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A historical image of the Van Lew house. (Photo: Library of Congress)
Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration recently announced the state would add five new highway markers. Selected from student submitted suggestions, the new markers will tell the story of notable Black Virginians.
Mary was enslaved at birth by the Van Lew family, who held as many as 21 people in slavery. Elizbeth Van Lew, the family’s daughter who went by Bet, held anti-slavery sentiments however, and arranged for Mary to be educated, later sending her to live in Liberia.
“It was not unusual for white enslavers to not be quite comfortable owning slaves but also not quite understand or envision a place for free Black people as full citizens in the United States,” said Lois Leveen, a historian working on a biography of Mary’s life.
Whig reported “Mary Jones,
alias Mary Jane Henley a likely mulatto girl, about twenty years of age, arrested for being without free papers, was committed for nine days. She was sent to the North about nine years ago, by a highly respectable lady of this city, for the purpose of receiving a thorough education, after completing which she went to Liberia.” The article asserted, “The laws of Virginia positively prohibit the return to this State of any free negro who has lived in a free State,” yet Richards remained in Richmond. This may have been because her freedom was likely de facto, not de jure both Virginia law and stipulations in John Van Lew’s will made it difficult for the Van Lew family to free any of their slaves. If this was indeed the case, Richards likely experienced both the protection of and continued subjection to the Van Lew family. On August 30, at the end of her jail term, the