The Story of Enslavement at the Holt House
To understand the story of enslavement at the Holt House, we must also understand the transformation of Joseph Holt from a slaveholder who profited greatly from the institution of slavery to an advocate for freedom.
Until the adoption of the 13th Amendment, Kentucky permitted slavery, and the Holt family owned enslaved persons. Not a plantation as that term is usually understood, the Holt property was a working farm. Tobacco was grown as a cash crop, but most of the farm was used to raise hogs and cattle to support “generous sustenance.” Other crops were grown to feed people and livestock. The work was done mostly by the enslaved. When we examine census data between 1850 and 1860, we find an average of seventeen enslaved persons living and working on the Holt farm.
After beginning his legal career in Kentucky, Joseph Holt moved to Mississippi to practice law. There was a need for attorneys as Mississippi grew into the top producer of cotton in antebellum America. The production of cotton was accomplished by slave labor. By the time of the Civil War, more than half of the population of Mississippi was enslaved persons.
In less than ten years, Holt’s practice of law in Mississippi made him a wealthy man. His practice dealt not only with cotton but also with contracts and litigation about enslaved people. For example, in one case (Ingraham v. Russell, 4 Miss. 304 (1839), Holt won a new trial for his client because the damages awarded against his client for a breach of warranty in the sale of enslaved persons were considered excessive. Holt successfully argued the monetary value of the enslaved persons was not very high because of their quality.
While Holt was in Mississippi in 1837, his brother Thomas at the Holt farm in Kentucky asked Holt to purchase two enslaved persons and send them to Kentucky. The Panic of 1837 had resulted in lower market prices for the enslaved due to bank failures, plummeting land values, and the substantial increase in cotton production overseas that greatly reduced the market value of Mississippi cotton. As a result of the drastic drop in the sale prices of enslaved persons, Holt decided to purchase thirteen enslaved persons to send north. The enslaved would not only work the Holt farm but also could be leased out to perform work for others nearby. One of the enslaved purchased by Joseph Holt in 1837 was a young 12-year-old girl named Betsey. Her mother was not purchased with her, which undoubtedly caused severe separation trauma for young Betsey. Not long after arriving at the Holt Farm, Betsey drowned in the well behind the home.
Holt displayed no qualms with slavery until the dissolution of the Union at the beginning of the Civil War. As Postmaster General (1858-1859) under President Buchanan, Holt approved the rule prohibiting the dissemination of abolitionist materials by mail to Virginia. As late as November 1860, Holt wrote a letter to a Pittsburg newspaper editor chastising abolitionists in the north for enacting “liberty laws” to get around the then constitutionally protected fugitive slave laws for the return of escaped enslaved persons from the south.
When the southern states seceded, Holt clearly displayed that Union mattered most to him. Holt encouraged the Emancipation Proclamation and then advocated for the inclusion of Black men, including former enslaved men, in the Union Army. Holt freed the enslaved persons he owned, although enslaved persons would continue to be owned by his family at the Holt farm.
The reality of “brother against brother” in the Civil War was very real for Holt. Holt became the only Union man in his family. His own nephew, Thomas’ son, fought for the Confederacy and said that, if he had encountered his uncle on a battlefield during the war, he would have killed him as an enemy. Joseph Holt’s other living brothers James (in Texas) & Robert (in Mississippi) were confirmed Confederates. His only sister Elizabeth Ann (Sterett) married a local slave owner and benefited from slavery. These opposing views about slavery resulted in separation of the Holt Family. When Joseph left the area in the 1850’s, he commented that “I may never return to this place”. Indeed, he did not return until the mid 1870’s after his brother Thomas & mother Eleanor had passed away.
Holt’s transformation was complete by the end of the Civil War. On the day of Lincoln’s assassination, Holt was at Fort Sumter officiating as the fort was returned to Union possession. Holt said the nation had been “redeemed from the curse of slavery.” Holt decried “the barbarisms and atrocities naturally and necessarily inspired by the infernal institution in whose interest they [the rebels] are sacrificing alike themselves and their country.”
We will continue to work toward an accurate historical representation of enslavement here including their treatment as chattel property, trauma of familial separation when sold, and their post-war deprivations as citizens. There will always be more to the story about the enslaved people and their lives here at the Holt Farm.
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