The Emancipation of Elizabeth Keckly: Creditworthiness and Antebellum Democracy
Elizabeth Keckly was immortalized for a new generation as the dressmaker and confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln in the 2012 film Lincoln. Keckly was born enslaved in Virginia and suffered the terrors inherent in the system before purchasing her freedom. Less well-known is that Keckly borrowed the money with which she financed her emancipation. For Keckly access to credit and access to freedom and emerging conceptions of democracy were closely tied in the capitalist world of nineteenth century America. This paper draws on Keckly’s life experiences, slave narratives, and archival sources to describe credit arrangements involving enslaved people who borrowed to secure their freedom in the era prior to quantitative credit scoring and modern lending institutions. Instances of enslaved people successfully purchasing freedom were exceptionally rare. The few cases that are documented show the prevalence of credit agreements—often between Black borrowers and white lenders—to secure the cash to make the financial and legal arrangements possible. Keckly’s story provides historians an example of the financial details of one such arrangement within the broader context of her life. Keckly’s borrowing activities place into sharp relief the hard boundaries of race and gender that defined honor and creditworthiness, and ultimately shaped American democracy, in mid-nineteenth century. Keckly challenged these conventions, sometimes successfully, on the basis of her actions as a businesswoman. Even when she was successful Keckly was vulnerable in a system designed to privilege others. Ultimately Southern notions of race and gender would be systematized into quantitative credit scoring models.
