SYMHC Classics: Lettuce, Slavery, and the Bibb Legacy

This 2022 episode starts with the story of John Bibb, credited with cultivating Bibb lettuce. But his family’s legacy, good and bad, is all tied to having enslaved people build their familial wealth. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Holly Frey?

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• 0:35Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 1:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:08Holly Frey?

  Hello and happy Saturday. So, the Bibb 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 Bibb lettuce. That episode ran on July 5, 2022. During that episode, we referenced the work of Lanay O'Neill, and she recently published a book about the story and her connection to it titled Bibb Country: Unearthing My Family Secrets of Land, Legacy, and Lettuce. That book is out now, and it is in my audiobook queue. I am very much looking forward to

• 2:47Holly Frey?

  reading it. And we are rerunning that 2022 episode on the Bibb family today. Enjoy.

• 2:56Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 3:07Holly Frey?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

• 3:10Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 3:12Holly Frey?

  Tracy, this episode was supposed to be another installment of eponymous food.

• 3:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, it went a different way, though.

• 3:20Holly Frey?

  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 a heads 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 are going to read a lot from writings

• 4:04Holly Frey?

  that were composed in the 1800s, so of course, some of the language there is a bit outdated. But first, we are going to talk about Bibb lettuce and the man who cultivated it.

• 4:16Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yes. I love it when episodes go in totally different directions from what they were planned.

• 4:22Holly Frey?

  Just a hard left.

• 4:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  So John Bigger Bibb was born on October 27th, 1789 in Prince Edward County, Virginia. His parents, Richard Bibb and Lucy Booker Bibb, 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. Bibb's early education was largely under Joshua Frye. That was a fellow Virginian who had moved to Mercer County, Kentucky. Frye's a pretty interesting figure in Kentucky history because when he moved there, he didn't think

• 5:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  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.

• 5:22Holly Frey?

  After his primary education, John Bibb studied law under Judge H. P. Broadnax. But before he could get his law career underway, the War of 1812 began and the 23-year-old Bibb joined the 4th Kentucky Volunteer Brigade. He began as a private and was promoted to the rank of major after the Battle of Thames in October of 1813. Although the war continued into 1815, 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

• 6:05Holly Frey?

  right after returning to Kentucky and opened his practice, he closed it down just a couple years later in 1816 due to poor health.

• 6:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1827, Bibb ran for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives as a Whig and won. He was reelected in 1828 and then ran for the Kentucky Senate, won again. He served in the state senate for four years from 1830 to 1834. During that time, he also married Sarah P. Horstley. Their wedding was on August 24th of 1831.

• 6:38Holly Frey?

  Bibb was an amateur horticulturalist and in 1845, 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 Bibb Burnley House and it has a historical marker. And it was there that he started working with lettuce.

• 7:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Over time, Bibb 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.

• 7:23Holly Frey?

  And Bibb was not cultivating this crop for profit. He gave most of it away. And it actually was not renamed Bibb lettuce and commercially sold until decades after his death, which happened in 1884. He had during his late lifetime, given away both lettuce and seeds. That was in the latter half of the 19th century. And subsequently, area farmers had started growing limestone lettuce for themselves. In 1919, the Greenwine Greenhouse of Louisville was the first to sell the lettuce with the name Bibb attached to it.

• 7:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  So that's the pretty benign story of where Bibb lettuce came from. Now we have to take a look at the deeper legacy of slavery within the Bibb family and John B. Bibb's role within that. To do that, we have to go back to his father, Richard Bibb.

• 8:13Holly Frey?

  So there's a historical marker outside of Major Richard Bibb's townhouse in Russellville, Kentucky. It was placed there by the Kentucky Historical Society in 1975, and that marker reads, quote, "Bibb, a Revolutionary War soldier, was born in Virginia, 1752. He came to Lexington, Kentucky in 1798, moved to Logan County the next year, where he built Bibb's Chapel. Later erected this house for his wife. Major Bibb freed 29 of his slaves in 1829 and sent them to Liberia. He died in 1839, and his will provided for the release of his other slaves and gave them land."

