Traders' Wives

Because Virginia refused to recognize marriages between enslaved people or between the free and enslaved, Corinna Omohundro was unable to inherit under her husband’s will. After the Civil War she sued unsuccessfully for her portion. 

Like his neighbors and fellow traders Hector Davis and Robert Lumpkin, Silas Omohundro had an ongoing domestic relationship with an enslaved woman. Corinna Hinton remained enslaved after she and Omohundro married. Hinton participated in running Omohundro’s slave jail and bore six children—Silas, Alice, Colon, William, Reilly, and George. Some were educated in the North. Robert Lumpkin lived with an enslaved woman named Mary, with whom he had five children—Martha, Anna, Robert, Richard, and John. Both Martha and Anna were educated at the Ipswich Female Seminary in Massachusetts in 1857 and 1858. In his will, Lumpkin left all his property in Richmond and in Philadelphia to Mary and his children.