Henry Soane invented white privilege.
Born to a regular degular English family in 1622, Henry was never going to be a king or a duke. Fortunately (for Henry), in 1618, the Virginia Company of London began granting 50 acres of free land to the people who could pay for workers to relocate to the fledgling colony. Like many others, Henry soon realized the “workers” also included enslaved Africans. So in 1651, Henry packed up his wife and six kids, moved and redeemed his headrights coupon for 297 acres.
One year after his family relocated to the floundering startup, he was elected to the first legislative body in America, the Virginia House of Burgesses. Although it had existed since 1619, it had no royal backing until England’s newly restored King Charles II certified the body in 1660. By then, Henry had imported enough Africans to own more than 6,000 acres of free land. His daughter Judith had married Henry Randolph, an even wealthier, more powerful slave-owning lawmaker, while Soane’s son, John, worked in the human trafficking industry. So when it came time for Virginia’s legislature to choose the leader, guess who got the job as speaker of the House?
Henry Soane.
Unfortunately, Soane died just before Virginia’s first royally sanctioned legislative session opened in 1661. He was gone but not forgotten. Judith's husband, Henry Randolph, had been elected as clerk of the House of Burgesses. And in 1662, Clerk Randolph urged the colonial legislature to honor his father-in-law by passing every bill Soane had authored, including one that would define race, whiteness and chattel slavery in America:
“WHEREAS some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.”
Henry’s son, John, never married, partly because of his new job working with the royal family. The Virginia Company of London had been dissolved, but his father’s connections helped him land a new position as the chief surveyor in charge of headrights. After John’s father died, King Charles named John chief agent of the Royal African Company.
John’s brothers inherited his land, but he gave all of his surveying instruments to his nephews. And since Judith’s wealthy husband had died, she remarried a dude named Peter. Their only daughter, Mary, inherited John Soane’s slave-trading wealth, Henry Soane’s land that came from owning slaves, the Randolph slavery wealth and all the wealth that came from being America’s No. 1 human trafficker. There was just one problem:
They weren’t educated.
In her defense, Mary didn’t have to educate her son, Peter. Although he was barely literate, anyone who enslaves that many people and inherited so much land doesn’t need a nine-to-five. Although Peter struggled with reading and writing, he learned “plantation management” to maintain the family wealth. Plus, when he doubled back up the family tree and married Jane Randolph (who was technically not his cousin), he also doubled the family’s landholdings. The family wealth tripled when he was named executor of the estate for his wife-cousin’s uncle, William Randolph. Not only was William the wealthiest and most powerful man in Virginia, but he was also a founding trustee of the second college in America, William and Mary, which was founded on one of the Randolph’s plantations.
Most of Peter and Jane’s children died before they reached adulthood, but they raised the Randolph kids. So when Peter died, his 14-year-old son inherited:
5,000 acres of free land from the richest, most powerful families in the British colonies
The labor from four generations of enslaved Africans
The wealth of the No. 1 human trafficker in colonial America.
The clout from a family with speakers of the oldest legislature in America.
Admission into the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the American colonies.
Free college tuition.
And all the laws, wealth and privilege that America had to offer.
Although Peter and Jane’s son enslaved more than 600 human beings, he didn’t technically have to buy slaves or traffic them, because he inherited them. He was one of the largest property owners in the history of this country, but he didn’t have to buy land. His ancestors weren’t educated, so we don’t know if his family valued education.
And because his great-great-grandfather literally invented white privilege, we don’t know how smart or talented he was. In fact, there is only one thing we can say we truly know about Peter and Jane.
They raised a liar.
When Jane died at 57 years old, she knew her son had all the wealth, status, education and power that six generations of the most powerful people had specifically tailored to benefit and protect him. In her final act of motherhood, she gave him the title to the people she enslaved. Had she lived another three months, Jane could have read the biggest lie her privileged son had ever told:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
How the fuck would he know?
Was Thomas Jefferson smart?
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Today’s Reading List:
The Privilege of White Individuality by Michael Harriot
Dr. Russell Barkley on attention deficit disorder
A Dangerous Distortion of Our Families: Representations of Families, by Race, in News and Opinion Media by Color of Change and Travis L. Dixon
Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Among US Black Individuals by Jude Mary Cénat, Camille Blais-Rochette, Catherine Morse, Marie-Pier Vandette, Pari-Gole Noorishad, Cary Kogan, Assumpta Ndengeyingoma and Patrick R. Labelle
