also very sensationalized. There's language I did not care to include here. The rest of the people who went appeared to have died when Major Bibb died, as was indicated on that historical marker we mentioned earlier. He did as promised, emancipate his remaining enslaved workforce. He once again indicated a desire for some of them to go to Liberia, and he also offered an alternate plan. Here's the pertinent passage from his will. Quote. I do hereby emancipate all of my slaves from and after the first day of January next after my death, and desire that all of them who have not wives or husbands in bondage, be sent to Liberia. I give to my slaves hereby emancipated five thousand dollars, to be divided out among them, and paid out to them from time to time according to the discretion of my executors. And all of my stock of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs, farming tools, wagons and carts, and crops made the year of my decease, or that may be on hand. And each slave hired out to the hire do for the year in which I shall decease. I also give to said slaves all my lands which are unsold or undisposed of in the County of Grayson of this state. The land in the County of Logan conveyed to me by Benjamin Tompkins, Ralph E. Nourse, and Robert Norse is to be divided among them at the discretion of my executors. And also the land in Logan conveyed to me by Mark Harden, and about thirty acres adjoining it, conveyances to be made by my executors or either of them, And they are hereby authorized to sell and convey any of the land or either property hereby given to my emancipated slaves, and divide or lay out the money for their benefit. I give to my Errand the house and lots on which he lives in Russellville, and his carpenter tools, as his portion of the legacies left my emancipated slaves. I give to my woman Clarissa's is that part of most remote from the dwelling house, to include the smith's shop. Major bib then included a long list of names of the emancipated enslaved. They are listed only by first name. This part of the will then concludes with quote, I give to my slaves by this will emancipated my two lots under the Knob near M. B. Morton's and two fractional lots in Saunders, addition to Russellville near James Bell's stable, and a fractional lot near William Duncan's and William First's near the Public Square, to be divided and conveyed to them at the discretion of my executors. When Major bib died, his son John wrote two letters to his older brother, George M. Bibb, who had been a US Senator and was serving as a judge of the Jefferson County Court of Chancery when their father died. The first letter informed George of the Major's passing, and then the second asked for George's thoughts on the will because George's expertise and wills and trusts was just unmatched. George's response was twelve pages long, and he did not agree with his father's wishes, but he also knew he couldn't really contest the will. Although the advice that he gives to his brother is not in the interest of the people that Major Bib named for emancipation. We're not going to read this whole thing again. It is twelve pages long. That would be the whole podcast. Really. We'll read some excerpts of it, though, to show how George Bib made the case to his brother that he could hang on to assets that were mentioned in the will for as long as possible. Yeah, this, I have feelings about this letter. George's letter opens with some niceties towards John discusses that their father has died, and early on it includes this passage quote, what a in fact the experiment our father has made in sending negroes to Liberia, and in setting out some to work for themselves near him, might have had in changing his mind upon the subject of emancipation. I did not know. The will which he has left shows that his mind was unaltered. It is done poor, as I am struggling at my time of life, by the most intense application to the duties, which does not afford any surplus at the year's end above the expenses of my family. Yet I would not for the property bequeathed by the will for all the Negroes nor the value ten times told, insult the memory of our father by and attempt to set aside the writing he has published as his last will and testament. Whoever suggested an intention on my part to oppose the will or to endeavor to break it, did but little understand my thoughts or temper, spoke at random without color of authority from me, and did me great injustice. At this point in his life, George had enjoyed a lot of success, but he had, for reasons that are kind of nebulous, gotten to the point where his finances were pretty lean by the time his father died. The only reasons he cites when discussing his financial problems were the banking system and quote my own confiding temper. So while you might understand his dismay and his father giving so much land and money towards his emancipation provisions, and why people expected that he would try to contest the will, It's also reported that Major Bib left his children well cared for financially. It was even mentioned in his death announcement. Yeah, I'm always suspicious of anyone who's like even though I am in the worst position, I would never try to do anything like when that's you're open, I'm going to lean back. Aside from insisting that he would never insult his father's memory, George makes his opinions pretty clearly