Teacher. Wife of Armistead for a time. Mother of Betsey and Maria. Born about 1820. Died date unknown.
She was so important, Lucy Skipwith was. The star pupil of Louisa Cocke when Lucy lived here at Bremo. Of course, this isn’t surprising—her parents were smart people, too: her dad, George, as the foreman at Lower Bremo, my dad’s predecessor in a sense; her mom, Mary, as the milkmaid at Upper Bremo, in the dairy I point out on each and every tour that comes through this place. Lucy was set up to excel.
Lucy managed two schools: the Sabbath school here at Bremo, and the infant school at The General’s Hopewell Plantation in Alabama. Contrary to popular belief, it was quite legal for The General to educate his slaves, as long as he did not hire someone to do so. The first teacher was Louisa, who trained Lucy. But just because it was legal does not mean it was popular. It seems fairly clear from the records that The General was beaten nearly to death in the nearby town of Fork Union for this choice. Even still he continued in this aim. Lucy—at risk herself—taught school for many years.
Lucy was married to a hard man—Armistead—or so she describes him when she leaves him in December 1865 and writes to ask her master’s forgiveness for this choice. A choice she took the first chance she could. Once she was free from one man’s hand, she chose to walk away from another. She says in her letter to The General:
I was sorry that I had to part from Armistead but I have lived a life of trouble with him; and a white man has ever had to judge between us, and so turned loose from under a master, I know that I could not live with him in no peace, therefore I left him for I wish to live a life of peace and die a death of both joy and peace and if you have any hard feelings against me on the subject, I hope that you will forgive me for Jesus sake.
I have such respect for her in this decision, even though I cannot know Armistead’s side of things. She did what she thought best, and she walked away. A brave act for a woman, particularly a woman of color, in December 1865.
Lucy’s strength shines in her love for her daughters, too. When Smith Powell, the overseer at Hopewell, offers to buy Lucy’s daughter Maria, Lucy combines her strength with words and her influence over The General to convince him to stop the sale. When her daughter Betsey has been having sex with a white man and The General wants to send her away, Lucy convinces him that she, the girl’s mother, can best bring her to hand. When I picture Lucy, I see her with hands on hips, her voice quiet but stern, a woman who knew the system and how to work it.
Both of her daughters had relationships with white men. I use the term “relationship” deliberately here. It is clear from the records that both Maria and Betsey had ongoing affairs with white men. Of course, in this time and in this place, rural Alabama in the 1860s, such relationships were verboten, illegal, dangerous if they were between a white man and a black woman he did not own. Other standards were in place for masters and their slaves.
It’s hard to know whether Maria and Betsey were consenting in these relationships—the account as told by Randall Miller in Dear Master seems to suggest they were—and that certainly is a possibility. It’s demeaning to say that a black woman could not be in a consensual relationship with a white man, and yet, it is clear that even if they were consenting in any way, their society was not.
Lucy must have been terrified for her daughters—terrified of what the men themselves might do, terrified of what The General could do, terrified of what other whites in the area might do, terrified for what her biracial grandchildren might experience. Yet, she did not let her fear overwhelm her; she used her words, her influence, her power to protect them. A good mother. A strong woman, without a doubt.
Lucy, like her father, George, lived in a space between. A slave certainly, but one to whom The General entrusted much and expected much. A person in authority over other slaves and yet still very much confined by the institution and beliefs of her master. It would be easy to read her as a person who capitulated, who gave in, but the way she—and this is the only word—manipulated The General to protect her daughters belies the idea that she was meek, passive, or deluded. The only word that fits to describe Lucy is shrewd.
Lucy’s strength and cleverness passed through her bloodline, playing out in the lives of her female descendants like Mattie Malone. Mattie moved from Birmingham, Alabama, to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1941, another family following the path of the Great Migration. Mattie and her husband were among the first black families to integrate the Shaker Heights neighborhood in Cleveland. At that time, integrating anything was at best uncomfortable and isolating, and at worst outright dangerous and violent. Then Mattie sidled right up to her legacy and started teaching public school. I wish I had known her.
Mattie’s daughter Carol—the woman whose joyful, teary voice called me to Lucy’s story like a beacon—has also been an educator and entrepreneur. Carol hasn’t caved to the weight of painful relationships and the struggles of life as a single woman. In fact, she has raised Lucy’s six-times great-granddaughter Samira to be wise and smart and confident. No doubt Lucy would be proud.
When I think of Lucy now, I see her as a young woman, thick braids lying against her back, a light blue dress hanging just a little short on her calf. I see her with Samira’s face, full of hope. I watch for her on the road when I leave the farm, see her looking back at me over her shoulder as she begins the long trek by wagon to Alabama. She waves to me and nods, a small smile on her face.