The story of Robert Pearl (1685 – 1765) is one that can help demonstrate just a small fraction of the overall complexities of slavery and freedom in the American colonies.
Week 27: Free
The Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland, “A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland,” Maryland State Archives (https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/intromsa/pdf/slavery_pamphlet.pdf : accessed 8 Jul 2021).
SLAVE
My 7th great grandfather, Robert “Molatto Robin” Pearl, was born into slavery, because his mother was a Black slave in Maryland. In those times in the American colonies, slavery became a hereditary institution passed down from mother to offspring. Robert’s biological father, surprisingly, was not a slave. That man, my 8th great grandfather, was Richard Marsham, a tobacco planter and carpenter.
Richard owned Robert’s mother, and therefore, owned Robert (his own son) as well. There were certainly some advantages to being the son of Richard -- despite also being his slave. For one, Richard taught Robert the skills of carpentry. This was a specialized trade that could yield substantial economic growth for the carpenter, so it was quite a benefit for Robert to learn. It allowed him to earn small amounts of personal income during his years as a slave, when loaned out to other men.
For another, Richard was a faithful Catholic who chose to pass on his religion to Robert. This was unusual for not just the time, but also the area. And Robert’s introduction to Catholicism also gained him acknowledgement within the local community as being in favor of Richard, who was a well-known and established member of society.
Lastly, Robert was Richard’s only slave to live in his own house, separate from the remainder of Richard’s slave population. All that said, it’s important to remember, Robert was still an enslaved individual. He had no rights and no property to his own name, and instead, was considered personal property belonging to Richard Marsham. In fact, all of the tools, bedding, and belongings kept in Robert’s slave house on the plantation were inventoried as part of Richard’s estate. They did not remain in Robert’s possession.
FREEDMAN
It was not until Richard Marsham’s will was penned on his deathbed in April of 1713, that Robert had any glimmer of hope of ever being a free man. Robert was 28 years old at the time. Note that nowhere in Richard’s will does he explicity mention being the father of Robert. This was likely due to the fact that Maryland had passed a law in 1692 (The Act concerning Negroes and Slaves, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, May 10/June 9, 1692) criminalizing the act of white men having children by African American women -- the punishment being a seven year charge as an indentured servant. It would not be in Richard’s best interest to claim Robert as his son, even if he had wanted to.
Maryland, “Maryland, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1777,” will books, record for Richard Marsham, Ancestry (https://ancestry.com : accessed 7 Jul 2021), 2015.
The clues that Robert was Richard’s biological son are two-fold. One, Robert is described as being Richard’s mulatto slave. This both classifies Robert’s ethnicity as being mixed European and African descent, and clearly defines that he is not a full-blooded African slave, like the majority of the other slaves described in his will who were not manumitted. Two, descendants of Robert Pearl share DNA matches with descendants of Richard Marsham’s children by his two legal wives, Katherine Brent and Anne Calvert.
Richard willed that Robert was to serve the executor of Richard’s estate until arriving at the age of 35 years (7 years of servitude to Richard’s white grandson, Marsham Waring). So after 35 years of enslavement, Robert was granted his release in 1720, following the probate of Richard’s will. Robert’s wife, who was my 7th great grandmother Anne, and his eldest son, Daniel, were also granted freedom at that time.
While Robert’s freedom would have been a huge win and change for his life, he still faced a lot of adversity. And probably his largest hurdle would have been having to face the daily realization that not all of his children and family were free. His mother remained in the servitude of Marsham Waring, until Waring’s death in 1732. Her two daughters, likely his full-blooded sisters, Sarah and Beck, also remained under the control of the Waring family. And two of Robert’s own children, Charles and Cathrin (“Kate”), were not freed until Waring’s death in 1732 as well. Robert would have seen his children freed from bondage when he had reached the age of 46.
To put their situation into perspective, colony census figures in 1755 estimated that less than one percent of the entire population were free people of African descent, and that they made up only four percent of fewer than 2,000 Blacks and Mulattos in the colony.
SLAVE OWNER
Between the years of his and his children’s manumissions, Robert had to establish his own way of life as a free Black man. His experience in tobacco planting and carpentry helped in this regard, as well as his close proximity to his white blood relatives, who were able to give him a higher standing in the community than if he had removed elsewhere. For example, Richard Marsham’s two eldest daughters, Catherine and Sarah, had married into powerful families with ties to the Roman Catholic Church and Calvert County’s government. As these would have technically been Robert Pearl’s half-in-laws, they gave him a connection to the elite society of Maryland that most Blacks would not find accessible.
