The People Trent Enslaved

​Slavery was central to Trent's wealth. ​The eleven people listed on the probate inventory conducted after Trent's death not only comprised about one-third of the value of Trent's moveable assets at the time of his death, but also contributed to building his wealth by working in his mills and other business enterprises.

Included on Trent's probate inventory completed in April 1726 was an “Account of Negroes” that included eleven enslaved people – six men (Yaff or Yaft, Julius, Bossin, Harry, Cupid, and Pedro), one woman (Joan), two boys (Bob and Dick), one girl (Nanny), and one male child (Tom). 

Although we do not know the names these eleven people were given at birth, their exact ages, or how they may have been related to each other, information from the inventory gives us clues about their skills, jobs, and responsibilities. 

For example, we believe that the first group of six individuals - the only mixed age and gender group - lived and worked in the house, while the other five adult men worked elsewhere on the plantation, in Trent's mills and other businesses or on the farms.

As the only adult man in the first group, we believe that Yaff served as Trent's butler and manservant or valet. This was a position of considerable responsibility. Trent must have trusted Yaff with the day-to-day running of the household and supervision of the other servants as well as the intimate tasks of dressing and shaving him.

Joan and Nanny are the only two females on this list and were given high values in the inventory by the assessors. We interpret Joan as the cook for the Trent Household, capable of preparing elaborate meals using the many kitchen tools and equipment listed on the inventory. Nanny may have been Mary Trent's maid and caregiver for young William, Trent's youngest son.

​Based on the letter below, written by Trent to his eldest son James, we believe that Harry, an enslaved man of considerable value, may have been a skilled baker as well as perhaps a good manager, as Trent expected him to be able to ensure that bread was baked for shipment to Philadelphia.

  All together the assessed value of the eleven enslaved people totaled
about one-third of Trent’s property apart from the land, buildings, and mills.
This is illustrated on the poster to the left,in which assessed values from the inventory
are shown in estimated U.S. dollars and cents.

Trent owned one, perhaps two, grist mills for grinding grain into flour. The video to the right was edited with the express permission of The History Channel to include information about how the enslaved men listed on Trent's probate inventory might have worked in one of his grist mills. 

The folksong in the video is "The Jolly Miller," which originated in the northwestern England in the 1700s. The performers were Stacy Roth and Bob ​Dupré of the Liberty Tree Singers.

Advertisements for the capture and return of people who sought freedom by running away from their enslavers are a valuable source for learning more about people who were considered property, as they often contained detailed information about individuals, though on;y from the perspective of their enslaver and with the goal of recovering their "property." 

​After Trent's estate was finally settled in 1728, Yaff was either sold or given in lieu of repayment of debts to James Alexander of New York, who was also an executor of the estate. In June 1729 Alexander had an ad placed in the New York Gazette, seeking the return of Yaff who had escaped.  From this ad we learn some additional information about Yaff - his age, his history in enslavement, his literacy skills (unusual for anyone except the elite of the times), and of course his desire for freedom, courage to seek it, and ingenuity to devise a plan for escape.