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Silas Omohundro was a wealthy white slave trader in 1800s Richmond with an abnormal connection to his family — they were enslaved by him. Historian Emmanuel Dabney will examine the intricate life of Omohundro and his wife and children at 6 p.m. today in "Diamonds, Education, Emancipation and Race: The Family of Silas Omohundro," a lecture at the National Park Service's Civil War Visitor Center at Tredegar Iron Works.
Dabney says Omohundro, who ran a slave trade business from what is now 15th Street in Richmond, extended the luxurious life of a white family in the 19th century to his enslaved family through education and other gifts. “These are not, of course, typical slave experiences, and they’re happening for [his family] right next door to where Silas and his brother are buying and selling people,” says Dabney. “It’s extremely complicated that [his enslaved concubine Corinna] is around this world [of slavery] that she technically could be a part of at any moment.”
Those who knew him weren’t aware of the family secret. “They thought she was his white wife,” Dabney says. “They did not know that she was of African descent and therefore his slave property. [Silas] did and didn’t acknowledge [their] connection,” he says. He would often refer to Corinna as “my woman,” a phrase commonly used for enslaved concubines, Dabney adds.
Dabney’s lecture, free and open to the public, is part of the James River Advisory Council’s Forgotten History lecture series.
