Biographical Info

Patsy first appears in the historical record in Zachariah’s 1832 will, when she, her husband Ben Robinson, and their five children were bequeathed to Mary Ann. Patsy and Ben Robinson were parents to Rhoda, Fleming, Henrietta, Ann, and Alsey. The family seems to have been at the Hurricane plantation for decades, from at least the early 1830s through the end of the Civil War. In December 1865, Howell noted that “Ben Robinson & his wife Patsy” were among the older freedpeople he had been busy “providing for the support of” at the Hurricane following General Sherman’s destruction of the plantation. “I think the matter has been disposed of in a way that is the very best that could be done,” he wrote. In the 1870 U.S. Census, Patsy and Ben Robinson were still living in Baldwin County, beside others with whom they had been enslaved at the Hurricane.

Sketch written by Aidan Ehrenhalt, Xi Nan, Dev Patel, Aaryak Sinha