Rippa Villa

Rippa Villa. Slavery and the Enslaved. , When Nathaniel Cheairs III and his family settled here in 1811, they likely brought with them twelve slaves that were listed on the 1810 Federal Census in North Carolina. By 1820, there were sixteen slaves at Rippa Villa. By the time Nathaniel died in 1846, he owned eighty-five slaves who were dispersed among his wife, Sarah, and their children. By 1860, Nat Cheairs, who was Nathaniel's youngest son, owned seventy-five slaves. There were fifteen slave cabins on the property at that time, most of which were located about half a mile east of the house. Enslaved people were the backbone of Rippa Villa, responsible for building the home, raising crops, and taking care of the Cheairs family. Their servitude, skilled craftsmanship and back-breaking toil made the Cheairs family incredibly wealthy., Mortality among the young was always high in the 19th century, and it was particularly high among the enslaved. William, a 12-year-old slave, died in August 1859 of typhoid fever. That same year Ellen and Moses, who were just 1-year-old toddlers, died from teething. One month old George died of lockjaw., By 1860, twenty-five percent of white Tennesseans (about 149,000 families) owned at least one enslaved person. The total population of Maury County in 1860 was 32,398, of which forty-five percent were enslaved Africans. The slave population of the United States at that time was 3.9 million; 3.5 million of those people were in Southern states that later attempted to secede and form the Confederate States of America.