Saturday, March 3, 2018

William Grimes

This post will be short tonight and is meant to add more information to the previous one. In Janis Wilson I have a fantastic collaborator! She has located what's likely proof that I'm wrong about my assumption concerning the Coleman/Solomon Thead name.

So read on. But it's not gonna be an easy read...

Janis located this passage in the book The Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave: 
Page from THE LIFE OF WILLIAM GRIMES, the RUNAWAY SLAVE, published 1825

Some quick research on my part pretty much allowed for the possibility of this Coleman Thead's being the one who served in Alabama during the War of 1812. 
You might look at these two articles.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/grimes25/summary.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grimes_(ex-slave)
  
I'm changing some details in my previous post about Coleman/Solomon. I'm still very puzzled how Dunbar Rowland's Mississippi Territory in the War of 1812 got this one wrong.
But I've written before about handwriting and faded pages, so I'm betting that a transcriber just got it wrong for that publication. It's not so far from "Coleman" to "Solomon," after all. And I definitely take the word of a contemporaneous inhabitant of the area where Coleman lived--especially one who suffered at his hands. 

I ordered the book Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave tonight and will start reading it on my Kindle before the hard copy arrives. Perhaps I'll get to the part describing the overseer Coleman Thead who worked on Col. William Thornton's plantation in Culpeper, Virginia.

And in the meantime, those changes have been made on my previous post. Thanks to Janis Wilson for her help with this one!  

Ælfwine
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2 comments:

  1. Erin T.March 3, 2018 at 8:53 PM

    This bothers me more than the Claughton information in the Alawine blog. I think it's because this is a detailed, specific account of hideously abusive behavior, whereas the Claughton information... well, without any details given, we 21st century white people COULD tell ourselves something like "well, people thought differently then, so within that social system, we don't know how they TREATED their slaves, and we don't know that Mr. Claughton HIMSELF killed any Indians." Even unconsciously, even if we know better on an intellectual level, even if we know that slavery is an abhorrent, evil practice and that, in fact, Claughton almost certainly did shed Native blood, we can tell ourselves comforting stories if we don't have proof to the contrary. (I say "21st century white people" in this case, but I expect this is a human instinct.)

    We're not our ancestors. We're not responsible for their deeds, bad OR good. And one Thead whom I did know integrated the bank he worked for.

    But still, ouch.

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    Replies
    1. ÆlfwineMarch 3, 2018 at 9:45 PM

      Yep. This particular one was a shocker. I totally understand your sentiments. I had similar feelings about the Claughton post as I composed it: "UGH."

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