Emanuel Driggus

Biography Author Tim Hashaw states Driggus was from the region of now Angola, and suggests he was born to the First Africans in Virginia from the Kingdom of Ndongo.

Driggus and his wife Frances, one of the first Africans in Virginia, first appear in a record of sale in 1645 to Captain Francis Pott, the brother of governor John Pott. The couple agreed to a contract of limited indenture for their foster daughters Elizabeth and Jane, wherein Pott promised they would be raised as Christians.

Pott gave Driggus his first cow and calf in 1645. Driggus raised multiple kinds of livestock while enslaved, negotiating with his masters to recognize he owned them legally. Changes in residence Emanuel and Frances were later sold to Pott's cousin Mary Menifee in 1648 to cover his debt, and were thus separated from their children. Menifee sold them to the planter Stephen Charlton. As Charlton also allowed him to raise cattle, Driggus was able to purchase Jane's freedom in 1652 using his earnings.

For the price of 7500 pounds of tobacco, Driggus acquired a 145 acre leasehold on King's Creek, Northampton County from Kendall in 1665, growing tobacco and raising horses. To help finance the lease, he sublet the least valuable 50 acres of the tract to a white tenant farmer for 2500 pounds of tobacco. By then, he was a widower and had remarried a white woman named Elizabeth, but he continued to provide for the enslaved children from his first marriage. Over his lifetime, Driggus gave up multiple calves and heifers to purchase the freedom of Black slave children not related to himself.

Return to indenture Due to the rise of legal restrictions on free Black people, Driggus faced struggles in the later part of his life. He was often called into court to pay various debts he owed. He was fined 450 pounds of tobacco for entertaining two servants in 1672, then had to hire himself out as a servant in 1674 on the property of John Custis to cover his debts. The same year, he was unable to offer assistance to his daughter Mary when she had an illegitimate child. The last record of Driggus was a debt he owed to a deceased planter in 1685.

Descendants Most children of Emanuel Driggus, such as Ann and Edward, remained slaves. His enslaved son Thomas Driggus eventually married the free Black woman Sarah King in 1667 or 1668. Their children were born free because she was free, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem. After facing a charge of fornication, they were allowed to cohabit on the land of William Kendall.

Sarah Driggus eventually left Kendall's plantation, but bore Thomas several children afterwards. Scholar Douglas Deal suggests she departed due to growing restrictions on her and their children's lifestyles due to living with an enslaved man. Their daughter won a case for her freedom from indenture in 1695 against John Brewer, who had hired John Custis as legal counsel. Emanuel's son William Driggus had previously been summoned to court for stealing from Custis.

Free relatives Emanuel's adoptive daughter Jane Driggus was charged with fornication for having a child with an Irish man in 1663. She married the free Black man John Gussall afterwards, who died within a few years. Jane Gussall was remarried to William Harman, another free Black man.

Thomas's grandson Azaricum Driggus was apprenticed to a Richard Carver in 1716, with the proviso of providing him with 2 months of schooling per year. He later took up work as a carpenter, was married, and leased land for a house in 1722. By 1738, Azaricum's estate, slaves included, was valued above two-thirds of his neigbhors. Some also migrated to Maryland, Alabama, and Georgia, a portion being marked white on the census.

The Driggers and Drighouse families in the United States are direct descendants of Emanuel Driggus. The Driggers and Chavis families were allied with the family of Gideon Gibson Sr. in Chowan County. Capt. Winslow Driggers, a direct descendant of Emanuel, led a militia against British strongholds in the Carolinas and was later hung under the Negro Act.

Intermarriage The Driggers family intermarried with the Songo, Sisco, and Consellor families, who also had surnames implying Spanish or Portuguese connections. Centuries later, they had also established communities together with the free African-American Dial, Carter, Harman, Cumbo, Cornish, Sweet, and Gowen families. The surname was later carried by the Melungeons of Appalachia, and the Driggers family was one of the founding families of the Lumbee encountered by English settlers. Scholar Antonio T. Bly suggests Driggus being literate was due to previous familiarity with Western literacy in Angola. Author John M. Blanton poses Driggus's upbringing in West-Central Africa would have informed his ability to navigate his bound status, allowing him to leverage material resources, kin relationships, and enslaver networks. Historians T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes suggested the questioning Driggus received regarding his livestock revealed he faced the risk of certain Virginians removing his ability to own property. They viewed Driggus and his contemporary Anthony Johnson as members of a "class" of Africans in the Virginia colony who had begun to associate property accumulation with their own future freedom. Scholar Douglas Deal states Breen and Innes placed too much focus on land ownership as a factor determining one's liberty. He noted free Black landowners like Azaricum Driggus existed later on, but still faced struggles in the 18th century. He concluded society changed its relationship with Black people, noting the rise of slave labor affected the status of free Black people in the colony.