Nancy West

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Nancy West was a free Black woman who lived in Charlottesville during the late 1700s and early 1800s.[1]

Biography

Nancy was born to Thomas West and a formerly enslaved woman named Priscilla around 1782. She had one full sibling, James Henry West. In her father's will, finalized just before he died when she was 14 years old, she was promised an inheritance of forty pounds when she turned 18. One of her father's associates, David Isaacs, was a witness to the will. In the next few years, David and Nancy would commence a common-law marriage.

In 1799, when Nancy was 17 years old, she convinced her legal guardian to give her the forty pounds a year early. She used it to purchase a half-acre lot from her brother, and had started living and running a bakery from the property by 1803.[2]

David and Nancy's relationship was illegal in Virginia at the time. Marriage was impossible both legally and religiously, as interracial marriage was explicitly banned in state law, and Jewish tradition meant that David could not marry a non-Jewish woman. Despite this, the two would go on to have seven children together by 1817. In the 1810 Census, they are recorded in two separate households, as Nancy lived with other free people of color (some of whom were almost certainly her elder children), while David lived alone above his store. In 1819, Nancy sold the half-acre property and purchased land on Main Street, a few blocks away from David's land and store. She leased this property to businesses and moved in with David, and established her bakery next to his store. In the 1820 Census, David's household now included 10 free people of color, eight of whom were his wife and seven children.[3]

By 1822, Nancy and David's now-visible relationship (and possibly their economic success) drew the ire of white Charlottesville. The two were brought before a jury on contradictory charges, both for carrying out an interracial marriage and for engaging in a sexual relationship without being married.[2] It was this technicality that led to the charges against them being dismissed in 1826, so their case did not change the Virginia law against interracial marriage.

Simultaneous to their relationship being challenged by law, Nancy West was actively becoming more economically stable. She purchased property and held it in her own right - something that white married women could not do, as Virginia law automatically gave her property to their husband. Thus, being a free woman of color allowed Nancy to build up her own source of wealth. She used this wealth to protect her family's stability; when David was sued for the financial improprieties of the nephew he was considered responsible for, it was Nancy's money that backed him up in court.

Following David's death in 1837, Nancy continued to live with their children and rented out the property the two had once lived on. Since they were not legally married, she did not inherit his estate. This was beneficial, though, as it meant she did not have to manage the debts he left behind (he passed away just after the Panic of 1837 ruined many estates nationwide.)

In 1850, Nancy owned property worth around $7,000. This made her the wealthiest non-white person in Albemarle County, and one of the richest free women of color in the upper South.[2] This valuation of her property exists because it was in 1850 that she decided to sell her property and leave Charlottesville. She moved to Ohio, joining several of her children in a free Black community in Ross County. She died there in 1856.

References