known in this letter about how he believed the will should be executed, And we are going to dig into all of that after we first take a little break and hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going. George Bibb makes clear in his letter that he believed his father was wrong in emancipating slaves. He did not side with abolitionists. This writing is for me infuriating to read, and it includes the following quote, The emancipation of a large number of negroes, male and female, helpless and infirm, old and young, would provide a nuisance to society as well as an injury to the Negroes. And he hints that the key to managing the situation in the way he thinks would avoid problems is in the executor's hands, although he also adds quote the extent of discretionary powers given to his executors is not clear of difficulty. So remember, George Bibb was an expert in wills. He had practiced law was able to build a case, and as he continues with this, it definitely seems like he's trying to show his brother John that there is just so much gray area in the will when it comes to the specifics of the apportionment. So he continues quote to apply these rules to the will. I give to my slaves hereby emancipated five thousand dollars to be divided out amongst them, and paid out to them from time to time according to the discretion of my executors. The extent of the discretion which the executors are to exercise under the clause respects first the division amongst these collegiatearies, second the time of the payments. The important question is may the executors divide the money in unequal shares? If the shares are to be equal, share and share alike to each legatary. If the executors cannot exercise a discretion by giving five shillings to one and eighty dollars to another from time to time, graduated by the incapacities, families and infirmities which enter into the question of the respective abilities or inabilities to labor for self support, there the sentence would be no more operative by the presence of those words divided out amongst them, than if those were expunged and the Testament left with the words to be paid to them from time to time according to the discretion of my executors. By denying a discretionary power to the executors to make the division amongst the collegiatearias and unequal portions, the one member of the sentence would be made expletive with no effect whatever, contrary to the rule that every word shall have effect if consistent with the other parts of the Testament. After this, George invoked a seventeen ninety four law that Kentucky had passed regarding provisions for emancipating enslaved people. That law stipulated that anyone trying to manument an enslaved person had to quote writing under his or her hand and seal a test had improved in the county court by two witnesses, That paperwork had to be filed with the court, and the quote. Court shall have full power to demand bond and sufficient security of the emancipator, his or her executors or administrators, as the case may be, for the maintenance of any slave or slaves that may be aged or infirm, either of body or mind, to prevent their becoming chargeable to the county. So, in short, if someone wanted to manument a person, they had to promise and make provisions to ensure that the manumented person would not become a burden on the state. George wrote of the law and reminded his brother John that this responsibility fell to him as executor, and that it cost money just to file the paperwork. He noted that for every certificate of emancipation, the law authorizes the clerk to charge a fee of five shillings. Then he reminds his brother that there are fifty four people named in the will for emancipation. Yeah, you can see him building his case of like this is a huge burden on you. We got to protect you. And he follows up by trying to show John that maybe their father really didn't think the money part through in other ways writing quote. But then again in another part of the Testament, to each slave hired out, the higher due for such slave for the year ensuing the death of the testator is specifically devised to that slave, which shows the equality of legacies to each slave emancipated was not in the mind or will of the testator, but that emancipation was the general object of the will, and not the fund of money. As well as the lands placed at the discretion of his executors, was not for the purpose of a quality of legacies to each slave, but an absolute and unconfined discretion to be exercised by his executors for support of the many, according to circumstances, such as he himself would have exercised if he in this lifetime would have emancipated them and come under the positive engagement to the courts to keep them from becoming a charge to the county. Next, George bib warns John that being the executor of their father's fortune is going to bring out the worst in people, adding quote, you and your brother Richard are to have some trouble in the execution of the trust, in all probability by reason of the interference of low minded ignorance and interested knavery by persons who will stimulate the negroes and speculate upon their interests and poverty. If you do not have so such you are fortunate above the condition of society here in Louisville. Then he talks about how the funds have to be carefully managed in a way then ensures that all the desires