Introduction

Earlier this year, I posted on this blog a list of 618 individuals enslaved and manumitted in Maryland during the 18th century. The names are taken from property deeds - also known as manumission or freedom deeds - filed with courts in five counties on the Western Shore between 1775 and 1785. My interest in this project grew out of my research on Johns Hopkins and his Quaker relatives in Maryland and Virginia. Although several of Johns’ forebears freed enslaved people during these years, the information contained in these freedom deeds is not presently captured by any public database[1]. The project is a way of reclaiming the names and identities of once-anonymous people, recognizing their humanity, and deepening our understanding of slavery in the Upper South. It is sobering work.

It can also be very frustrating work. I scan the names on my spreadsheet knowing that the scant facts I have collected – sex, age, location at time of manumission - may be the only information I ever learn about the individuals whose lives were governed by these contracts. Occasionally, I get lucky and find more information about specific people. Free Blacks in Maryland, for example, sometimes applied to local courts for freedom papers that often referenced prior manumission deeds. The individuals may also be listed in chancery records, court judgments, census lists, wills and other official documents that, if we are fortunate, still exist. This kind of evidence can supply additional details about a person - their appearance, where they worked, whether they were involved in civil disputes or criminal cases, and the like.

Connecting family groups is particularly difficult because during the eighteenth century enslaved people and even Free Blacks were almost always referred to by first name only. Of the 618 individuals recorded in our database, just 27 have surnames! Thus, unless the freedom deed or another document includes information about family ties - and they rarely do - it is not possible to know how the people listed related to one another.  

"Winters Alias Minta"

One name in a freedom deed drafted and filed by Johns Hopkins’ Grandaunt Mary Hopkins in 1782 leapt off the page. A “negro girl named Winters aged about twelve years.” Winters is an unusual name, and a particularly meaningful one. Scholars believe that the practice of enslaved people giving seasonal or weather-related names to their children is African in origin, linking them to the transatlantic slave trade.

The deed that mentions Winters is one of the first that I collected for the manumission project. Together with a student researcher, we logged all that we knew about Winters. She was 12 years old in 1782 and thus born around 1770.  According to Mary Hopkins’ deed, Winters would be “set free from bondage” when she reached the age of 18 in 1788. I suspected this was all I would ever know about Winters. I set Mary’s deed aside and turned to other work.

A few months later, I caught a lucky break. Lori Kimball, who works in the Historic Records Division at the County Courthouse in Leesburg, and I had been trading emails about court judgments associated with Johns Hopkins' mercantile firm and their customers in Loudoun County, Virginia. To see what else she could find about the company's connections to Loudoun, Lori ran a search of the court's archives for the name Hopkins and sent me the results. There was nothing about the Hopkins' firm, but one entry caught my eye. Among the Free Black Papers held by the court was a file that included a certificate of freedom for a woman “named Winters alias Minta.” Three people writing from Baltimore – Richard Hopkins, Rachel Thomas and John Cowman - attested to Minta’s free status, noting that Winters had been “legally and regularly manumitted by Mary Hopkins of Anne Arundel County."

Eureka! Minta Winters of Loudoun County is the same female named Winters in Mary Hopkins’ manumission deed date 1782. Lori located a few other pieces of information about Minta. In 1800, using the surname Hopkins, Minta bound out her 7-year-old son Bill to a man named Dublin Bitzett.  Beyond this, the case goes cold.

More Questions Than Answers

So far, Winters is the only formerly-enslaved person associated with the Hopkins family of Maryland who we know moved to Virginia. She is also the only person in our research project we know to  have used the surname Hopkins, if only for a short time. Of course, this new information raises more questions than it answers.

Why did Minta move from Anne Arundel County to Virginia? Did she relocate with others from Maryland? Did the Quakers in Loudoun County provide assistance? The witness for Minta’s COF in Loudon was a woman named Sarah Janney, very likely a maternal relative of Johns Hopkins and almost certainly a Quaker like Richard Hopkins, Rachel Thomas, and John Cowman.

Minta may have moved to Virginia for economic reasons or for personal reasons. More likely, both motivations played a role. Other records show that many free Black residents of Northern Virginia used the surname Winters, so she likely had kin living in the area. Perhaps Bill's apprenticeship with Dublin Bitzett was the primary reason for the move.

Conclusion

A field of study with roots in white supremacy, genealogy is now a critical tool for helping Black Americans reclaim their family histories. It holds the promise of connecting living people to their enslaved ancestors, and even to reparations. California has recently passed reparations legislation designed to address slavery's crimes against humanity, but only those who can prove a direct lineage to enslaved ancestors will be eligible for the payments.

We don't know if Minta Winters has living descendants, and we may never know. My hope, however, is that someone will see this post, or use the information we collected for our database of eighteenth century freedom deeds,  and make new connections. Maybe a story about Minta Winters or her son Bill has been passed down to her descendants, if any exist. Perhaps a document related to her life lies in a dusty attic somewhere, waiting to be discovered. 

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[1] For example, the Legacy of Slavery database at the MSA does not currently include information from manumission deeds filed as part of the state's land record system.

Postscript - Cyrus

Thinking about Minta Winters this Juneteenth weekend, I decided to go back to my Hopkins family tree on ancestry.com to see if I might find other clues about Minta Winters. I didn't notice anything new about Minta, but I did come across a runaway ad for a male named Cyrus, a "Mulatto Fellow," who had escaped from Gerard Hopkins, Jr., in 1764. Was Cyrus among the people included in Mary Hall Hopkins' manumission deed of 1782? Returning to my manumission database and the records collected (copies of all of the freedom deeds we reviewed are posted on OSF), I made an interesting discovery. The Cyrus of 1764 was not listed in Mary's deed, but a two-year-old boy also named Cyrus was. It is likely that this young Cyrus is related to the elder Cyrus who ran away in 1764. What became of that Cyrus? Was he caught? Was he related to Minta Winters? Can genealogy help solve these mysteries? And what about the younger Cyrus? A simple census search brings up a record for a free Black man, Cyrus Johnson, living in Howard County (at that time still part of Anne Arundel) near the location of Gerard and Mary Hopkins' former property and working as a farm laborer. Cyrus Johnson was born in 1780, the same year as the Cyrus manumitted by Mary Hopkins in 1782 and freed around 1801. 

Revision log

2/20/24 - Updated details regarding freedom deed database, made other minor edits.