Andrew Durnford

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Andrew Durnford
Born 1800
New Orleans
Died 1859 (aged 58–59)
Nationality USA
Occupation plantation owner
Known for a black plantation owner, who owned black slaves

Andrew Durnford was an American who successfully operated a sugar plantation, in Louisiana, from 1828, following the death of his father, to 1859, the year or his own death.[1][2] He represents a rare instance of a black plantation owner who, himself, employed black slaves.[3]

He was the son of Thomas Durnford, an Englishman who first came to America in 1762 to serve as the secretary to his cousin Elias Durnford, a military officer.[2] After the USA won independence cousin Elias left for the United Kingdom, while Thomas stayed in Louisiana, and became a plantation owner.[4] He became a partner and friend of John McDonogh. He partnered with a free woman of color, and, because he could not leave his property to his common-law wife or their children, he relied on his friend McDonogh, to loan Andrew funds to buy a new plantation. Andrew remained friends and partners with McDonogh from the death of his father in 1828 until McDongh's own death in 1951. McDonogh's instructed his executors to not demand immediate repayment of the remainder of the loan to Andrew, and to allow him to repay according to the original schedule.

In 1835 he travelled from his plantation, near New Orleans, to Virginia, to purchase additional slaves.[1] During this excursion he wrote a series of letters to his friend and business partner Thomas MacDonough, and those letters have been analyzed for what they reveal about the slave trade in general, and to how it was practiced by black owners.

According to David O. Whitten, a scholar who studied Durnford'd record, he did allow his slaves to earn money for extra work.[1] Slaves who wanted to earn their freedom were incentivized to seek this extra work. Whitten also studied the instances where Durnford's correspondence revealed the deaths of slaves, through disease, or work-related accidents.

Durnford was able to correspond in both French and English[1] Whitten describes Durnford as well-read.[5]

Durnford's example has been considered by scholars attempting to look back at Black slave-owners, to determine how many were benevolent, and how many were exploitative.[6] John McDonough, formerly Durnford's father's best friend and partner, who became his friend and mentor, had enabled Durnford to become a plantation owner with a generous loan, when Louisiana law did not allow him to inherit his father's plantation. McDonough believed in selectively freeing slaves, and sponsoring them to return to Africa, freeing dozens, during his lifetime, and freeing the remainder 83 individuals, in his will. Durnford's will only freed a single slave, a boy he had himself sired. Dunford's correspondence, and other records, showed he fed his slaves the cheapest possible food. His correspondence records cruel comments after he had a recaptured runaway slave whipped, the first time he ran away, and his promises to issue even crueler punishment should he be recaptured after he ran away a second time.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 David O. Whitten (summer 1970). "Slave Buying in 1835 Virginia as Revealed by Letters of a Louisiana Negro Sugar Planter". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 11 (3): pp. 231-244. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4231132.pdf?casa_token=lvAI2iYVyc8AAAAA:4-3dKjokIoqrmQ_O-EhQ7DyMbdWo2WRwsIafr_a5La-P21YsGhgKVUsV_-WDX8gmzOqNU5lSimKV2aA-ZdgwJGNu1T761ecolNq6plQ3U4OAlmzfomhv. Retrieved 2021-06-16. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Bill Simpson (Autumn, 1987). "Reviewed Work(s)". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 28 (4): p. 438. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4232627.pdf?casa_token=20pld8fqKb8AAAAA:f4uiiTpsF9U-z9n6NtOS8F8IJ1wSWOGDP6QploBJo4U3asSlkBt_un3TLxUVt4GpWM00pvXV21-KeX5Es8M4K4ryHSaz-2wSqujcYfigROeNmXaa2-_h. Retrieved 2021-06-16. "pport the assertion that Durnford was a successful entrepreneur. Beyond entrepreneurial success, however, lies the fact that Andrew Durnford, a black man, entered the mainstream of a white-dominated socio-economic environment and held his own. He is an example of what a black man could do, despite racial barriers which included black slave." 
  3. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. "Free Blacks Lived in the North, Right?". The African-Americans. Archived from the original on 2021-06-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20210601163726/https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/free-blacks-lived-in-the-north-right/. Retrieved 2021-06-16. "This was especially true in the Lower South, where some free blacks even owned slaves — among them were Andrew Durnford of Louisiana, who, says Berlin, had “some seventy-five slaves” working on his sugar plantation." 
  4. The last will and testament of John McDonogh, late of Macdonoghville, State of Louisiana, also his memoranda of instructions to his executors. 1851. https://books.google.ca/books?id=VGn1TdzxmwoC&pg=PA39&dq=%22Andrew+Durnford%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjK9rnQkp3xAhXBXc0KHSFFC00Q6AEwEHoECD4QAg#v=onepage&q=%22Andrew%20Durnford%22&f=false. Retrieved 2021-06-16. 
  5. David O. Whitten (July 1984). "Rural Life along the Mississippi: Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, 1830-1850". Agricultural History 58 (3): pp. 477-487. "Like many rural folk, Durnford was well informed because he was well read. He read Locke. "Harry will deliver you the balance of Locke's works which is worth reading." He subscribed to Little's Living Age, Revue des Deux Mondes, Price Current, and Delta He also read borrowed copies of African Repository sent by John McDonogh. In addition he regularly purchased books in bundles. These included the first volume supple- ment to Cy Americana and Geography by Burhing." 
  6. David L. Lightner; Alexander M. Ragan (August 2005). "Were African American Slaveholders Benevolent or Exploitative? A Quantitative Approach". The Journal of Southern History 71 (3): pp. 538, 541, 543-544, 547-548. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27648819.pdf?casa_token=JtRUCKlOLGUAAAAA:uG4RZ24QRA6mkcZ2CkK5HeugAXH6SEqQ-5uq3h-VmrCRB155R0NFJFLkqgqksGkmJlMpZigyYQvflsh2LtTW2HTc9wo0Xtitd57Syv3tMCVDbnVCrKeH. Retrieved 2021-06-16. "Whereas Stanly, Ellison, and Johnson became exploitative slave owners only after years of hard toil, Andrew Durnford followed an easier path. He was born in 1800 in New Orleans, where his mother, a free woman of color, was a plac?e?an arranged consort?to his white, planter-class father. Thus Andrew was free from birth and was reared in comfortable surroundings."