• 8:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  Here's the more detailed story. Richard was born in Goochlin County, Virginia, on April 13, 1752. His parents were John Bibb and Susanna Biggerbib, and during the Revolutionary War, Richard joined the Continental Army and rose to the rank of major.

• 9:10Holly Frey?

  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.

• 9:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1817, 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, 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

• 10:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  people never truly assimilating 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.

• 10:23Holly Frey?

  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.

• 10:35Holly Frey?

  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.

• 10:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 people to Africa was a good idea. So in 1829, he announced that he was emancipating one-third of his enslaved workforce on the condition that they would be sent to Liberia.

• 11:18Holly Frey?

  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 Bibb's reasoning here. He had just short of 100 enslaved people working for him in 1829. Some of those were entire families, self-contained within the Bibb family's holdings. But many were married to enslaved people who were owned by other families. So, according to this logic, he selected 31 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 manumit

• 12:00Holly Frey?

  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 Bibb's son-in-law, Dr. Bonorogos 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 Bibb 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.

• 12:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  We're going to talk about the only account of Bibb's emancipation announcement by a person who was there in just a moment. First, though, we'll pause for a quick sponsor break.

• 12:48Speaker 03

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• 12:51Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 13:19Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 13:31Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 13:43Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 14:28Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 14:55Holly Frey?

  We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.

• 15:37Holly Frey?

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• 15:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy

• 16:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 17:03Holly Frey?

  So there is an account of that announcement that this group of enslaved people would be emancipated, and it is the only firsthand 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 relayed it to a reporter in late 1897. Andrew would have been 73 at the time, and he would have been five in 1829, 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 Bibb in a very, very kind light.

• 17:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 end, on top of which was placed a Bible and a hymn book. In front and around him were nearly 100 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

• 18:23Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 black face 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 Bibb was selecting, the people who wanted to go to Africa.

• 19:05Holly Frey?

  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 M.B. 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? Like, there's nobody. M.B. 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

• 19:50Holly Frey?

  wrote called "Kentuckians Are Different." That didn't come out until 1938, so almost 40 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.

• 20:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  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, Missouri by wagon, then boarded a steamship for New Orleans. In New Orleans, they were taken aboard a brig called the Ajax on April 20, 1833. The oldest member of the group Bibb sent was a man in his 30s 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 Seek Museum that now exists on Bibb's former property. All the people Bibb emancipated for this journey were the direct descendants of enslaved

• 20:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  people known by the names Lucy and Kaziah. That couple had been enslaved by the Bibb family, going all the way back to Virginia.

• 20:58Holly Frey?

  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 like the wagon driver, anybody that explains why that took two and a half years. Even then, that seems like an extraordinarily long time. Uh, 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 Kaziah's family from the Bibb properties, there were 118 other enslaved people being emancipated through this journey. They were mostly from Kentucky.

• 21:40Holly Frey?

  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 30 and 40, but it's not 100% 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 Bibb 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, 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.

• 22:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 $5,000 to be divided out among them and paid

• 23:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 due 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. Norris, and Robert Norris is to be divided among them at the discretion of my executors, and also

• 23:47Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 biz that part of most remote from the dwelling house to include the Smith's shop.

• 24:28Holly Frey?

  Major Bibb 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."

• 25:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Major Bibb died, his son John wrote two letters to his older brother, George M. Bibb, who had been a U.S. Senator and was serving as the 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 in wills and trusts was just unmatched.

• 25:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  George's response was 12 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 Bibb named for emancipation. We're not going to read this whole thing. Again, it is 12 pages long. That would be the whole podcast, really. We'll read some excerpts of it, though, to show how George Bibb made the case to his brother that he could hang on to assets that were mentioned in the will for as long as possible.

