Finding Connections in African American Genealogy: The Bressie Family of Norfolk County

The Library of Virginia, like many similar institutions, has seen a large uptick in genealogical researchers interested in tracing their lines to Black families before emancipation. Because this is a notoriously difficult path of research, success in helping people answer lineage questions is something we celebrate.

Online resources like the Library of Virginia’s Virginia Untold help drive the trending interest in African American genealogy. Such resources provide valuable clues about where to search. Last year, I received a phone call from a researcher in Pennsylvania who was digging into his Bracy family ancestry. He found a possible connection on the website, Free African Americans in Colonial Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware. Compiled by the genealogist Paul Heinegg, this remarkable resource provides a multitude of transcribed records concerning free African Americans before 1820. Among the Virginia records on this site (that are not yet digitized as part of Virginia Untold) is the Norfolk County “Register of Free Negroes and Mulattoes, 1809-1852,” transcribed from LVA’s microfilm copy. The researcher spotted numerous individuals in the register that had the Bressie surname and thought they were likely his ancestors. He wanted to know more about these people, particularly how they were connected and why they became free. As I aided this researcher, it sparked my own curiosity and led me on a lengthy quest to discover more about this family. I was motivated to improve my skills in conducting African American genealogy and to better understand what information might be teased out of the available records.

Rachel, Atta, Randolph, Affiah, Rosetta, Sallie, and Ralph Bressie first registered as free on October 20, 1817. Beginning in 1793, Virginia law required free Black people above the age of 16 to register with the county clerk. After their registration was certified by the court, the clerk issued a certificate to each person. They were legally required to carry that certificate at all times. The free person’s name, age, and physical description were entered into a volume, along with a brief statement about how they acquired their free status. The seven Bressies who registered in 1817 were freed “by suit against Bressies heirs.” Seven years later, in 1824, Charles Bressie registered; his freedom “obtained by suit versus Bressies.” Jack and Lucy Bressie registered the following year; freed by “judgment from Thos. Bressie.”¹

Most often, the first step in researching lawsuits is to consult the county court order and minute books. In this case, the Norfolk County court order and minute books seemed to be a dead end. The name index did not show a freedom suit involving anyone named Bressie. Since the 1826 registration of Jack and Lucy Bressie indicated that their enslaver was Thomas Bressie, the next step was to search the Norfolk County wills and probate records for that name. The index showed only one possibility: Major Thomas Bressie. He died intestate (without a will) in 1802, but there were accounts and an estate inventory. Thomas Bressie’s inventory suggested that it might be his estate involved in the freedom suit, even though the registrations occurred 15 years after his death. The inventory listed 21 enslaved individuals: eleven men (Boston, Daniel, John, Ned, Sam, Frank, Tom, Atty, Randolph, Ralph, Jesse and Harry), three boys (Charles, Jerry and Jack), and seven women (Edy, Rachel, Affiah, Rosetta, Lucy, Sally and Little Edy). Many of the names corresponded to those in the register, suggesting a possible connection.²

Commonly, enslaved individuals were recorded without a surname, so I returned to the court order books and searched the index for Rachel, since she was the eldest of those who registered. I found a potential case indexed as Rachel vs. Butt in the Norfolk County Superior Court. At the October 1809 session, the justices heard a petition from Rachel, Atty, Randolph, Affia, Ralph, Rosetta, Sally, Jerry, Charles, Lucy, Jack, Lawson, Tom, Melesse and Kitt that “they are illegally detained in slavery” by Nancy Butt. Ruling that the petitioners had provided satisfactory “material facts,” the court allowed the fifteen enslaved individuals to sue for their freedom “in forma pauperis” (without court costs). The court appointed Charles B. Taylor as their counsel and allowed him to take depositions. Almost three years later, the case came to trial. In May 1812, a twelve-member jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding them their freedom and one penny in damages.