In fact, the year after he first became free, he appears in Prince George’s County’s court records requesting welfare assistance for taking in Margaret Baker and her child. Neither Robert nor Margaret’s races were documented in the court records, so it’s not conclusive how these two may have been related, but considering the name Baker was popular in Richard Marsham’s white descendants’ line, it’s possible she was a white relation herself. The court did, in fact, award him with 200 pounds of tobacco, regardless, which would certainly have helped him get started on his own.
His court appearances also escalated in the years to come, showing he was not only taught to be savvy enough to utilize the courts to his advantage, but also that the presiding judges tended to opt in his favor (even when suing William Calvert – the likely nephew of Richard Marsham’s second wife!).
But really, the true mark of wealth in this location and time period was the amount of land you accumulated and the number of slaves you owned -- each could be worth a large sum. And even though Robert had lived his life in slavehood, and likely abhorred the idea of owning another person, he did become a slaveholder himself. His will illustrated the large fortune he amassed over time as a free man, enumerated with fourteen slaves to his name.
"Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9T1P-9Y5H?cc=1803986&wc=SNYC-C6X%3A146535301%2C147297001 : 8 Jul 2021), Frederick > Wills 1744-1777 vol 1 > image 143 of 315; Hall of Records, Annapolis.
The probate inventory for his estate has been lost to time, so an exact dollar amount cannot be attributed to it, but his slaves alone were likely worth upwards of 700 pounds. That estimate alone would have placed Robert among the top 5 to 10 percent wealthiest Chesapeake area decedents during the colonial era according to Lois Green Carr and Lorena Walsh in The Standard of Living in the Colonial Chesapeake.
And that’s even without owning any tract of land at the time he wrote his will. That’s not to say that he never owned land, though. He did, but sold or gave away all of it prior to his death. One such land transaction emphasized how accepted he was by the local community. In January 1722-1723, he acquired a tract in Prince George’s County from John Cranford, the son of a wealthy attorney, James Cranford, who died in a lightning strike. James had conveyed the land in his will to his “well beloved and esteemed Friend Robert Pearl…alias Molatto Robin” in consideration of 20 pounds already paid. The language used, definitely makes clear their close bond. The son also submitted another document to the courts naming Robert as power of attorney!
Court records also hint toward Robert’s beginnings as a slave holder. In 1727, he had a white servant named Thomas Row, whom he had to pay securities for, when Row was convicted of assaulting a man named John Bursh. This may have been his first brush with owning another person, even if Row was not technically a slave. Two years later in May 1729, Robert entered into an agreement with Henry Darnall II to buy Darnall’s slave, Charles Pembrooke, for 35 pound sterling. However, the transaction fell through. The following August, Robert mortgaged two slaves, “negro man Harry” and “negro woman Lucy” to the county sheriff -- perhaps the first two people he ever wholly owned, but not the last.
In 1733, a year after Marsham Waring’s passing, Robert was living on a quarter belonging to Waring’s son, Richard Marsham Waring, keeping him in close proximity to his former master’s family and property. Robert was catalogued as having 13 slaves at that point in time. It’s entirely possible some of the slaves were blood relatives or had once been owned by Waring and sold to Robert after the execution of the will. It’s also entirely possible he had no previous blood ties with his slaves and adopted the economic philosophies of the times. A record giving those details has not been recovered.
And by his 80th birthday, he had added at least 1 additional slave to his property, bringing the total to 14 slaves. Interestingly enough, he chose not to free any of them in his will -- the benevolence he had been shown by his master and father Richard Marsham -- but instead, divided them among his sons Daniel, James, and Basil Pearl, alongside livestock and other personal belongings.
"Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9T1P-9Y5H?cc=1803986&wc=SNYC-C6X%3A146535301%2C147297001 : 8 Jul 2021), Frederick > Wills 1744-1777 vol 1 > image 143 of 315; Hall of Records, Annapolis.
One cannot possibly determine what led to these final actions of reinforcing the act of slavery even as a former slave, unless by some surprise fortune, a personal written statement of his surfaces. Instead, it’s just important to record what happened and confine it within its own context of time and place. For Robert Pearl, that means showcasing the incredible rise of a man born into bondage who managed to break free and build himself an empire.
To read Robert Pearl’s full will, see below.
"Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9T1P-9Y5H?cc=1803986&wc=SNYC-C6X%3A146535301%2C147297001 : 8 Jul 2021), Frederick > Wills 1744-1777 vol 1 > image 143 of 315; Hall of Records, Annapolis.
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