Mary Mildred Williams (born Botts, c. 1847 – 1921) was born into slavery in Virginia and became widely known as an example of a "white slave" in the years before the Civil War.
In 1855, her escaped father bought his family's freedom with financial aid from abolitionists, and she, her mother and siblings joined him in Boston, Massachusetts. After arriving in Boston at the age of seven, Williams's photograph became widely distributed, as her appearance was startling for people who usually classified slaves as "Other". The young girl toured with abolitionist Charles Sumner, US Senator from Massachusetts. He used her as an example to confront Northerners with the injustice of slavery, and to raise awareness and raise funds for the abolitionist cause. Williams was compared to Ida May, the main character in a popular novel of that name; she was a white girl who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.
Early life
Born Mary Mildred Botts in 1847 in Virginia, Williams was the second child of Seth Botts and his wife Elizabeth (née Nelson), who were both enslaved. Elizabeth had a white father. Seth and Elizabeth were married in the early 1840s. Williams had an older brother, Oscar, and a younger sister, Adelaide (also known by her middle name of Rebecca).
At the time of Mary's birth, her mother, brother, grandmother, and aunts were enslaved in Prince William County, Virginia, near the village of Washington. Her father was enslaved in neighboring Stafford County.
The maternal side of Williams' family were the subjects of protracted legal battles waged by descendants of Jesse and Constance Cornwell. Through her father, Humphrey Calvert, Constance had purchased Williams's maternal great-grandmother, Lettice (known as "Letty"), and grandmother, Prudence Bell (known as "Prucy" or "Pru"), between 1809 and 1812. According to court and census records, Williams' mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Prudence and a white man named Thomas Nelson, who was Cornwell's executor.
Botts was seven when she was freed in 1855, along with her mother and siblings. Her father had previously escaped Virginia and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother moved with the family to Boston to join her husband, who changed his name to Henry Williams.
Between the 1855 Massachusetts state census and 1860 federal census, all of the Botts family members changed their surname to Williams. In the summer of 1860, Williams' older brother Oscar died from tuberculosis.
Legal proceedings
When Constance Cornwell died in 1825, she willed Williams' maternal grandmother, Prudence, her two children Elizabeth (Williams' mother) and Albert, and "the increase of the females forever" to her daughter Kitty Cornwell's eldest son John Cornwell. She specified in her will that the inherited slaves (or their children) could not be sold, and if Cornwell were to try they would be freed. Because John Cornwell was not of age at the time of Constance's death, her slaves were to be retained and managed by the executor of her will, Thomas Nelson, until John turned 21 in 1830.
But Constance's will was disputed by her children, who began a legal battle in 1835. While the legal disputes continued for years, Prudence and her children remained in Nelson's possession. After Nelson died in 1845, J.C. Weedon, his qualified administrator, took possession of Prudence along with her children and grandchildren. John Cornwell instituted proceedings to recover the family from Weedon in 1847, as they had been willed to him by Constance. The case of Nelson's Adm'r v. Cornwell was decided by the Virginia Supreme Court in October 1854. It awarded all of the property to John. Cornwell was aided by Prudence's husband and Mary's father, Seth Botts, then known as Henry Williams.
Freedom
In 1855, at age seven, Williams became free through the efforts of her father, Seth Botts, an escaped slave. Botts had settled in Boston in 1850, renamed himself as Henry Williams, and worked for the next four years seeking help from prominent abolitionists to gain his family's freedom. Williams, with financial support from his wealthy backers, bought his family's freedom from Cornwell. During this process, Henry's daughter, Mary Mildred Williams, came to the attention of abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner.
Relationship to the abolitionist movement
On March 1, 1855, a letter from Charles Sumner dated February 19 and addressed 'Dear Doctor' was published in the New-York Daily Times (originally published in the Boston Telegraph on February 27) that had accompanied a daguerreotype of Mary Williams.