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African Americans in Burke County, Georgia: 1800-1865 presented by Torrey Long: Free African Americans

Free African Americans in Burke County

Burke County never had a large population of free African Americans. For example, in 1860, there were 100 free African Americans in the county, compared to over 10,000 enslaved African Americans. However, their voices are still important. The text below lists some of the free African Americans in Burke County throughout the 1800s. 

Free Blacks in Burke County occupied a strange spot in society. They had more freedom than enslaved peoples, but they were not allowed to participate in society to the same degree as white people. As the Civil War approached, the rights of free African Americans became more and more limited. 

List of Free People of Color

  • Ellen Clark, mulatto, born in 1822. Tripe seller in Burke County.
  • Daniel Nunis, mulatto, born in 1839.
  • Charlotte Scott, mother of Daniel Nunis. For more information on the above three see the Race and Slavery Petition Project
  • Pashal Hickman. In 1834, he freed his wife Fanny Hickman along with their seven children. For more information see page 250 of Plantation Slavery in Georgia by Ralph Flanders
  • Charles Nunes enslaved 2 people in 1830.
  • Joseph Nunes enslaved 6 people in 1830.
  • Janet Nunes enslaved 3 people in 1830. All three of these people, along with Daniel Nunis and Charlotte Scott, are likely related. For more information see "Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the U.S. in 1830," The Journal of Negro History 9, no. 1 (January 1924): 41-85.

Bryan v. Walton

Bryan v. Walton is an influential court case from 1853 that reached the Georgia Supreme Court. It concerned the enslaved people owned by Joseph Nunes, a free African American man in Burke County. In this case, Bryan claimed that Nunes left him his enslaved property in his will. Walton, the executor of Nunes’ estate, in turn claimed that Nunes, a childless free African American man, did not have the legal right to bequeath his enslaved property to anybody but his direct descendants. Walton ended up winning the case, but that is far from its most important aspect. 

Bryan v. Walton shows how the South's system of racial stratification began to break down when any kind of scrutiny was applied to it. Depending on who took the stand, white citizens of Burke County described Nunes as white, Black, and/or Native American. Judge Lumpkin, presiding over the case, sided with Walton and ruled that there was legally no difference between enslaved African African Americans and free one, which further eroded the rights of free Blacks.

For more information on Bryan v. Walton and Joseph Nunes see:

  • White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the 19th-Century South by Martha Hodes
  • "Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South" by Ariela J. Gross