In order to appeal the case to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Nancy Butt’s lawyer had the Norfolk County court produce a “bill of exceptions,” that is, a transcription of the court decision regarding the contested issue. According to that statement, Rachel and the others were descendants of Paupouse, an enslaved Indigenous woman brought into Virginia from Jamaica around 1747 by the wife of a Mr. Ivey. I have been unable to find any Norfolk County court records for this case beyond the brief outlines in the order book. It is unfortunate not to find the case records, particularly since those records might have included depositions about the origins of the family. Since there were no trial transcripts at that time, we know nothing about the testimony in court or the arguments made by the lawyers. I have also been unable to find newspaper reports on the case.³

When the case was heard in the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals on March 15, 1813, the trial report did not include any additional details about the Norfolk County case. The appeal revolved solely around the single issue of whether Paupouse should be considered an enslaved person because she was brought from Jamaica. On opposite sides of the case were two of the most prominent lawyers of their day: John Wickham represented Nancy Butt, and William Wirt argued for Rachel and her family. These two lawyers often faced each other in court. Six years previously, they had been on opposite sides in the famous treason trial against former Vice President Aaron Burr. In that trial, Wickham was successful in his defense of Burr. In the case for Rachel and her family, Wirt prevailed with his argument that under Virginia law, Indigenous people could not be held as enslaved, no matter their condition in other countries. The Court of Appeals issued a ruling on March 5, 1814, that upheld the lower court’s decision.⁴

Derived from an Algonquin term meaning “infant” or “small child,” the name Paupouse might provide a clue to her origins. Since the Algonquin-speaking Powhatan tribes occupied the Chesapeake region, it seems plausible that Paupouse originally came from the same general area. And, since her enslavers perhaps mistook the general term for child as her proper name, she might have been separated from her family when she was quite young. The enslavement of Indigenous people was common in colonial Virginia. While the colonial government, starting in 1695, enacted a series of laws preventing the practice, the colonists and the government often ignored the prohibition. Perhaps Paupouse was taken to Jamaica to circumvent the restrictions. Enslaved Indigenous people were often forced to work as house servants, and the stated connection to Mrs. Ivey suggests that Paupouse may have been her body servant.

Mr. and Mrs. Ivey were never further identified in the court reports. The records also do not indicate how the enslaved individuals came to Nancy Butt, nor their connection to Thomas Bressie. Finding these answers required more sleuthing and speculation.

Norfolk Country court records showed numerous connections between the family of Thomas Bressie and the descendants of James Ivey who died in 1752, so I focused my research on that family. James Ivey was a likely candidate for being Paupouse’s enslaver. Along with his brothers William and Joseph, James was a prominent merchant and ship captain who engaged in the slave trade but primarily dealt with the other two angles of the triangle trade, exporting pork, corn, wheat, and importing sugar and rum from the Caribbean. James Ivey’s will confirmed that he was the enslaver referred to in the court case: he gave his daughter Margaret, “my negro called Papouse, alias Judy.”⁵

James Ivey, however, was dead before the Bressie family moved to Norfolk County. Also, the families lived in different parts of the county. This leaves a mystery as to how they were connected. Because the Bressie family did not have links with the other Ivey family lines, it seems plausible that the family connection was through James Ivey’s wife Mary.

Many of the Norfolk County colonial tax records, called tithables, have survived, dating from 1730 to 1780. These records list each household with the names of males above sixteen, as well as the names of enslaved men and women above sixteen. After James Ivey’s death, his widow Mary paid a tithe for Judith, an enslaved woman. When Mary Ivey married John Hurt in May 1759, the tithables records for that year show “Paupoose” in Hurt’s household.⁶

In 1764, James Ivey’s daughter Ann chose Thomas Bressie’s elder brother, Samuel Bressie, to be her guardian. A month later, she married their younger brother, Irby Bressie. Ann’s two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret Ivey, then chose Irby as their guardian. Margaret and Elizabeth Ivey seem to disappear from the records after that time.

When Irby Bressie first appeared in the Norfolk County tithable records in 1765, Paupouse/Judy was not listed in his household. Samuel Bressie’s tithables, however, included an enslaved person named Judy or Juda through 1768.

From 1771 to 1778, Samuel Bressie’s tithables also included Rachel, an enslaved person. When Samuel died in 1779, his estate inventory did not include Rachel in the list of enslaved individuals, suggesting the possibility that she was working in his household but not tallied as his property. It seems possible that the Judy and Rachel named in the Samuel Bressie household were Paupouse and her daughter. There is a problem, however, with that idea. Given Rachel’s age when she registered as free in 1817, she would have been born around 1761. That means that she should first appear in the tithable records in 1777, when she turned 16, instead of six years earlier in 1771. Still, it seems possible that they were the same person, and her age was miscalculated. In the year following Samuel Bressie’s death, 1780, Rachel first appears in the Thomas Bressie tithables. Almost surely, she was the same person who thirty years later filed the freedom suit.⁷

When the Revolutionary War began in Virginia, the members of the Bressie family were thrust into the very center of the conflict. Since around 1764, Thomas Bressie and his brothers lived in the village of Great Bridge. The town was a hub of commerce. Located at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, it offered both a key stopping place on the main road into North Carolina and navigable access from the Elizabeth River into the Chesapeake Bay. That strategic position meant that it was one of the first areas that Governor Dunmore sought to control for the British when the war began. He established a fortification on one side of the bridge. In response, the local county militias set up barricades on the other side. On December 9, 1775, Dunmore’s combined force of British soldiers and formerly enslaved people attacked the militia units and were quickly defeated.

