by Terry L. Meyers

The tension, perhaps even ambivalence, always acknowledged in representing the Williamsburg Bray School is the tension between the liberating effect of education for the  scholars and the fact that they were being indoctrinated into a religion underpinning chattel slavery.  But what was slavery actually like, locally?

One of William & Mary’s Seven Wise Men–the seven professors who taught at the College after it reopened in 1888–John Lesslie Hall, lamented in 1907 that Northern historians neglected the “bright side” of slavery—free food, lodging, clothes, medicine, and short working hours. That was a view entertained by W&M students in 1854:

But slavery here in the 19^th century was cruel.

Eliza Baker, born into slavery in 1843 in Williamsburg, recalled the city’s flogging post with an iron cage nearby to hold the enslaved before and after trials. She recounted too the threat of being sold: “some [enslavers] treated ’em right tough, and some right good. They made you do what they wanted you to do, and if you didn’t do what they wanted you to, they put you in their pocket.” She explained, “That means the n—–  trader would get you.”  

She recalled the slave auctions: “from the block on the Court House Green. I have heard many a crying-out.”  The auctioneer (and the overseer of those W&M enslaved), Moses Harrell, “would cry them out. ‘Here they go!’ he would cry. Hardly any parents would stand by to see their children sold.” A slave found with a book could be whipped. If out after 9:00 p.m.: thirty-nine lashes.

Visiting Williamsburg at the end of the Civil War, abolitionist Laura S. Havilland told of the enslaved abused at Kingsmill and of families separated as members were sold south. And she recounted the story of a girl in Yorktown who was punished for going to a night meeting:

for so doing [she] was stripped naked and whipped in the presence of the other slaves, the master himself plying the lash. While she cried for mercy her master replied,

            “I’ll give you mercy.”

            “Good Lord do come and help me.”

            “Yes, I’ll help you” (and kept plying the lash).

            “Do, Lord, come now; if you ha’n’t time send Jesus.”

            “Yes, I’m your Jesus,” retorted the inhuman persecutor, and he continued to ply the lash until thirty strokes were well laid on.

And slavery in the 18^th century was cruel. 

Some accounts are precise but abstract. Robert Carter Nicholas said the enslaved near Williamsburg “are treated by too many of their Owners as so many Beasts of Burden.” Jefferson noted that “the whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”

Other accounts are more concrete. One by author and abolitionist Thomas Day, likely derived at least in part from the observations of Jefferson’s W&M mentor, William Small, is vivid: Black men and women forced “to labour naked in the sun to the music of whips  and chains,” robbed “of every thing which is now dear to your [whites’] indolence, or necessary to your pleasures,” goaded  “to every species of servile drudgery,” and punished for whites’ “amusement and caprice,” their youth exhausted “in servitude” and finally abandoned in “age to wretchedness and disease.”  

The slave market in Yorktown or Williamsburg is where the newly arrived “surviving wretches”  “are transferred to their conscientious masters—… brought  into the market, naked, weeping, and in chains; —how one man dares to examine his fellow creatures as he would do beasts, and bargain for their persons; —how all the most sacred duties, affections, and feelings of the human heart, are violated and insulted.”

Lawyer and judge St. George Tucker recalled an enslaver near Williamsburg who “always makes it a point of having, what is called, a smart Overseer, whose duty it is to keep them [the enslaved] tightly to their work. That is, the negroes are to be in the fields at the first dawn, of the day, and at their work, as soon as they can see to do any thing, in dark nights, when there is no moonshine; but, when the moon shines the latter part of the night, they must be at work before three O Clock, in summer, and before four in winter. And when the moon shines in the Evening, they are to continue at work until nine a-Clock, except in the Tobacco-season, when they are not dismissed until eleven.”

And when Tucker rose one summer dawn, “looking out of the window [he] saw a negroe woman whose appearance indicated that she was advanced in a state of pregnancy, walking tolerably fast towards the Corn field: she was presently met by her overseer, who gave her at least half a dozen severe stripes over the shoulders by way of quickening her pace.”

Philip Fithian records the viciousness at Nomini Hall about 1773; an overseer “said that whipping of any kind does them [the enslaved] no good, for they will laugh at your greatest Severity; But he told us he had invented two things, and by several experiments had proved their success.—For Sulleness, Obstinacy, or Idleness, says he, Take a Negro, strip him, tie him fast to a post; take then a sharp Curry-Comb, & curry him severely til he is well scrap’d; & call a Boy with some dry Hay, and make the Boy rub him down for several Minutes, then salt him, & unlose him. He will attend to his Business, (said the inhuman Infidel) afterwards!

