Gibson family (Virginia)

Settlement of North Carolina

By 1755, they were living in Orange County, North Carolina with the Bunch and Collins families.^[21] The Gibson, Bunch, and Chavis families owned over 1000 acres of land along the Roanoke River in the counties of Northampton and Halifax, along with slaves.^[14][5] Hubbard Gibson had previously moved to North Carolina with his children in the early 1720s, against the background of increasing legal restrictions on free African-Americans in Virginia.^[20]

Initial settlement in South Carolina

The Gibsons were among the first settlers of the South Carolinian backcountry.^[22][23] Hubbard's son Gideon Gibson Sr. moved with the family to the state from Virginia in 1731, causing a disturbance in Craven County.^[24][10][25] The House of Assembly complained, saying that the Gibson family consisted of colored men with white wives, who intended to settle on the Santee River.^[26] South Carolina governor Robert Johnson summoned Gibson Sr. in response to the complaints, and allowed the family to settle in the state after meeting him. He stated they were "not Negroes nor Slaves but Free people", noting they had black slaves, white wives, paid taxes, and were of good repute. Authors remarked the race of the Gibson family seemed to matter less, or not at all, compared to their social class, and they were able to be free of being defined as Negro or mulatto, partially due to being wealthy, useful, and pro-slavery.^[27][28][25]

They went on to be granted hundreds of acres in the backcountry, at Mars Bluff in an area populated by Welsh settlers.^[29][25] The family grew corn, cash crops, and livestock on the bluffs of the Pee Dee River, which provided protection from Native American raids. They married into the neighboring families, with the sister of Gibson Sr. marrying a wealthy planter.^[29][25]

Gideon Gibson Jr., free Black son of Gibson Sr., married a white woman, came to own seven slaves, and was appointed the administrator of an estate.^{[25][26][30][7]} By 1768 he led a band of Regulators in South Carolina.^[31][26] After defeating and whipping a local militia, Gibson and the Regulators were depicted in Charleston as a "Rogues party" of "Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes." Scholar Daniel J. Sharfstein proposed the precedent of Black people whipping whites meant that slaves joining the conflict could have caused the Regulator movement to overwhelm South Carolina. In response, the province strategically pardoned all Regulators except for Gideon Jr.'s band, and sent George Gabriel Powell to deal with him.^[32]

Classification of the family by the Assembly of South Carolina

Powell sought to have the Negro Act of 1740 brought against Gideon Jr., but was opposed by South Carolina Assembly member Henry Laurens. Laurens opined that Gibson Jr. had "more Red and White in his face" than half of the French Huguenot descendants in the Assembly, and that his children looked whiter than Powell himself.^[33][34] Privately, Lauren preferred the Gibson family classified as Black, as he later stated in a letter:

"to confine them to their original clothing will be best. They may and ought to continue a separate people, may be subjected by special laws, kept harmless, made useful and freed from the tyranny and arbitrary power of individual..."^[26][33]

Sharfstein states Lauren chose the realities of life over the law with respect to Gibson Jr.'s case, with Lauren proposing that "Reasoning from the colour carries no conviction...By perseverance the black may be blanched and the 'stamp of Providence' effectually effaced." The Assembly chose not to pursue Gibson Jr., and he returned to planter life afterwards.^[33][26] The reforms he sought were eventually granted.^[35]

In his final essay, historian Winthrop D. Jordan proposed that the case of the Gibson family demonstrated the Province of South Carolina, with its Black majority, was unique relative to other Anglo-dominated colonies. He stated that the colony was more open about miscegenation and giving higher status to mulatto people, and that the outcome of the Gibson family's case would not have occurred in the other continental colonies. He also stated the state of South Carolina remained relatively more fluid with respect to racial boundaries even after the American Revolution.^[36]

Narratives and discussion of racial origin

James Madison Wells and Russell Lee Gibson, political opponents. Wells stated Gibson was of African descent.^[45]

The Mississippi branch of the Gibson family cultivated a myth of Roma ancestry, providing an explanation for their darker features.^[46] Reverend John Griffing Jones suggested they descended from "Portuguese Huguenots" who settled in South Carolina.^[47] Sharfstein noted the existence of "little races" in the Antebellum South, many members having the same Gibson surname previously present among the first free people of color in colonial Virginia. Some examples of these groups he gave were Wesorts, Redlegs, Brass Ankles, and Croatans. He stated they often narrated different racial origins, such as Turks, mixed Portuguese-Natives, Berbers, Sephardic Jews, or Roanoke colonists.^[48][30]

In 1878, James Madison Wells accused Democrat senator Randall Lee Gibson of having African lineage, referring to him only as a "colored Democratic Representative".^[49] Randall was the son of Tobias Gibson.^[10] His comments, and Randall's response, were published in local newspapers.Randall and his brother McKinley wrote to Reverend Jones, as well as John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne for information on their family origins, to which they responded with positive accounts of their grandfather and extended family. Sharfstein suggested that white Southerners defended Randall due to the precedent of someone of his stature losing their whiteness; meaning the same could happen to them. Members of the family later located Gideon Gibson Jr. as one of their ancestors with genealogical research.^[49]