One of the militia leaders was Thomas Bressie. On the opposing side, one of the leaders of the formerly enslaved individuals in Dunmore’s “Ethiopian Regiment,” was Captain Peter, formerly known as “Yellow Peter” in the Samuel Bressie household. After the confrontation with Dunmore, the colonists feared the British would return. Thomas Bressie was given command of the forces that maintained the Great Bridge defenses. A few months later, he was commissioned as a captain in Virginia’s second regiment and served during the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777-1778. Toward the end of the war, he was called into active service and promoted to major.⁸

The Revolutionary War proved economically devastating for the Bressie family and those around them. The village of Great Bridge was plundered several times by British forces and was eventually burned in 1781 as British forces worked their way towards Yorktown. The Bressie family lost several houses and businesses. Numerous enslaved people escaped to the British, including four from Thomas Bressie’s household. The Bressie family faced personal loss as well; Samuel, Irby, and Henry all died between 1779 and 1782.

Thomas Bressie’s two sons were still minors when he died in 1802, leading the Norfolk County Court to appoint their mother Nancy Bressie as their guardian, requiring her accounts to be filed with the court. These guardianship accounts show that after his death, Thomas’ estate hired out many of the enslaved individuals listed in his inventory. After Nancy Bressie married Simon Butt in 1805, the family went to court to have the enslaved individuals divided between Thomas’ heirs. The court ruled that the widow Nancy Butt would receive a lifetime dower right to Sam, Frank, Ralph, Boston, Jerri, Sally and Affa. The son Thomas Mathew Bressie would receive Daniel, Harry, Atty, Ned, Jack, old Edy, young Edy and Lucy. The son Frances Erby Bressie would receive John, Randall, Jesse, Charles, Rosetta, Rachel, and child Lawson. It is reasonable to assume that this breakup of the family led Rachel Bressie to file the freedom suit.⁹

According to Rachel’s age at registration, she was born around 1761, and would have been 53 when freed. If she was the Rachel listed in Samuel Bressie’s 1771 tithables, she might have been six years older. Almost certainly, the fourteen other individuals listed in the freedom suit were Rachel’s children, not siblings or grandchildren. The father was never mentioned in the court records, since according to Virginia law, an enslaved person’s status stemmed from their mother. The birthyears of the Bressie children can be estimated from their ages given when they registered as free. It is unsurprising that her children were born once the war ended and life became more settled. Her eldest son Atta (or Atty) was born around 1784. The following year Randolph (often called Randal) was born and four years later, in 1789, her daughter Affiah was born. Ralph was born around 1793, Rosetta 1795, Charles 1798, Sally 1799, Lucy 1800, Jack 1802, and Lawson 1805. The last three names listed in the court case, Tom, Melesse, and Kitt, were born after the Bressie-Butt family broke up Rachel’s family in 1806 and before the freedom suit was filed in October 1809. Tom, Melesse, and Kitt never registered as free or appear in other records, so they likely died at a young age. Jerry also never registered as free in Norfolk County, but his approximate birthyear of 1794 can be estimated from his age in later court records. Rachel likely had one more child that survived into adulthood, Martha Ann (born between 1810 and 1812, while the freedom suit was still being decided).

While we can trace Rachel Bressie’s family in government records such as the free black register, the tax records, and the federal census, for the most part, we have only the barest outlines of their daily lives, employment, and families. Rachel was listed as the head of a household in the 1820 Federal Census. Precisely where she was located cannot be determined, but she remained in the same southern part of Norfolk County. Living with her were one female and three males in the 14-to-25 age category and two females under 14. Intriguingly, the household also included one white female aged between 26 and 44, and one enslaved male between 26 and 44. Their identities cannot be determined, but their presence suggests a complex living situation. Rachel paid annual personal property tax for an enslaved person until 1825. The following year she was listed as a delinquent taxpayer, and then disappeared from the tax records. This suggests that she died around 1826, roughly 65 to 70 years old.

