Chatham Manor

Chatham Manor
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
Chatham Manor, March 2008
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Nearest city	Fredericksburg, Virginia
Area	4,601.1 acres (1,862.0 ha)
Built	1771
Architectural style	Georgian
Part of	Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park (= #66000046)
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

North American slave revolts
1526 San Miguel de Gualdape (Spanish Florida, Victorious) c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga's Revolt (Veracruz, New Spain, Victorious) 1712 New York Slave Revolt (British Province of New York, Suppressed) 1730 First Maroon War (British Jamaica, Victorious) 1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Danish Saint John, Suppressed) 1739 Stono Rebellion (British Province of South Carolina, Suppressed) 1741 New York Conspiracy (Province of New York, Suppressed) 1760 Tacky's War (British Jamaica, Suppressed) 1791 Mina Conspiracy (Louisiana (New Spain), Suppressed) 1795 Pointe Coupée Conspiracy (Louisiana (New Spain), Suppressed) 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution (French Saint-Domingue, Victorious) 1800 Gabriel Prosser (Virginia, Suppressed) 1803 Igbo Landing (St. Simons Island, Georgia, Suppressed) 1805 Chatham Manor (Virginia, Suppressed) 1811 German Coast Uprising (Territory of Orleans, Suppressed) 1815 George Boxley (Virginia, Suppressed) 1816 Bussa's Rebellion (British Barbados, Suppressed) 1822 Denmark Vesey (South Carolina, Suppressed) 1831 Nat Turner's rebellion (Virginia, Suppressed) 1831–1832 Baptist War (British Jamaica, Suppressed) 1839 Amistad, ship rebellion (Off the Cuban coast, Victorious) 1841 Creole case, ship rebellion (Off the Southern U.S. coast, Victorious) 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation (Indian Territory, Suppressed) 1859 John Brown's Raid (Virginia, Suppressed) This box:

Coordinates: 38°18′31.8″N 77°27′19.3″W / 38.308833°N 77.455361°W / 38.308833; -77.455361

Chatham Manor is the Georgian-style home completed in 1771 by farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh, after about 3 years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for more than a century the center of a large, thriving plantation, and one of the few locations visited both by President George Washington and later President Abraham Lincoln.

Chatham also reflected the new country's racial tensions. In January 1805, Chatham's slaves overpowered and whipped their overseer and assistants in a minor slave rebellion. An armed posse of white men quickly gathered. They killed one slave in the attack, and two more died trying to escape capture. Two other slaves were deported, likely to the Caribbean or Louisiana, and Fitzhugh soon sold the property.

Five decades later, in 1857, owner Hannah Jones Coalter (the 77-year-old mother of a disabled daughter named Janet), died and attempted to manumit her 93 slaves after making provision both for her daughter and them. Her relatives sued, claiming that after the Dred Scott decision, slaves were legally incapable of choosing whether to remain enslaved or receive their freedom and enough money to establish themselves in another state. While local judges thought the executors should free the slaves per Hannah's intent, a divided Virginia Supreme Court disagreed. Thus, the executors sold Chatham with its slaves to J. Horace Lacy (husband of Hannah's much younger half-sister Betty), although soon one slave was allowed to travel to raise money to buy freedom for herself and her small family, and succeeded.