Araminta Frazier (b. ~1790 - d. 1847)
MSA SC 5496-51633 
Slave Owner, Kent County, Maryland

Biography:

Araminta Frazier’s story is particularly interesting because she was both a woman and the head of a mixed household of free blacks and slaves. The 1830 U.S Census indicates that Araminta was likely born around 1790. In 1830, Frazier led a household of one other white female, as well as nine slaves.¹ Ten years later, Araminta Frazier’s household still consisted of only one other white female, but she added seven free blacks and six additional slaves.² The sewing cotton and thread, spinning wheel, dutch oven, iron pots, and metal skillet listed in her inventory indicate that she sewed and cooked. She maintained a garden that produced vegetables and she also had farming equipment to cultivate oats, wheat, and corn and maintain sheep, steers, heifers, and horses. Frazier also, in addition to her home farm, planted crops at  the farm of her sister, Mrs. Harriett Welch. One-third of the crop of wheat, corn, and oats that Frazier produced on that land was then given to Welch as payment for the use of her land.³ Araminta Frazier had at least five slaves employed in agriculture, helping her to maintain the crops.⁴ Unfortunately, because the only censuses for Araminta Frazier were in 1830 and 1840, the names of the members of the household were not recorded and therefore, the names of the free blacks are not yet known.

Chattel records and inventories, however, do list the names of slaves because they were considered valuable property. Araminta Frazier pledged to manumit twelve of her slaves in a chattel record in 1843, and one more slave in her inventory in 1847, saying that she would free them once they reached the age of thirty. Her inventory also marked six other slaves as slaves for life. Together, her chattel record and inventory provide a list of nineteen slaves: Louis Godolphin Reason (born September 20, 1816), his sister Sarah (born March 22, 1819), Sarah’s daughter Catharine (born July 30, 1842) and her son James (born July 25, 1845), Jane (born June 12, 1821), Samuel (born April 24, 1823), James Laws (born April 19, 1824), Juliana (born September 21, 1823), Juliana’s two sons Charles (born June 1843) and George (born Autumn 1846), Juliana’s daughter Agnes (born January 1845), Henry (born May 1824), Arthur (born September 1825), Peregrine (born July 1827), Ann Elizabeth (born 1829), Louisa (born July 26, 1838), Narcissa (born May 1831), Narcissa’s son Joseph (born April 1847 and a cripple), and Harriett (born 1797). Of the six slaves marked as slaves for life (James, Charles, Agnes, George, Joseph, and Harriett), five were the children of the manumitted slaves. Harriett was the only slave over thirty-years-old to be marked as a slave for life. ⁵

In 1846, Araminta Frazier entered in a land agreement along with John Frazier, his wife Caroline Frazier, Ebenezer Welch, and his wife Harriet Welch, to John F. Yearley. They sold a tract of land called “the Farm House” containing two hundred and thirty acres to John Yearley. This tract was one-fifth of a tract of land that had been divided and bequeathed in accordance to the will of John Frazier.⁶ 

When Araminta Frazier died intestate in 1847, those slaves who had not yet reached thirty years old or who had not manumitted by the time of her death were to be distributed among Araminta’s heirs. The value and distribution report mentions the list of slaves again and to which heir each slave was assigned. Most of her slaves were distributed among  the Yearley familys, Ebenezer Welch (her brother-in-law), and John Frazier (likely her brother). ⁷  

After her death in 1847, Araminta Frazier’s land, consisting of two hundred and nine and three-fourths of an acre on Fairlee Creek in District Three, was divided among ten people, based on her father’s will because Araminta died intestate. The lands called “Fairlee,” “Galloways Fancy,” and “Orchard Neck” were granted to Araminta’s brother John and sister Harriet, as well as the children of her sister Ann (Yearley). The tract of land was considered to be insufficient for a division among multiple parties and "could not be divided without loss to all the parties concerned." The land was to be valued and each party was given the monetary equivalent to the piece of land that they would have received. If the land had been divided among the ten people involved, the properties would have been rendered obsolete as the little acreage would not have proved viable for any use. This land was surveyed and said to be on the south side of a public landing on Fairlee Creek. ⁸  The commissioners officiating the division of the real estate called for a meeting to be held at the dwelling house of the late Araminta Frazier.⁹ John Frazier, the eldest male heir, however, did not agree to the monetary equivalent and desired to have his entitlement to the land. John Frazier, upon agreement of the nine others involved in the estate, received the land, amounting to half of the inheritance. The nine other parties (who lived outside of Kent County) divided the remaining half, each receiving $168.88.¹⁰

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 Researched and written by Kathy Thornton, 2013.
 
 
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