Rachel’s eldest son Atty was not listed with the other Bressie family members in the 1820 federal census, although he was paying personal property taxes at that time in the southern portion of Norfolk County. Either the census taker overlooked Atty, or he was an unnamed individual living in another household, possibly as an employee. In the 1830 census, he headed a household of seven individuals, including a female (likely his spouse) in the 24-to-35 category, one female between 10 and 23, and three males and one female under 10. Atty was not listed in the 1840 census but was still paying taxes in the Deep Creek area of the county. In the 1850 census, he was listed as a farmer, 68 years old, living with Nancy, 49 years old. The census taker left the “color” column blank, suggesting either a clerical error, or possibly they appeared to be white. Atta likely died between 1855 and 1856, when he was not included on the tax list. He never paid taxes on land, suggesting he farmed someone else’s property. He was taxed for household furnishings, a horse, and a few farm animals.

Nancy Bracy died September 8, 1866; her age was listed as 70. Her death was reported to the county clerk by their son Randall, who had recently returned to Deep Creek after serving in the Union army during the Civil War. Several of Atty and Nancy’s children can be identified from the death registers. Josephus was born around 1832 and died November 8, 1889. Sarah Ann was born around 1835 and died January 1, 1886. Lucy was born around 1838 and died in 1866. Randall’s birth was listed as December 1832 in the 1900 federal census, and he died around 1908, when his widow began to receive his military pension. The 1830 census indicates that there were at least five other older children. Their names are unknown, but some were probably among those that registered as free.¹⁰

As often is the case, more can be discovered about some members of the Bressie family because of their interactions with the legal system. In October 1825, Lawson Bressie was charged with a non-specified “breach of the peace” against Joseph Wallace. He was released on a $50 bond for good behavior. In December 1826, Charles Bressie struck and severely wounded Peter, an enslaved man, with an axe. His case never came to trial, and the case was discharged in September 1827, likely because of the death of Peter’s enslaver. The month before Charles’ discharge, his brother Jerry got into serious trouble. Using a piece of firewood, Jerry repeatedly struck James L. Hill, a mariner from the U.S.S. North Carolina. After several days in Portsmouth Naval Hospital, Hill died on August 4, 1827. In the meantime, Jerry Bressie had fled from the area. The local newspaper stated that Jerry was well-known because he was employed as boatman on the team boat, a horse-drawn ferry between Norfolk City and Portsmouth. He was also very recognizable because he had a large scar across his chin and was missing lower teeth from being kicked by a horse. Eventually, Jerry Bressie was discovered living in New York and extradited back to Virginia. His case came to trial on April 18, 1829. Rather than convicting him of murder, the Norfolk County jury found him guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to five years in prison. Surviving court records do not explain the lesser charge, but the local newspaper reported that it was because of the “trespass of the seaman on the prisoner’s conjugal rights.” A week after his conviction, Bressie, along with six other Black men, escaped from the Norfolk County jail. Rewards of $10 each were offered for three of the escapees. Bressie and two other escapees had $40 rewards offered for their capture. For two and a half months, Jerry Bressie remained on the run before being located and killed by the police on July 6, 1829.¹¹

Forty-eight individuals registered as free in Norfolk County with the Bressie or Bracy name before 1861. All of them were likely descendants of Rachel and her children. From the free registers and other records, we know many of their names, but only in a few cases can their relationships be identified. At least three of Rachel’s children survived to see the end of slavery. After the Civil War, Randolph received assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau. He was then 80 years old, living on Washington Street in Portsmouth with his 79-year-old wife Celia. Living nearby, on London Street, were his sisters Rosetta, age 70, and Sally, age 65.¹²

My investigation stopped with the Civil War, but additional research is left to be done to find more family connections. The researcher, William Lewis Bracy Jr., is continuing his efforts to bring the family line down to modern times. He descends from Atta Bressie’s son Josepheus. Generations of his branch of the Bracy family continued to live in the same area of Norfolk County until his father moved to Pennsylvania in the early 1940s. Mr. Bracy vividly remembers returning to the area every summer when he was young. He would stay with his grandfather, Reverend Henry Lewis Bracy. When he got in trouble, he remembers being sent to the houses of one of his many aunts who lived nearby. Some descendants still reside in the area, and Mr. Bracy remains in contact with several of his cousins. Living near the State Library of Pennsylvania, he has taken on the task of being the family historian. I hope that my research has provided him with further lines of inquiry. Personally, I’ve learned a great deal about the records.