• 26:03Holly Frey?

  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 effect 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

• 26:47Holly Frey?

  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 and 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."

• 27:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 at his father giving so much land and money toward his emancipation provisions and why people expected that he would try to contest the will, it's also reported that Major Bibb left his children well cared for financially. It was even mentioned in his death announcement.

• 27:55Holly Frey?

  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 your 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 believes 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. We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed

• 28:38Holly Frey?

  is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype

• 29:22Holly Frey?

  on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with Vive Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends,

• 30:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:30Speaker 05

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• 32:42Holly Frey?

  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."

• 33:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 $5,000 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 collegitaries;

• 34:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 their 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

• 34:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 collegitaries in 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."

• 35:17Holly Frey?

  After this, George invoked a 1794 law that Kentucky had passed regarding provisions for emancipating enslaved people. That law stipulated that anyone trying to manumit an enslaved person had to, quote, "writing under his or her hand and seal, attested and proved 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."

• 35:59Holly Frey?

  So in short, if someone wanted to manumit a person, they had to promise and make provisions to ensure that the manumitted person would not become a burden on the state.

• 36:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 54 people named in the will for emancipation.

• 36:31Holly Frey?

  Yeah, you can see him building his case 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 hire 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

• 37:16Holly Frey?

  of equality 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."

• 37:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  Next, George Bibb 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 that ensures that all the desires of the testator have been met as the executor sees best, and that

• 38:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  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. Says that's an injustice.

• 38:39Holly Frey?

  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 Bibb 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 $5,000 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.

• 39:23Holly Frey?

  If the executors exercise the power of selling the land, 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 division shall become proper."

• 39:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 shaped an entire community and in ways that are still felt today.

• 40:08Holly Frey?

  John B. Bibb did take in this letter, and he did start manumitting his father's enslaved workforce in waves, starting in February of 1840. It was about a month after that emancipation was supposed to start, according to the will. The first group was 10 people. 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 Bibb's will. It's an area that became known as Bibb Town. That's actually two communities, Upper Bibb Town and Lower Bibb Town. But even so, the actual deeds to those lands were not fully granted until the late 1870s,

• 40:52Holly Frey?

  so nearly 40 years after Major Bibb had died. Presumably, some of those people that had been emancipated had died in that interim 40 years. Other people left the area and moved to larger cities like Louisville or out of the state entirely.

• 41:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  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 Bibb, even if they didn't own that land outright, these were still free black people living in a slave state before the Civil War. It was not safe for them. There was always a risk of being re-enslaved or being targeted with violence.

• 41:33Holly Frey?

  And we have to go back to the lettuce because in having been left very comfortable when his father passed, John B. Bibb was able to have leisure time with which to cultivate his plants and develop that limestone lettuce. Listen, no shade to Bibb 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 Bibb is often cited as one of the richest men in Kentucky.

• 42:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  Today, Major Bibb's home is museum, the Seek 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 and the museum's mission is to tell the stories of the enslaved people emancipated by Major Richard Bibb.

• 42:28Holly Frey?

  In 2019, there was a reunion at that museum and anyone who was related to Bibb, 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 Bibb property prior to Major Bibb's death had absolutely been fathered by him.

• 42:47Holly Frey?

  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 Lanay O'Neill, which was written for the site Anscape, 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.

• 43:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  There's another reunion planned this fall. It's 2022. This is in September for Bibb's descendants. And there'll be a new documentary debuted at that one titled "Invented Before You Were Born," which examines the issues of the Bibb story and its legacy. And you can get more information about that at seekmuseum.org. That's S-E-E-K museum.org.

• 43:32Holly Frey?

  Mm hmm. Um, yeah, not about lettuce. Sort of about lettuce. I just, it's one of those things where you realize like, oh, this, 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.

• 43:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is [email protected]. And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 44:16Holly Frey?

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• 44:46Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 45:52Tracy V. Wilson?

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