A Madman's Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom

by Gregory May

Overview

The untold saga of John Randolph’s 383 slaves, freed in his much-contested will of 1821, finally comes to light.

Few legal cases in American history are as riveting as the controversy surrounding the will of Virginia Senator John Randolph (1773–1833), which—almost inexplicably—freed all 383 of his slaves in one of the largest and most publicized manumissions in American history. So famous is the case that Ta-Nehisi Coates has used it to condemn Randolph’s cousin, Thomas Jefferson, for failing to free his own slaves. With this groundbreaking investigation, historian Gregory May now reveals a more surprising story, showing how madness and scandal shaped John Randolph’s wildly shifting attitudes toward his slaves—and how endemic prejudice in the North ultimately deprived the freedmen of the land Randolph had promised them. Sweeping from the legal spectacle of the contested will through the freedmen’s dramatic flight and horrific reception in Ohio, A Madman’s Will is an extraordinary saga about the alluring promise of freedom and its tragic limitations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324092216
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Gregory May is the author of Jefferson’s Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt. He practiced law in Washington, DC, and New York for thirty years, and now lives in Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/30/2023

Lawyer-turned-historian May (Jefferson’s Treasure) offers a fascinating account of Virginia senator John Randolph’s posthumous efforts to free nearly 400 enslaved people and provide for their resettlement. A “relentless defender of states’ rights,” Randolph (1773–1833) was one of Virginia’s largest slaveholders, and his “deathbed declaration” that his slaves must be freed took many by surprise. After Randolph’s death, however, executors discovered two wills—an 1821 version that freed his slaves and an 1832 version that left his estate to his niece’s infant son and made no mention of manumission. Much legal wrangling ensued, with some of Randolph’s heirs seeking to have the 1821 will set aside by proving that Randolph was “mad” when he wrote it. (Randolph’s executor, Judge William Leigh, wanted the 1832 will set aside for similar reasons.) Though the 1821 will was eventually upheld, the story has an unhappy ending—before the freedmen could settle on land purchased on their behalf in Mercer County, Ohio, they were expelled from the county by a white mob and their community was dispersed. May lucidly untangles the legal proceedings and draws vivid character sketches of Randolph and others, while building an irrefutable case that freedom is only the first step to equality. This is history at its finest. Illus. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-02-07
The curious case of a much-contested antebellum will that freed hundreds of enslaved people in Virginia.

A second cousin of Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph (1773-1833) was a fiery believer in states’ rights and a limited federal government. Randolph amassed a fortune—and, like Jefferson, a mountain of debt—farming on the Virginia piedmont. After he died, it was discovered that Randolph had left several versions of a will and its codicils, some of which manumitted the nearly 400 enslaved people he owned. May, a former lawyer and author of Jefferson’s Treasure, creates a kind of Bleak House narrative early on, puzzling out the terms of that apparently magnanimous act, which “became a national sensation”—and which was litigated for a dozen years as Randolph’s relatives stepped forward to claim a share of his property. Finally declared to be free by virtue of a sympathetic judge, the enslaved people faced an unsympathetic body of law, one of whose statutes declared that free Black people must leave Virginia or be subject to reenslavement. The judge traveled to Ohio, where the law “prohibited any person of African descent from settling in the state unless two Ohio landowners posted a $500 bond for the person’s support.” He found a place for the freed Virginians to settle, though Ohio vigilantes immediately drove them out and forced them to settle elsewhere. Although the narrative threatens to come to a grinding halt at times in legal minutiae, May does a good job of pointing out the contradictions of the law in both free and slave states. He also paints a vivid portrait of Randolph himself, a man who, while privately opposed to slavery, was not shy about building his fortune on the backs of enslaved people and whose liberation was less than pure. “Because manumission was just an exercise of the giver’s rights,” May writes, “it changed almost nothing.”

A twisty story that illuminates the elaborate legal system built to defend slavery and silence its discontents.

Kirkus Reviews