A talk last week by CML scholar Sheri Huerta at the historic Oatlands plantation in Leesburg looked at how the upheaval of Revolutionary War affected the lives and choices of enslaved and free Black people in Loudoun County. Huerta also studies the varied ways enslaved Virginians saw, in the war's turmoil, newfound opportunities to define liberty. Holder of a doctorate in history from George Mason University and the recipient of two teaching awards for her work as an adjunct faculty member, Huerta offers courses that explore the history of enslavement and constructs of race, gender and identity in American culture.
In her presentation at Oatlands, on March 22 (viewable on YouTube), she raised the questions, with regard to the coming semi-quincentennial, or 250th anniversary, of the Revolution, of how we will remember its events and effects. Looking at relevant stories and evidence, Huerta says we must ask, "What could be here but isn't said? And how might we see this as evidence of broader stories of people aren't necessarily within the set narrative?"
As an example of someone outside the traditional narrative, Huerta opened with the story of Daniel Coleman, a man she first came across in early 1800s war pension records. Coleman's pension claims raised questions similar to Huerta's about what and who deserves to be part of the conflict's narrative. A 93-year-old free man of color, Coleman stood before magistrates in 1827 to say (as Huerta phrased it), "I served in the Revolutionary War, and this is my story, and I want this to be remembered." Testifying that he had worked since then as a laborer and owned no property, Coleman sought benefits under an 1818 law granting stipends to impoverished veterans.
In addition to pension records, Huerta consulted documents filed by White people as a window into Black people's war roles. Looking at claims for restitution for war materiel, for example now stored on microfilm at the Library of Virginia, she cross-referenced them with listings of enslaved "tithables" on tax and estate filings to show the role of Black laborers in supplying the war. British and Virginia military documents and discussion offered another window into options for Black people, as they responded to British Lord Dunmore's promise of freedom for slaves who crossed over to fight for the crown. She explored reasons some individuals might have aligned with one side or the other, noting that Virginia militias were vexed by the problem of gauging whether (much needed) Black enlistees were in fact free, as they needed to claim, or escapees from bondage.
From newspaper advertisements about "runaways," Huerta pieced together further stories of enslaved people's new claims on liberty, including the actions of enslaved women and children. She told the story of Winney that begins the YouTube clip above. Winney, according to ads about her, escaped more than once in the 1770s. Both she and another escapee Huerta studied, Jenny, who boldly fled slavery while pregnant with a toddler in arms, likely passed as free women as a ruse to avoid recapture.
Huerta closed her talk by returning to the pensioner Coleman, who managed to find the witnesses required to buttress his assertion that he deserved to be remembered as "a citizen who rose to the call." Coleman, she said, was asking "the county, and the country, to remember his service and the role that he played in building our nation." In the same vein, Huerta asked, what should we look for, or look into more deeply, to more fully remember the Revolutionary era?
Huerta's presentation relied in part on a grant from the VA250 Commission and partnership with Virginia Humanities and was co-sponsored by the Black History Committee of the Friends of the Balch Library. She was preceded at the microphone by an archivist who assisted with her research, Loudoun County Court House Historic Records Manager Eric Larson.
Now a house and garden museum open to the public, Oatlands was established in 1798 by George Carter. His fortune originated with his great-grandfather, Robert "King" Carter, owner of the vast Northern Neck Proprietary and an enslaver of some 3,000 people. Though George Carter's father had effected a rare emancipation of all those he owned, more than 500 people, George did not share his father's compunctions about slavery and used his inheritance to acquire an enslaved work force for Oatlands.
April 01, 2025