﻿CRASH COURSE AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY – EPISODE #3
Hi, I’m Clint Smith, and this is Crash Course Black American History.
It can sometimes feel like lawyers and legislators are always using the law to give us complicated
explanations, loopholes, and messy language that leaves most of us feeling like we have
absolutely no idea what’s going on. And I mean this is understandable!
First of all, the law can be hard to decipher.
Second of all, the law is pretty much, /only/ as fair as its application. Additionally, we
can see in our day-to-day lives that even though something can be “legal,” it isn’t necessarily
/fair/. Sometimes the law is either designed to be applied in an unjust way /or/ is inherently
unjust – especially when those in power, have the goal of oppressing and profiting off of others.
Despite these realities, the /beauty/ of the law, at it’s best, is that with the right argument
and the right application, injustices can be remedied. And today we’re going to talk
about that through the story of Elizabeth Key – a woman who obtained her freedom, while navigating
a deeply unjust system. INTRO
I want to note up top that this episode will address some challenging topics like
sexual violence and images of extreme violence. Elizabeth Key was a biracial woman who was born in
Warwick County, Virginia in 1630. She was one of the few enslaved people able to gain her freedom
through the colonial legal system. Elizabeth Key’s mother was Black. But
Taunya Lovell[a] Banks – a legal scholar and professor – states that at the time, there was
probably no meaningful difference between being labelled a “negro” and being labelled a “slave.”
According to society and the courts, the labels were effectively the same,
because at that time and place, almost all people of African descent were assumed to be enslaved.
Elizabeth’s father was a White Englishman named Thomas Key, who arrived in the colony of Virginia
in 1616. There is some evidence, that Thomas did have some emotional attachment to his daughter.
In fact, he attempted to make sure Elizabeth was relatively well provided for,
but this didn’t come to pass. You see, Elizabeth’s parents were unmarried.
Not only that, but Thomas Key was legally married to another woman while he was involved with
Martha. Due to her complicated status as a Black child born out of wedlock, and a child born of an
enslaved woman, Elizabeth was expected to work as an indentured servant until she was a teenager.
Her father made an agreement with a wealthy settler named Humphrey Higginson,
who then transferred possession of her to a farmer, named John Mottrom . She was supposed
to be under Higginson’s care for nine years, and that stipulation also transferred to Mottrom.
Her father, however, died soon after making the initial agreement and Higginson left for England
and just never returned – leaving her in a vulnerable, and uncertain position.
She was a teenager, of African descent, with no advocates.
So not only was she bartered into servitude by her father, the original terms of the agreement,
also weren’t honored. Elizabeth ended up working for John Mottrom ten additional years – WELL past
the time laid out in the original agreement. In spite of this situation though, Elizabeth built
as much of a life for herself as possible. She started a relationship with a White
indentured servant named William Grinstead, and together they had a child, named John.
When Mottrom died in 1655, the heirs of his estate reclassified Elizabeth and her son
John--changing them from indentured servants, to enslaved people. This was an attempt by the estate
to take advantage of the small family and acquire more property by declaring them human chattel.
But Elizabeth, she wasn’t going to just stand for this! With William Grinstead,
her partner-turned-lawyer, she took this injustice to the court.
Taking advantage of the fact that Elizabeth was of African ancestry,
a woman, and was also considered illegitimate because her parents were unmarried,
the Mottrom Estate argued that Elizabeth was a servant for life,
and basically already enslaved. But Elizabeth pushed back against this argument.
She made three points. Her first two arguments focused on her status within slaveholding Virginia
while the last argument focused on the terms of the “agreement” between her father, Higginson,
and the later transfer to John Mottrom. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
First, Elizabeth emphasized that her father was a White, free man – and that she should be granted
her freedom because of her paternal lineage. Second, Elizabeth stressed that she was a baptized
Christian and that she could not be enslaved as a result of her Christian faith. This argument may
not really resonate with us now, but it was vital in this case because there was some legal debate
during this time about whether Christians could, one, enslave other Christians, and, more directly,
/if/ Christians could be enslaved for life. On the other hand, English indentured servants
that sued for their freedom rarely had to address their Christianity or their lineage – they were
assumed to be free and Christian solely because, well, they were White.[1]
But, Elizabeth was forced to address these key points in her case before
addressing the unjust enslavement itself. Which brings us to our third argument.
Elizabeth’s partner and lawyer William Grinstead argued that Key should have been free in the first
place because the initial agreement said Elizabeth was only supposed to be an indentured servant
for a limited time, and that time had passed. Ultimately, these arguments compelled the court
to rule in Elizabeth’s favor – freeing both her and her son.
Thanks, Thought Bubble. So this story of Lawyers, legislators, and the law
actually had a happy ending. Elizabeth and her son were freed, she legally married William Grinstead,
and they all lived happily ever after! Right?
I mean, the other side of this is that Elizabeth lost /years/ of her life because she was subject
to a woefully unjust system that was designed to protect the practice of holding human beings
as property. And it’s clear that a White indentured servant
under similar circumstances would not be required to jump through /any/ of those legal hoops.
Furthermore, many individuals who were subject to similar injustices during this time,
actually did not receive their freedom – whether they made it to court or not.
The reality was that, put simply, Elizabeth was lucky. And if only lucky people win
in the legal system… then how just is the system in the first place?
The story of Elizabeth Key is a powerful example of perseverance and accountability
and one that’s still worth reflecting on today. It is a compelling and even an inspiring story,
one of a woman who fought back against a system that attempted to keep her
and her son in chains, and she won. But as inspiring as her story is,
it also serves as a reminder that Elizabeth’s story is the /exception/ to the rule. That vast
majority of people who found themselves in similar positions to Elizabeth Key
were not able to go to court and litigate their way to freedom.
Stories like hers are unfortunately just very rare. And /because/ they are so rare,
they remind us of the larger, systematic issues that so many Black people faced,
people whose names we’ll never know. Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.
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[1] Id. [a]https://forvo.com/word/lovell/