James “Gentleman Jim” Robinson

James Robinson was born near Manassas, Virginia in 1799 to an African American mother and a white father. Robinson would have been born free or enslaved depending on the legal status of his mother. If his mother was free, he would have been born free. If she was enslaved, he may have been freed soon after his birth. We do know that by the time he was 25, James Robinson was free and living and working in Manassas.

Virginia law require all free black people to register with the county court. From those records, we know that James Robinson was: “a bright mulatto man about twenty four years of age, five feet five and a quarter inches high, has no visible mark of scar,… it appears that he was born free in… the County of Prince William.”

James Robinson, like any other individual at the time, wanted to provide for himself economically, and to establish and care for his family. As a free black man in a slave state, he had to navigate many obstacles to achieve his goals.

Like many other free African Americans, James Robinson was “bound out”, or hired out, to work. From the age of 10 until he was 21, Robinson worked as a farm laborer. After that Robinson worked as a waiter in a tavern, eventually earning enough money to purchase 170 acres of land in 1840. In his life, Robinson would continue to buy land and increase his wealth. He operated a drover’s tavern, which meant he provided a place for herds of cattle or sheep to stay for the night as drovers moved them through town. He also farmed the land surrounding his home. By the time he died, he owned 1500 acres. To become this successful, Robinson developed strong relationships with white families in the area, earning him the nickname “Gentleman Jim”.

During his time as a waiter, James Robinson met and married a woman named Susan Gaskins. Susan was enslaved, so they were not allowed to live together and could not see each other much either. Despite the obstacles, James and Susan Robinson began their family and had 8 children together. Even though James was free, his children were born into slavery because their mother, Susan, was enslaved.

Robinson constantly strived to keep his family together and safe. One way he did this was by buying or hiring out his children. He hired out and later bought his son Tasco. He also arranged for his daughter Jemima to be hired out by men that he trusted. In 1848, planter John Lee died and, in his will, freed Robinson’s wife Susan, his daughters, Henrietta and Jemima, and two of his grandchildren, Diannah and Pendleton. With his newly freed family members, along with sons Tasco and Bladen, Robinson built a one and a half story log home on his property. Unfortunately, Robinson wasn’t able to protect all of his family. His two older sons, James and Alfred, were sold by their enslaver to a sugarcane plantation in New Orleans. Robinson would never see them again.

When war came to Robinson’s front yard on July 21, 1861, his family hid in a neighbor’s cellar. Unable to join them, Robinson himself hid under a nearby bridge. When the battle, known as the First Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run), was over, he returned to find 13 dead Confederate soldiers laying in his yard. When the Second Battle came around in 1862, Robinson’s house was used as the headquarters of a Union General and later as a hospital for wounded soldiers. When the war was over, Robinson would never again have to worry about his family being enslaved. Some of his neighbors, like the nearby Henry family, were devastated by the battles that raged on the Manassas hills.

Robinson’s home luckily came through both battles relatively unharmed, but when the Union soldiers occupied his house during the Second Battle, they did quite a bit of damage to his property. Robinson filed a claim for $2,608 worth of damages with the Southern Claims Commission, an agency created to compensate citizens whose property was damaged by the war. In order to receive money, Robinson had to prove that 1) he was loyal to the Union and 2) that Union soldiers were the ones that caused the damages. He proved his loyalty to the Union by sharing his fear that he would be enslaved if the Confederacy won the war.

“Well, there was a great deal of talk about the breaking up of our freedom and I was a free man and of course I couldn’t be pleased with that idea—I scorned the view of it.”

James Robinson overcame enormous personal, legal, and social obstacles to demonstrate that a free black man could succeed even in a slave state and his descendants would continue to prosper.

In 1993 one of James Robinson's descendants, Lillian Robinson wrote:

"James would have been very proud of his descendants. Down through the years they have been productive citizens, who earned their living as farmers, millers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, school teachers, government workers, and other worthy occupations.

James Robinson may not have been a Colonel or a General, but he and his generations were people to be proud of.”

 

Questions

How did James Robinson become successful? What nickname did neighbors give him? 

What happened to Robinson’s children?

Based on the story of James Robinson and his family, what do you think were some of the challenges or fears that both free and enslaved black families experienced in Virginia?

Why is Robinson’s story important to tell and to learn?