Rebecca McIntosh Hawkins Hagerty
Born
Rebecca McIntosh

(1815-03-15)March 15, 1815.
Diedc. 1880s
CitizenshipMuscogee Nation
Known forOwning slave plantations in Texas
Parent

Rebecca McIntosh Hawkins Hagerty (March 15, 1815 - 1880s)[1] was a Muscogee woman who, in 1860, was the only woman in Texas to have more than 100 enslaved people.[2]

Life

Rebecca McIntosh was born in the Lower Creek Indian nation in Georgia to William McIntosh and his second wife, Susannah Ree.[1] She had two sisters, Delilah McIntosh and Catherine Hettie McIntosh, a brother, Daniel, and an older half-brother, Chillicothe McIntosh.[1][3]

McIntosh married Benjamin Hawkins, an Anglo-Creek man, in 1831.[1][2] She gave birth to their first child, Louise (or Louisa, in some records) on December 27, 1831, at Fort Gibson in what is now Oklahoma.[1] In 1833 the family moved to East Texas, where Benjamin Hawkins had acquired both land and enslaved workers in Marion County. Their second daughter, Anna, was born in 1834 at Nacogdoches. Benjamin Hawkins was murdered in 1836, and Rebecca and her two daughters inherited his property, which included eleven enslaved people left to Louisa. By early 1838 she was purchasing land and enslaved people on her own.[3]

She remarried in March 1838 to Spire M. Hagerty, a landowner and holder of enslaved people in Harrison County.[1][2] Rebecca had several subsequent children with Hagerty, some of whom died in infancy. Two children, Frances and Spire Jr., lived to adulthood.[1] The marriage was rocky due to Spire Sr.'s alcoholism and physical abuse of Rebecca, and the two separated multiple times before finally divorcing in 1848 or 1849. Spire Sr. died in December 1849, leaving most of his estate to Frances. Rebecca Hagerty successfully argued that half of the estate was rightfully hers, and she was made administrator of the property until her children reached adulthood. Sometime in the 1840s, Hagerty's two sisters moved onto land held by her first husband.[1]

In 1848, Louisa accused her mother of having benefited from the labor of the eleven enslaved people left to her in her father's estate without paying her for them. Hagerty returned the enslaved people to Louisa and paid her $2500 for the ten years of labor she had benefitted from, an amount which was considered low at the time. In 1850, Louisa sued her mother and successfully won $11,000 in additional payments.[1]

After her divorce from Spire Hagerty, Rebecca Hagerty managed two plantations: Refuge, in Marion County, and Phoenix, in Harrison County. The primary crop on both was cotton, and she produced 500-600 bales of it annually, primarily for buyers in New Orleans.[4] In 1850, the two plantations were worked by a combined 69 enslaved people;[5] by 1860, this number had risen to 102, although some reports indicate that number may actually have been as high as 150.[1][3] She was the fourth largest landowner in Marion County, and one of the richest women in the state.[3]

Her daughter Anna married in the late 1850s and died in the early 1860s; her two children were sent to live with Hagerty as her wards.

During the Civil War, Hagerty sold cattle and pigs at a loss to the Confederate Commissary.[3] The war greatly depreciated Hagerty's financial assets; by 1870, she owned only $6,000 in real estate and $695 in personal property, in comparison to her $33,000 in real estate and $82,000 in personal property in 1860.[3]

Rebecca moved in with Frances and her husband in the 1870s.[1]

Rebecca Hagerty died in the late 1880s while visiting her brother, Daniel, and was buried in Checotah, Oklahoma.[1][3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "A Guide to the Rebecca McIntosh Hawkins Hagerty Papers". Texas Archival Resources Online. Archived from the original on 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2023-09-14.
  2. 1 2 3 Carroll, Mark M. (2010-01-01). Homesteads Ungovernable: Families, Sex, Race, and the Law in Frontier Texas, 1823-1860. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78273-0.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McArthur, Judith N. (October 1986). "Myth, Reality, and Anomaly: The Complex World of Rebecca Hagerty". East Texas Historical Journal. 24 (2).
  4. ↑ McArthur, Judith N. "Hagerty, Rebecca McIntosh Hawkins". Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 2023-09-14.
  5. ↑ "RebeccaMcIntosh". bourlandcivilwar.com. Retrieved 2023-09-14.
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