A Negro man

Wellington’s father was Allen “Buck” CAMPBELL, a white Louisiana Sugar Cane plantation owner. Wellington “Wilton” was not ignored or hidden, but was raised by Buck, and kept very close to him all of his life. In fact, Wilton was Buck’s assistant in many of the projects in and around the Bayou in those days. Apparently, where you saw one, you invariably would be seeing the next…in a moment or two. Lisa Grimes, a cousin living in Washington State, is a descendant of Buck’s younger sister, Martha ‘Patsy’ CAMPBELL who married Samuel Russell RICE, another LA plantation owner. There were several inter-twining marriages, within this group. As Patsy’s son, Lorenzo Campbell RICE, was kept from marrying his sweetheart, and the reason was because she was of mixed black-white ancestry. At that time, circa 1850, inter-racial Black-White marriages would have landed someone in prison. Specifically the White person, who legally married the Black person, so instead common-law, or living next door to one another, was the only way for them back then. The last option, was the life for Lorenzo, Kitty and their children. Anyway, Lorenzo’s descendants married into the descending line from Wellington. So there are several RICE and CAMPBELL marriages in our family. For far too many years, there was total silence about Lorenzo and Kitty’s relationship, in anything that was put in print…but within the various family groups, this was originally a well known reality. According to family tradition, Wellington’s mother was one of the young slaves on the CAMPBELL Plantation. Shortly before Allen “Buck” CAMPBELL married Melissa Harris MOSS, d/o another Plantation owner, Nathaniel MOSS (m. Joanna JOHNSON), he chose two young female slaves to be sold to his brother, Benejah CAMPBELL, and these two slaves left Buck’s property. Family tradition holds that one of these two young female slaves was Wellington’s mother. No one knows at this time what the true relationship was between Buck and Wellington’s biological mother, but…both he and she were very young, and Buck acknowledged his son, as he raised him within the CAMPBELL family. In 1843, on Wilton’s 21st birthday, when most males would be considered as adult, Buck filed a formal emancipation for Wilton. The wording, was very carefully crafted, to protect every one of Buck’s children…whether socially or directly. A unique part of Wellington’s emancipation document specified that all of Buck’s children were enjoined to make sure that…Wilton was never left in a needy state. This is something, that was not what could be classified as a “normal” slave emancipation, as once a slave was emancipated…they were no longer provided for…for anything. So…reading between the carefully crafted lines….Buck protected his eldest son. This was an act of a doting father. Not just a plantation owner freeing a slave. Jim Samuels Jr. hunted for years, for anything that could prove Wilton’s connection to Buck, and we were all delighted to learn of his wife Donna’s discovery of the emancipation recording in the Court House in Lafayette, Louisiana. Co-written by Lisa Grimes and Jim Samuels Jr.