M WARWICK DANIEL
How Did Morality Survive Slavery for Seven Generations?
Barely a week after the
sorrowful loss of his father,
Frederick rises before dawn in the
great house of John's plantation, where
he has gone from slave to its lord.
"When I was with Father in the fields, we tuned into something immediate and alive. He taught me to be aware that in this impermanent circle of life, we are always planting seeds for the future. It was communion. I want that again."
–Frederick Warwick
Postcolonial America 1804: A prosperous young Virginia planter and tobacconist, Captain John Warwick, born during the Revolutionary War, profits from the period's economic scourge of slavery while struggling with its moral dilemma. His brothers depend upon his raw tobacco for their wealth. They challenge his integrity, forcing him underground, where he makes his own rules. Trying consequences unfold from his subsequent actions.
In 1848, thirteen years before the Civil War, John did the unthinkable. Upon his deathbed, he writes a will freeing his 300 enslaved people and designates his son Frederick, born a slave, as heir to administer his fortune. In another portion of the will, John sets aside farmland, parceling his plantation for those too old to travel. For Frederick and the remaining freed, he ensures safe passage through Virginia’s wilderness, crossing the Ohio River into the free State of Ohio, where 200 acres are deeded in their names, and a yearly allowance is advanced.
Within the qualified time, the freed souls make their treacherous journey across the Ohio River due north to Indian Lake where devious land brokers defraud them into choosing acreage soon to be covered by the rising waters of the Lewistown Reservoir. Faced with disaster, they resurrected and rebuilt under Frederick's lead to launch the Warwick Colony onto higher ground.
"I hereby declare that it is my wish
and intention that my Slaves shall,
on being emancipated, have the
whole of my estate...
for their comfortable clothing, outfit,
traveling expenses and settlement
in their new homes, with such
provision for their comfort,
sustenance and support afterwards...”
About the Author
I was raised in future-bent Southern California, where a cognitive dissonance resisted all things historical. Though I was born to an elegant woman from Bogotá, Colombia, and a poetic Virginia gentleman, my identity was that of a progressive artist.
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One day, a curious email changed my life. Kimeta Warwick-Dover wrote to me, stating that she is the direct descendant of Frederick Warwick, who was enslaved in the 1800s by my family in Virginia. If my family, on my father’s side, were slaveholders, it was kept from us. The only ancestor I was well aware of was my father's grandfather, U.S. Senator John Warwick Daniel of Virginia, 1881-1910. Still, how could I have not assumed that slavery was in the family?
It was the Last Will & Testament included with Kimeta’s post that convinced me to fly to Ohio. Upon meeting her, I felt an instant kinship, marveling at the story of her direct ancestor having possibly been the son of my 18th-century great-uncle.
Was his an epic story of a white father caring for and loving his black son? With the secrecy demonstrated by my father, could a tale of such daring acts of mercy have been hidden in the archives of a family too conservative to speak of radical deeds? Could more secrets lie buried?
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I was compelled to exhume those hidden truths from ethical responsibility. It was then that I realized I could use my experience in writing screenplays to bring this book to life.
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Five years of research later, plus Kimeta’s prior ten, with travel and writing completed, I have come to treasure my friendship with a family I would never have known had Kimeta not reached out to me. Our descendants prosper today as a result of the fearless Captain John Warwick and his brave son Frederick. Kimeta and her family are a testament to the Warwick will. They speak for their ancestors’ grace and transformation in this unique story of moral determination, each contributing to America’s 21st-century bend toward justice.
– M Warwick Daniel
Frederick leads the
300 newly freed people in a
caravan of horse-drawn wagons
across the Ohio River.
Arriving in Ohio, they purchased two hundred acres and built log cabins on the banks of Indian Lake. However, unscrupulous land brokers had swindled them by concealing plans to build an upriver dam. Their lakefront acreage floods, and a full half of the colony dies of malaria.