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VIOLET LESTER
Among the Joseph Allred Papers at the Duke Special Collections Library in
Durham, North Carolina is a handwritten letter from Vilet (Violet) Lester of
Bulloch County, Georgia, to Patsey Padison (Patterson) of Randolph County,
North Carolina. The letter is dated 29 August 1857. Violet was a slave to
James B. Lester. Patsey Patterson was the wife of James Patterson and the
daughter of Joseph Allred (born 15 September 1772, died 27 February 1856).
According to the archivists:
Slave letters are very rare documents. This letter from Vilet Lester
is one of less than a dozen such letters we have been able to identify
among the vast amount of plantation records held at the Duke Special
Collections Library. In this particular case, Vilet's letter stands
alone with virtually no other documents – no slave lists, work records,
or owner's letters – to give us further information about her.
Photographic images of the letter, and a full transcription, are posted HERE
Violet states that she was constrained to leave her “Long Loved home and
friends” in Randolph County. She was taken first to Goldsboro, North
Carolina, where she left her little girl with Mr. Walker (who said he was
going to take her to his sister in Rockingham, North Carolina); thence to
Richmond, Virginia, where she was sold to Mr. Groover, who brought her to
Georgia; and was later sold to Mr. Rimes, and then to Mr. Lester, in Bulloch
County, Georgia. This was her chain of title. Mr. Lester told her he would
keep her 'til death. The total elapsed time since she had left Randolph
County was no less than four years, nine months, five weeks, and three days,
which establishes her departure date as no later than 22 October 1852.
Violet wanted badly to see “my Loving Miss Patsy” (Patsey Patterson, to whom
the letter is addressed), “old Boss” (Joseph Allred), “Miss Rahol” (Rachael
Allred), “bailum” (Balaam Allred, son of Joseph and Rachael), and her own
mother, her brothers, and her sister. She asked “whether old Boss is Still
Living” (he was not, having died eighteen months earlier); “whether bailum is
married or no” (he was a school teacher who never did marry); and “what has
Ever become of my Presus little girl,” whom her new “Boss” (Mr. Lester)
wished to buy for her, “to grant my trubled breast that mutch gratification.”
The archivists raise many questions – when was Violet born, were she and
Patsey raised together as children, and whether she actually wrote this
letter or had some one write it for her.
The Allred family website states that Joseph Allred, at the time of his
death, owned fourteen slaves. “Henry and Judy may have been the oldest ...
and parents or grandparents of some of the others.” Judy's chain of title
is spelled out on the Allred family website HERE
The Allred family website raises many questions – “Why did the Allreds sell
Violet and her child? Was the family seeking to cover up a scandal? Is it
possible that either Balaam or the notoriously promiscuous James Allred had
fathered Violet's child and that the youngster looked so much like an Allred
that the pair could not be suffered to remain in the neighborhood?” And did
Violet ever succeed in her quest to be reunited with her daughter?
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