Lavinia of Good Hope

Two children on the Good Hope estate were listed as having a mother called Lavinia: Patience (b. 1814) and William Joseph (b. 1819).

Lavinia was also listed, with her age estimated as 36 (b. 1781) and her birthplace given as Africa. In the 1832 return of 'increases' and 'decreases', the death of a woman called Lavinia who was born in Africa was noted, but at this point her age was estimated as 70, which would give a birth year of about 1762. There are two possible interpretations: first, that there were two women called Lavinia on the estate, but that the older one was omitted from the 1817 register; second, that both records referred to the same woman.

If the second possibility is correct, Lavinia would have been 51 when she died in 1832. She would have lived a life of back-breaking labour, physical constraint and punishment, poor nutrition, limited access to healthcare and continued exposure to the full heat of the sun, all of which would have aged her prematurely. 

The ages of older enslaved people were often over-estimated, partly by a process of rounding (70 may indicate 'somewhere between 65 and 74') and partly by a lack of interest in the ages of enslaved people who were no longer healthy enough to be productive labourers. An age estimate of 70 could also be understood as an expression of poor physical condition.

If there were two women called Lavinia on Good Hope, one was between 38 and 57 when Patience and William Joseph was born, and the other between 33 and 52.  In this scenario, the older Lavinia could not have been William Joseph's mother.


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