Nathaniel Russel House: African-Americans

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Nathaniel Russel House: African-Americans
Historic Charleston Foundation

Completed in 1808, the Nathaniel Russell House reflects the lifestyle of one of Charleston's richest Federal-period merchants, his family, and the approximately eighteen enslaved African Americans whom they owned.

Like many wealthy businessmen, Nathaniel Russell engaged in the slave trade, importing cargoes of African slaves to sell to local planters and merchants. Although Russell clearly profited from his involvement, by the end of the American Revolution he felt the conflict between commercial success and his deeply held religious beliefs. In a 1785 letter to a friend, he wrote:

"...I have sold a Cargo of Negroes & daily expect another in this Business… I must now rest satisfied with the little share of Health & Religion I have left.. until the next summer when I am afraid it will be highly necessary to have a recruit of both, particularly the latter after selling Slaves in a free Independent Country..."

Despite their doubts, wealthy Charlestonians like the Russells used African American labor to imitate the grand lifestyle of the British aristocracy. Each slave had specific duties. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel recalled in her 1912 book, Charleston: The Place and the People:

"An average Charleston household of the wealthy class had a housekeeper and her assistant, a mauma, and as many nursery maids as there were children in the house... Each lady had her maid… If the cook was a woman, she had a girl in training and a boy scullion to help her; and there were as many laundresses as the size of the family required. There was a butler and one or more footmen. A gentleman usually had a body-servant, and the coachman had under him as many grooms and stable boys as the horses kept demanded."

While many of the slaves' duties occurred in the main house, they spent most of their time in the back lot where the slaves' living quarters and work spaces were located. Slaves lived in small rooms above the kitchen and stable. Domestic workers lived directly above the kitchen in a room with its own fireplace. Gardeners and stablemen, however, probably lived in rooms without fireplaces above the stable. The enslaved residents most likely took their meals together in the kitchen.

Daniel Payne epitomized the success that black Charlestonians could achieve outside the slavery system. Born in 1811 to free black parents, he was orphaned and left to the care of his aunt, Sarah Bordeaux, a slave in the Russell household. Daniel learned to read and write in a school for Charleston’s free blacks, and was apprenticed as a shoemaker and carpenter. In 1829 he became a teacher and opened a school on Tradd Street for African American children, both slave and free. In 1834, the South Carolina legislature passed a law forbidding education to all blacks. With the help of influential friends, including the Russells, Daniel Payne left Charleston and resettled in the North. He completed his education at Gettysburg Seminary and eventually became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was the founder and first president of Wilberforce University, one of the first establishments of higher learning in the United States established for African Americans.

Few enslaved African Americans left the boundaries of Charleston, but some had opportunities to travel as far away as Europe with their masters. In 1835, Lydia, a slave belonging to Nathaniel Russell's daughter, Alicia Middleton, departed for a European tour with her mistress and two of her children. Traveling as their personal servant, Lydia visited London, Paris, Florence, Rome, and Naples. She returned to Charleston with a trunk of goods she had procured during her European tour, despite Mrs. Middleton fretting about the customs duties and inspections they would endure upon their return. Lydia continued to serve the Middletons until she was freed during the Civil War.

Nathaniel Russell's grandson-in-law, the Reverend Paul Trapier, was deeply interested in the religious faith of slaves. During his residency at the Russell House, he penned the first catechism in America written for slaves, The Church Catechism Made Plain: For the use of those who can not read.

In 1822, one of the Russells' slaves was convicted of joining Denmark Vesey in his alleged attempt to overthrow the slavery system. Tom Russell was an enslaved blacksmith who lived at the Russell House and kept his own blacksmith shop on East Bay Street. Tom had become so skilled that he had white apprentices, but he was expected to give his wages each month to Mrs. Russell. In 1822 he was charged with crafting the pikes and spears planned for use in the attempted uprising. In the rebellion's aftermath, 131 slaves and free blacks were arrested, 31 were banished from South Carolina, and 35 people were executed. Tom Russell was hanged on July 26, 1822. Mrs. Russell petitioned the South Carolina legislature for monetary compensation for her loss.