—But savage Cruelty does not exceed His next diabolical Invention—To get a Secret from a Negro, says he, take the following Method—Lay upon your Floor a large thick plank, having a peg about eighteen Inches long, of hard wood, & very Sharp, on the upper end, fixed fast in the plank—then strip the Negro, tie the Cord to a staple in the Ceiling, so as that his foot may just rest on the sharpened Peg, then turn him briskly round, and you would laugh (said our informer) at the Dexterity of the Negro, while he was relieving his Feet on the sharpen’d Peg!”

Tension? Ambivalence?  Maybe so.

Terry L. Meyers retired from William & Mary as Chancellor Professor, Emeritus, of English after 46 years of teaching. His tenacious curiosity about the Williamsburg Bray School building set in motion events that led to the building’s ultimate rediscovery–and restoration.

by Burnell K. Irby

The house on T Street in Washington, D.C. was the center of family life for many years. Bought by my great-grandmother and her husband, it was a stopping place for family coming from New York and going to Virginia, and a destination for family coming to visit or needing a place to rest while traveling north.

In 1905 my great-grandmother came to Washington, D.C., from Virginia to live with her eldest sister. Their house was three blocks away from the one on T Street. My great-grandmother would live there until she was able to buy her own home.

The house on T Street was purchased about 1922. The woman who owned the house would not allow my great-grandmother to come inside. She had to view another house with a similar layout up the street. When she purchased the house, she paid $2000.00 for it. My great-grandmother put in hardwood flooring, French doors, and wallpaper.  She lived there until her passing in 1977.

Family members continue to live there.

My mother has told me many stories about growing up on T Street in Washington, D.C. In one story, she is walking to the Safeway with her mother. On the way, they would pass a former nightclub at the corner of 14th and T Streets. In those days, it was also a gathering spot for the locals. She was not allowed to walk that way alone.

One evening while walking past the club, her mother stopped and spoke with a blind man holding a cup and a cane. They talked for several minutes. When the conversation was over, they continued on their way to the grocery store. My mother was perplexed about who her mother would know on that corner and asked, “Who was that”? “That is your cousin from Williamsburg,” she was told. My mother could hardly believe that her mother had stopped to talk to anyone, and was even more astounded that he was a relative.

Making contact, keeping lines of communication open, and passing the family story on were characteristics of my grandmother. By the time they got home, my mother knew just whose child he was and who his people were.

I have been told that this was typical of my grandmother.  If she was not taking pictures, she was visiting not only her family, but my grandfather’s family also. She hosted family cookouts on the 4th of July during the summer in Virginia, providing us with  a wonderful picture of family and neighbors.

The house was a brick “row house” with four levels.  While they were growing up my mother says the children were rarely allowed in the living room; it was for holidays and company.  And don’t put your hands on the wall coming down the stairs.

It was from the house on T Street that my grandparents would organize their fight to get my deaf uncle educated in D.C. At the time, he was attending school in Philadelphia.

It would be from here that my great-grandmother would organize the family’s response to the family farm being taken in Magruder, Virginia.

The house in Grove was acquired in James City County in 1943, after the community was evicted from York County to build Camp Peary. It was a 2-bedroom bungalow, with a wood stove and no running water. Every generation of our family has spent summers in Grove staying in the house on Magruder Avenue.

It has enabled family living in Washington to stay connected to family in Williamsburg, to attend family functions from reunions, weddings, funerals and birthday celebrations.

I would hear those and other stories, not realizing the family history behind the stories she was passing on. As I grew older, those places, stories, pictures, and artifacts began to make sense. When a memory was triggered, my mother would share the how, when, and where of its place in family lore. I would say to her, “You need to write it down”—and her response was always, “I just told you.”

Objects I had grown up with and used in my great-grandmother’s houses in D.C. and the Grove area of Williamsburg began to reveal themselves to me. An example of family artifacts coming to life would be two chairs. The story is that they were purchased about 1900 by my great-great-grandparents to celebrate the marriage of one of their daughters.  They were always in the house in Grove. They are another example of household furniture moving from one household to another: they are now in DC.  At 125 years old, I have taken them to school to share with my students. I asked them, “What have these chairs seen?”

Make every effort to support your family’s story with documents and dates. Then put them on a timeline with major events in United States history. What you will begin to see is how your family responded during these national events.

Where was your family during the Civil War? During World War I, the Great Depression, World War II? How did they fair during the Civil Rights Movement?

It gives a broader context and meaning to your family’s journey.

Be patient, this will take time. Some leads will prove to be false; double check names. Names will also be repeated. You will have to visit libraries, historical societies, and museums.

Start with one notebook. There will be more.

A Descendant Community member, Burnell K. Irby is a Howard University graduate, and an educator in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. As a youth, he spent his summers in Williamsburg at his great-grandmother’s house in Grove.

