My Wray/Ray Family and the Disabled Slave Betty

 

During my August trip to Virginia I stayed in a hotel near Liberty University. On the other side of the campus there was a major street with a Target and Walmart, and restaurants. Walking through the campus to get to this area it began pouring rain one day. I decided to take shelter in the library until the rain let up. I didn't think this religiously oriented institution would have genealogy related material but thought they would at least have some Virginia history books. I was surprised to actually find a book marking the bicentennial of the county I was researching. "Franklin County, Virginia, 1786-1986 : a bicentennial history" is a book I found in that library. I had never seen it before. 

I didn't expect to find anything about the Wray family in a chapter about slavery. I've been researching that family over 20 years and never found a record of them owning any slaves. 

I was floored by the story of Moses and Elizabeth Wray and a slave girl named Betty. Evidently a man named David Morgan bought a slave girl named Betty and her father Sampson from William Lee. Moses Wray leased Betty from Morgan for $7 a year. The Wrays returned Betty to Morgan after discovering she was lame, either due to an injury or one leg being shorter than the other. 

What happened to slaves like Betty who were disabled? Someone who could not walk could sew and do tasks with their hands. Other more severely disabled people were cared for by mother's who had to be their caregivers along with performing their own work as slaves. These severely disabled slaves were kept or sold off with their caregivers. Some disabled slaves were sold to doctors who performed experiments on them, according to an article on Wikipedia.

I wanted to confirm the story in the book so I ordered a copy of the Elizabeth Ray affidavit cited in the book from The Library of Virginia archives. The case she provided the affidavit for was named Morgan v. Lee, because Morgan was suing Lee because the slaves he purchased from him turned out to be unsound. I quickly received a reply from a reference librarian after submitting my order. She said the affidavit wasn't in the box which was referred to in the book citation. 

I corresponded with the reference librarian by phone and email trying to figure out where the affidavit might have been filed? I was nearly giving up thinking it was lost. It took a month for the affidavit to be found. 

I learned that the other affidavits were a part of the chancery records online at the Virginia Memory site. I had already checked that site back when I was in Virginia. Nothing came up about this case? Why? Because the case was indexed under the variant spelling Morgain. Also the name Ray, or variant spelling Rey, actually are in the file documents online, but aren't in the index. I just found the file a few days ago. 

Two of the case affidavits involve the Rays. Elizabeth Ray and William Waid provided their recollections of Betty, and the leasing of her by the Ray family. The two affidavits don't completely agree. Apparently Waid worked on the Ray plantation for a year. According to William Waid the Ray's had Betty for some time before returning her to Morgan because of her disability. He states Morgan offered to lower the lease rate and even offered to give her to the Rays as a gift. According to him Moses said he couldn't afford to feed and clothe her if she could not work. 

According to Elizabeth Ray she immediately noticed the girl was limping as she left the wagon when she was brought over. She asked the girl to show her the wound. She did see a wound on the girl's hip. She also stated if Betty had a child she would likely become completely disabled. 

Since one page from the Morgan v. Lee case was missing from the file I'm doing a little more research on the case in Virginia determined papers at FamilySearch. Not knowing exactly when the case ended it's been difficult to find in those papers. 

Not sure what became of Betty? Sadly, someone like her wouldn't have had any good future prospects in 1794 America. The best outcome would have been that she was granted her freedom because no one wanted to buy her.