Henry Shaw

Description

Early trustee and benefactor of WashU, founder of Botany Department; large landowner and slaveholder in 19th-century St. Louis; enslaved more than seventeen people; legacy includes Missouri Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park.

Bio

Henry Shaw (1800-1889) initially derided St. Louis as “a country of knavery, oppression and slavery,” but came to embrace the city and slavery, realizing they could build his wealth and influence. This wealth enabled him to fund the Henry Shaw School of Botany at Washington University, which grew into the Department of Biology and many off-shoots. Henry Shaw held more than seventeen people in slavery between 1824 and 1865, among them Juliette, Peter, Jim Kennerly, Peach, Bridgette, Joseph, Sarah and her child, Tabitha and her daughter Sarah, and Esther and her children. In 1855, Jim Kennerly, Esther, and her children (who were around six and eight years old), joined a group of people who sought to escape bondage by seeking freedom across the Mississippi. Police were alerted to their escape and captured most of the group when they reached the Illinois shore. Jim Kennerly was able to evade the captors, but Esther was imprisoned for 70 days in Bernard Lynch's slave pen before Shaw sold her down river to Vicksburg, Mississippi, a punishment that severed her from her children.

Organization

Founder, Henry Shaw School of Botany

Same As

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Enslaver

Peter (Peach)

Juliette

Bridgette

Coss

Lewis

Tabitha

Joseph

Sarah

Sarah (Sally)

Jemmy

Esther

Esther's child

Esther's child

James (Jim) Kennerly

Maria

Mary Ann

Rhody

Manumitter

Juliette