Emanuel Driggus

Emanuel Driggus (fl. 1645–1685) and his wife Frances were enslaved Atlantic Creoles in the mid-seventeenth century in the Colony of Virginia. The name Driggus is likely a corruption of the Portuguese name Rodrigues as he may have been born in the Kingdom of Ndongo[1][2] (as well as others who were among the First Africans in Virginia, such as John Graweere and Angela). No known records exist confirming his birthplace.

History

The two first appear in a record of sale in 1640 to Captain Francis Potts; at the time, they arranged for a contract of limited indenture for their two children in service.[3] The Driggus couple had other children, who were born into slavery. In 1657, Captain Potts sold two of their children, Thomas and Ann Driggus, to pay off some personal debt.[3]

Driggus raised multiple kinds of livestock while enslaved, negotiating with his masters to recognize he owned them legally. He bought and traded them frequently, amassing wealth for himself. Driggus passed down many animals to his children, ostensibly to help them benefit materially.[4]

Driggus was freed after the death of Potts in 1658. By then, he was a widower and had remarried, but he continued to provide for the enslaved children from his first marriage. He bequeathed a horse to his daughters Francy and Jane in 1673.[5]

Due to the rise of legal restrictions on free Black people, Driggus faced struggles in the later part of his life. This included being fined for entertaining two servants, also having to hire himself out as a servant in 1674, to cover a debt due to a case he lost in 1672. The last record of Driggus was a debt he owed to a planter in 1685.[6]

Descendants

His son Thomas Driggus eventually married a free Black woman; their children were born free because she was free.[3] According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, adopted into Virginia law in 1662, children born in the colony took the status of their mother. This principle, which contributed to the expansion of chattel slavery, was widely adopted by other colonies and incorporated into state laws after the American Revolutionary War.

Over time, his descendants spelled their surname as Driggers.[7] According to geneaological analysis by Paul Heinegg, Driggus's free Black descendants migrated to North and South Carolina.[8][9] Some members of the Driggers family were progenitors of the Melungeons of Appalachia, and the Lumbee of North Carolina.[10][11]

References

  1. ^ "Emanuel Driggus".
  2. ^ "Dictionary of Virginia Biography - Emanuel Driggus Biography".
  3. ^ a b c "Individual Stories- Individual Heroes" Archived 2012-04-29 at the Wayback Machine, Slavery and the Making of America, WNET, accessed 30 September 2011
  4. ^ Goetz, Rebecca Anne. "Emanuel Driggus (fl. 1645–1685)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Humanities. Retrieved December 27, 2025.
  5. ^ "The Slave Experience: Family", Slavery and the Making of America, PBS, accessed 30 September 2011
  6. ^ Goetz, Rebecca Anne (2016). "Emanuel Driggus (fl. 1645–1685)". Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia. Richmond, VA. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
  7. ^ "Emanuel Driggus".
  8. ^ Heinegg, Paul (2001). Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina From the Colonial Period to About 1820 4th Edition. Vol. I. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co. pp. 331–338. ISBN 0-8063-5110-1. Retrieved December 24, 2025. Emmanuel Driggers, "Negroe," born perhaps 1620, was the slave of Francis Pott on his plantation in Magotha Bay, Northampton County, Virginia. On 27 May 1645 when American slavery had not yet fully developed, he purchased a cow and calf from Pott and recorded the sale in the Northampton County Court [DW 1645-51, 82]. He and his wife Frances were assigned as servants to Stephen Charlton in 1649 to pay Pott's debt to Charlton. [...] William, born say 1737, purchased land in Cumberland County, North Carolina, by deed proved on 17 October 1759 and sold land in Cumberland County by deed proved five years later in May Court 1764 [Minutes 1759-65, 54, 103]. His improvements on Gum Swamp east of Drowning Creek were mentioned in a 22 July 1769 Bladen County deed [DB:91]
  9. ^ Knight, Thomas Daniel (September 12, 2025). "Migration in the Early Chesapeake: Dorchester Co., MD, as a Case Study, 1650–1750". Genealogy. 9 (3). University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: 96. doi:10.3390/genealogy9030096. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
  10. ^ Lowery, Malinda Maynor (2018). The Lumbee Indians An American Struggle. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 35. ISBN 9781469646381. Retrieved December 24, 2025. Families named Driggers, Bones, Jacobs, Quick, Swett, Cooper—all founding Lumbee families—had been living in that same area when new English settlers moved in.
  11. ^ Hashaw, Tim (2006). Children of Perdition. Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. pp. 28, 35. ISBN 9780881460742. Retrieved March 12, 2026.

Further reading

  • Douglas Deal, Race and Class in Colonial Virginia, (Garland, 1993)


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