of the testator have been met as the executor sees best, and that if all the assets are distributed, then the executor is left on the hook for any additional funds that are needed because of any emancipated people aging or no longer being able to work, because that's an injustice. He literally uses that word. This all sums up to a man urging his brother to not distribute everything, but instead to hold the funds in reserve to manage and dole out over time. The implication here is that the emancipated people wouldn't handle the money they were given properly, and then the bib family would be on the hook to make good financially with the county and state. He spells this out pretty clearly in this passage quote. The time of payment and applications of the sum of five thousand dollars specifically denoted being left by the will uncertain to be judged by the executors. According to the circumstances, The executors cannot be chargeable for interest unless for manifest delay and abuse. Contrary to the trust if the executors exercise the power of selling the lands, such funds so raised as shall not be divided or intended to be divided in their discretion presently after received, ought to be put out to interest until such divisions shall become proper. We're going over this document and quoting it so closely because it's an important example of how anti abolitionists could make a case that it was in everyone's best interests not to give enslaved black people full emancipation or assets, even when it was somebody's will that they do so. It's also important because it informed decisions that shapes an entire community and in ways that are still felt today. John B. Bib did take in this letter and he did start manumitting his father's enslaved workforce in waves, starting in February of eighteen forty. It was about a month after that emancipation was supposed to start according to the will. The first group was ten. They went as a group to the Logan County Courthouse for their freedom papers and they did get them, and these were followed by additional groups. None of the emancipated people chose to go to Liberia. Many of them moved to the land that had been set aside for them in Major Bib's will. It's an area that became known as Bibtown. That's actually two communities, Upper Bibtown and Lower Bibtown. But even so, the actual deeds to those lands were not fully granted until the late eighteen seventies, so nearly forty years after Major Bib had died. Presumably some of those people that had been emancipated had died. In that interim forty years other people left the area and moved to larger cities like Louisville or out of the state entirely. And it's important to remember that even once those who stayed had been emancipated and were living on land that had been set aside by Major Bib, even if they didn't own that land outright, these were still free black people living in a slave state. For the Civil War, it was not safe for them. There was always a risk of being re enslaved or being targeted with violence. And we have to go back to the lettuce because in having been left very comfortable when his father passed, John b. Bib was able to have leisure time with which to cultivate his plants. And develop that limestone lettuce listen no shade to Bib Lettuce I like it, but that inheritance that afforded all of that was possible due to the work of the hundreds of enslaved people his father had owned over the years and who had worked on his land, enabling him to amass a huge amount of wealth. Major Bib is often cited as one of the richest men in Kentucky. Today. Major Bib's home is a museum, the Sikh Museum, which stands for Struggles for emancipation and Equality in Kentucky. It's actually spread out among six buildings on two sites. The buildings have been restored in The museum's mission is to tell the stories of the enslaved people emancipated by Major Richard bibb. In twenty nineteen, there was a reunion at that museum and anyone who was related to Bib, both black and white, was invited to attend. And that's because it is highly likely and widely believed that some of the enslaved children on the Bib property prior to Major Bib's death had absolutely been fathered by him. There are quite a few articles written about that reunion a lot of them are very feel good, but I would recommend one by journalist Linney O'Neil, which was written for the Site and Scape, and it's titled The Bitter Harvest of Richard Bibb, a descendant of slavery confronts her inheritance. It is a very frank piece of writing about the pain of such scenarios, things like this big feel good reunion for some of the black attendees. There's another reunion planned this ball. It's twenty twenty two. This is in September for Bibb's descendants, and there'll be a new documentary debut at that one titled Invented Before You Were Born, which examines the issues of the Bibs story and its legacy. And you can get more information about that at seek museum dot org. That's see k Museum dot org. Yeah, man, not about Lettuce, sort of about Lettus. I just it's one of those things where you realize, like, oh, this cute story about food is really about the people that made it possible for a white guy to have leisure time to make that food. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note our email addresses, History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.