By Nicole Brown

A central part of my career in the last four academic years was my role as Graduate Assistant for the William & Mary Bray School Lab. I have worked on a variety of student-driven digital projects, overseen the review of Williamsburg and Fredericksburg Bray School transcriptions, assisted with general research, and collaborated on descendant engagement. Most often, I served as both a mentor and guide for undergraduates conducting primary-source research associated with the Williamsburg Bray School, the Associates of Dr. Bray, or eighteenth-century Black education in the British Empire. As I move into the next stage of my doctoral studies within the American Studies graduate program at William & Mary, I must transition away from the Bray School Lab and onto other new and exciting projects.

There is something truly special about working on new scholarship with students, descendants, and scholars alike. The collaborations generated via William & Mary’s Office of Strategic Cultural Partnerships are exceptional in the academic world. One such example includes The Williamsburg Bray School: A History Through Records, Reflections, and Rediscovery (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2024), the book I had the privilege to co-edit alongside Bray School Lab Director Maureen Elgersman Lee. Despite my heartache at leaving my position, there is also much to be thankful for. Chief among those thanks includes the lessons I learned from collaborating and counseling undergraduate students, as well as learning from the many descendants who have shared their knowledge, passion, and insight.  

Learning from the Ancestors and the Elders

“Remember the ancestors” is an adage I hear often repeated by the men and women far wiser than me. The descendants of Bray School students and those whose families (enslaved and free) lived and labored in Williamsburg from the seventeenth century onward always remind me to carry this phrase with me, wherever I go. Collaborating with descendants has taught me that shared authority is not only important, but essential to understanding our past. When museums, universities, and other similar institutions value their own thoughts and ideas about history over the ones shared by descendants, massive swaths of our history are lost – or outright ignored.

Over the years, I have learned that remembering ancestors is not just saying an individual’s name – you must also share how these individuals shaped the world we live in today. Share this knowledge loudly and often, even in spaces where people might prefer you to be silent. I am forever grateful to the many descendants who have taught me that I am part of the collective to remember their ancestors. Their willingness to teach me has foundationally shaped both my PhD dissertation and my life.

Learning from the Next Generation

 One of the best things about working with undergraduates is their unique way of looking at history—especially eighteenth-century history. Early American history often feels static and removed from lived experience. When an event – such as the closing of the Williamsburg Bray School – occurred more than 250 years ago, it can feel impersonal to your daily life. However, undergraduates often have the most innovative perspectives on studying the past because they are willing to grow and learn while studying it, rather than assuming they know everything there is to be derived from eighteenth-century documents, narratives, and events.

One student’s detailed analysis of the 1762 Bray School regulations made me consider this source in new ways. The absence and presence of students in this record became apparent to me through her. Another undergraduate’s ability to consider how hand sewing skills might have influenced the experiences of young Black girls at the Williamsburg Bray School has fundamentally changed the way I write about them. Thanks to her, I take every opportunity to mention what kinds of sewing skills may have been taught at the Bray School. A more recent W&M student shared her unique perspective on walking through a city that has a multilayered past and present. Her ideas reshaped how I conceptualize children walking through eighteenth-century Williamsburg. I cannot walk by the Bray School building without thinking about this student and the quiet wisdom she carries with her on topics such as religion, memory, and history.

What Have I Learned?

Each student I have had the pleasure of studying with in the last four years has taught me valuable lessons. While I have mentored students on how to read eighteenth-century handwriting, contextualize colonial newspapers, or explore the microhistories of Virginia’s colonial capital, they have also taught me how to think anew about the past. To each one of these students, I say: thank you. I am humbled by working with you and working alongside you. If you are any indication of how the next generation of historians will study the past, we are all in excellent company.

Similarly, the descendants who have sat me down to discuss family history, challenge my conception of the America’s founding, or reiterate that I should keep pursuing my research, have reminded me that my passion to study the Williamsburg Bray School is a lifelong journey that cannot be confined by any title or position I may hold. To them I say: thank you. I have learned what resilience truly means from your guidance and love. I promise to honor you, and your ancestors, in my next steps.

The hundreds of hours I have spent working with these teachers, young and old, give me hope for the future. They also remind me that there is always something to be learned from anyone you meet. While ancestors and elders often hold keys to wisdom, so, too, does the next generation. I am excited to hand them the keys; they will unlock doors that neither I nor my contemporaries even thought to open.

Nicole Brown is a PhD candidate in the American Studies Program at William & Mary and a renowned scholar of the history of the Associates of Dr. Bray and of Bray schools in North America. She has served as the William & Mary Bray School Lab Graduate Assistant since the Lab was launched in 2021.