The Trans-Atlantic slave exports were concentrated along the coast of West Africa from Senegal down to Angola. From these locations, Portugese ships sailed across the South Atlantic Ocean to Salvador and Brazil and around the lower Americas to Peru, while European and American ships sailed up the east coast of Brazil and dropped off their cargo with stops at Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Guyana; Venezuela; Dominican Republic; Haiti; Jamaica; Cuba and along the North and South Carolina coast on the Barrier Islands. Some of the descendants of the island African Gulla slaves with their unique heritage still live in the area. Many of my ancestors came through South Carolina and North Carolina.
Some of the slaves were originally dropped off at the Port of Santo Domingo; Port au Prince, Haiti and Havana, Cuba (a large African population exists today in Santiago, Cuba) for the sugar cane fields, and others were even tually transported to the sugar cane fields of South Carolina and Louisiana. This process continued from 1450 to 1900. The region of primary transport was to the Spanish Empire in Brazil, the British West Indies, French West Indies, British North America, the United States, Dutch West Indies and Europe.
Once in America, many African slaves were transported from South Carolina and North Carolina to Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and possibly beyond. This is the most likely route my ancestors took to get to Fayette County, Texas as we know it today. This is the African American history you will see around the walls of the Connersville Primitive Baptist Church African Museum in Round Top, Texas, which reflects where slav ery began and how my ancestors arrived in the 5th District of Round Top Texas.
How did my ancestor get to Fayette County, Texas Between the late 1700s and early 1800s, a number of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) purchased leagues of land in and around Round Top, Texas. Some of these individuals included Hamilton Ledbetter, Alabama; Samuel K. Lewis, South Carolina; John R. Robson, Georgia; Mary Mott, South Carolina; Sarah Jones, Alabama; Amizah Baker; Mary Phelphs; Obediah Hudson; James Winn; William Jacks; John Townsend; Joshua Fletcher; W.F. Wade, Georgia; and Christopher H. Taylor of Eutah, Alabama, my great-grandfather’s namesake.
Because of this migration from the southern states, the slave population in Fayette County grew from 29% in 1850 to 49% in 1860. At the same time, the German population began to really grow in the 1840s and 50s. The Von Rosenbergs at Nassau Plantation and Joseph Biegel joined the economics of the slave trade. As far as I can tell, these were the only two German families to own a league of land in Fayette County, Texas. By 1860, the slave population in Fayette County totaled 3,700. The number of African Americans increased to 5,900 by 1870. By 1900, one-third of Fayette County’s population was African American.
As I mentioned above, Christopher H. Taylor, who was my grandfather’s namesake, owned a plantation on a league of land along Jaster Road, plus 10 acres of land north of the town hall on which the Round Top State Bank is now located, as well as the Round Top Real Estate office and two restaurants. This is the man who was known as Kit or Kid Taylor that my grandfather remembers. He was also remembered by the ancestors of Georgia Tubbs’ Etzel family. Mr. C.H. Taylor owned 46 slaves in the 1850s and 60s. After the Civil War, he sold all of his holdings in Round Top, left town and moved to Eutah, Alabama. He left all of his emancipated slaves to fend for themselves.
Why he left I am not sure; however, I do believe he may be the father of my great-grandfather, John Wesley Taylor or my great-great grandfather, Wesley Taylor, Sr., because he continued his trend of fathering mulatto children when he went to Eutah, Alabama with Sarah Taylor, who was his mistress. This will be addressed in the next chapter of my family history.
The Civil War and beyond After the Civil War and Emancipation, almost all of WASPs moved westward, and the German and Czech settlers made a home for themselves in Fayette County; these two ethnicities are still very evident in the county today. Many of my African- American ancestors left the plantations without a place to go, but they settled in and purchased what land they could afford and scratched out a living until the late 1880’s.
The German families generally did all of their own work on their farms and had no need for slaves before the Civil War or for help after emancipation. Many of my ancestors continued to scratch out a living on their small farms and worked for others as sharecroppers. Beginning in the 1880s to 1900s, they moved north to Lee County and purchased land to raise their families and make a life for themselves. Many of them still live in the area on the land they purchased in the 1880s and 1890s.
Growing up in Lee County As a child growing up in Lee County, my grandfather used to talk about Fayette County all of the time, especially about Ledbetter and Carmine, Texas, including E.P. Stuermer and his cotton gin. He also talked about a Kit or Kid Taylor in Round Top, Texas. At the time, I thought nothing of if. As I grew older, I would ask him lots of questions and took notes until he died in 1980. After he passed, and I was out of college and raising a family, I began a concentrated effort to trace my family history.
In seach of history
During my travel with work, I visited historical sites and libraries in every state in the United States except Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Alaska and Maine. I also visited all of the cities along the east coast of Mexico, be- cause some of my family fled to Mexico to avoid slavery. Other countries/cities I visited include: Jamaica; Haiti; Dominican Republic; Salvador; Rio de Janeiro; Sao Palo, Brazil; Peru; Lagos, Nigeria; London; Sweden; Paris, France; Frankfurt, Germany; Rome, Italy; Athens, Greece; Cairo, Egypt; Toronto and Quebec, Canada; and Saudia Arabia. Many of these countries provided clues to my family history. Also many of my ancestors fought in World War I & II and made their mark overseas, although some did not return to America.
Round Top (Fayette County) Texas
After many years of research around the world, Lee County and Fayette County, I was researching the 1880 Census in the Clayton Library in Houston and found all of the people my grandfather used to talk about. What was amazing about this is that they all filled out the 1880 Cen sus in the 5th District of Round, Top, Texas. I was absolutely shocked.
The names included Thomas Henry Monroe Huff and Sarah A. Jackson from North Carolina and Virginia, Thomas Rivers and Chanie Maxwell, Texas and Georgia, Whales Clemons and Sarah Kellough, Virginia; Matthew Rivers, Sr. and Sabry Daws, Texas and Alabama, Willie “Will” Little and Narcisse Nunn, Ledbetter, Texas, Elijah Griffin, Georgia, Richard Collins and Mandy Clemons, Texas, Roland Estes and Jennifer V. Kerr, Texas, Wesley Taylor and Martha Jane Crenshaw, Alabama and Tennessee, John Wesley Taylor and Katie Rivers, Texas and George Collins, and Malinda Dobbins, Alabama and South Carolina. There were over 24 names of African American families who lived in the 5th District of Round, Top. This is when I really began extensive search of the Round Top, Texas areas, looking for links to my ancestral family. My research led me to Georgia Tubbs, Herbert L. Diers, my association with the Round Top Historical Association, the Connersville Primitive Baptist Church, its move to the Woods Annex in Round Top in 2002 and ultimately its renovation and development into an African American Museum, which was addressed in a previous article. I had came full-circle back to my roots.
Sources:
Census records for 1860, 1870, & 1880, 1900 & 1910 from Clayton Library in Houston, Texas Deed Records, Fayette County, Texas County Clerk Personal Research & Family History Herbert L. Diers & Georgia Etzel- Tubbs of Round Top, Texas
