Sarah W. Brunet & Enslavement

Sarah Williamson Brunet (1799-1888) was a supporter of Baptist causes, including Richmond College, and lived most or all of her life in Norfolk, Virginia. Her late-life gifts and bequest to Richmond College provided both student aid and property.  Evidence of her involvement in enslavement, described below, includes Federal Census and Norfolk, Virginia property tax records that document the individuals she held over a nearly 30 year period. A record has also been located documenting her purchase of an enslaved child named Henry in 1846. Information about her life and contributions to Richmond College can be found at Sarah W. Brunet (1799-1888). These pages reflect research conducted between 2021 and 2023 by Shelby M. Driskill.

Pre-1835: Peter Brunet, Jr.

Sarah Brunet began paying property taxes for her household in 1835, five years after the death of her husband, Peter Brunet, Jr. (1798-1830). It is unclear whether any of the individuals he is known to have enslaved were, at some point, also held by Sarah Brunet. Peter Brunet, Jr. inherited real estate and enslaved people from his father, Peter Brunet, Sr. (d. 1797), who served as Norfolk’s vendue master, a “quasi-official functionary” authorized to conduct auctions of enslaved people, estates, ships’ contents, and goods.¹ A newspaper advertisement placed by Peter Brunet, Jr., in 1816 documents a property dispute pertaining to five individuals he enslaved—Sawney, Jack, Sam, Makepeace, and Jim,² and an 1818 advertisement relates to a child named Peter who had escaped enslavement.³ The 1820 Federal Census entry for Peter Brunet, Jr. enumerated under his name eight enslaved children and adults: three boys and one girl under age 14, a girl or woman aged between 14 and 25, one man and one woman aged between 26 and 45, and a woman aged 45 or over.⁴

Henry, 1846

As part of the liquidation of the Norfolk estate of Ann Dunn (1776-1846), individuals Dunn enslaved were sold, among them an eight-year-old child named Henry. According to records maintained by the official overseeing the Dunn estate, Sarah Brunet purchased Henry in December 1846 along with some of Dunn’s household materials, paying $109 for Henry.⁵ The estate administrator recorded Brunet’s name as “S.W. Brunett,” a common misspelling based on the apparent pronunciation.⁶ 

Because young enslaved children were not considered taxable property, Henry would not have been represented in tax assessments during the years immediately following his purchase by Brunet. The Federal Census included enslaved children of all ages, but no child appears in Brunet’s Norfolk entry in the census’s 1850 Slave Schedule. Available records do not provide an explanation for his absence, which could have been due to Brunet hiring him out, his death, or another reason.⁷ While there is no documentation showing a connection between Brunet and Dunn, the record of Dunn’s 1830 residence on Brewer Street and Brunet’s later home on Cumberland Street indicate the two women resided only a few blocks from one another.⁸  

Property Tax Records, 1835-1849

Sarah Brunet’s enslavement of children and adults is shown in Virginia property tax and Federal Census data recorded between 1835 and 1862. In her available personal property tax assessments, the numbers of taxable enslaved individuals she held—in some cases individuals over the age of 12, in others those 12 and over—are recorded each year. In census data, enumerators recorded each enslaved individual’s age, sex, and skin color. No names of enslaved individuals are included in this data. 

Federal Census Slave Schedule, 1850

The 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule entry for Sarah Brunet (“Sarah W. Brunett”) records her enslavement of one 46-year-old woman.²⁴

Property Tax Records, 1850-1859

Federal Census Slave Schedule, 1860

The 1860 Federal Census Slave Schedule entry for Sarah Brunet (“Sarah W. Brunette”) records her enslavement of 4 individuals: a 33-year-old woman, a 14-year-old girl‍, a six-year-old girl‍, a two-month-old infant girl.³⁴

Property Tax Records, 1860-1862

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1863-1865

In 1863 and 1864, Norfolk no longer taxed enslavers on children, young adults, and adult women. Only those described as “male negroes above the age of 21 years” were considered taxable property. Brunet was not recorded as enslaving anyone under that description in those two years.³⁸ It is thus not clear if she continued to enslave the women and three girls enumerated under her name in the 1860 Federal Census Slave Schedule. 

A period of rapid change for those enslaved in Norfolk also began in spring 1862 following the Union occupation of the city. Between March and May, enslaved people there spoke of a “coming judgment” as the prospect of an overwhelming Union force in Hampton Roads became more likely.³⁹ The city’s eventual surrender was sped by information on military movements passed by Black residents to federal troops.⁴⁰ At Willoughby Spit, just ten miles from Sarah Brunet’s home on Cumberland Street, 9,000 Union men began a march to the city on May 9, 1862. The Norfolk mayor surrendered the city the following day, resulting in the first of three waves of Black celebration. The second followed Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and the third, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. That celebration occurred close to Brunet’s home; the New York Times reported that “at least 4,000 negroes of all kinds of colors, headed by a band of music (drums and fifes) . . . paraded through the principal streets of the city,” within blocks of Cumberland Street, “and cheered loudly for the downfall of African slavery.”⁴¹