Eleanor (Irish Nell) and Charles Butler
An indentured servant, she and her descendants became enslaved; oral storytelling changed their circumstance.
(circa 1665 – ?)
Eleanor (Irish Nell) was a 16-year-old indentured servant when she married Charles Butler, an African enslaved man. She gave up her freedom in order to marry Charles.
Nell, of Irish origin, came to the Colonies as an indentured servant of Charles Calvert, the 3rd Lord Baltimore. She worked as a laundress on his estate. During that time servants and enslaved people often worked together and became friends.
When Irish Nell told Lord Baltimore she wanted to marry Charles, Baltimore warned her that the 1664 law decreed that a free-borne woman who married an enslaved man would lose her legal status and become enslaved to her husband’s master. The Butler children would also be born enslaved. According to Court depositions, Lord Baltimore warned Nell that “she would…enslave herself and her property,” but Nell replied she would “rather have Charles than your lordship.”
Charles and Nell were married in 1681 at the home of Charles’s enslaver, Major William Boarman in Charles County. Nell lost her freedom for life. She worked as a midwife and spinner on Boarman’s estate near Zekiah Swamp.
Charles and Nell’s eight children were born enslaved. In 1770, some of the descendants of Charles and Nell filed for and won their freedom suits on the basis that their ancestor, Irish Nell, was a free white woman. Because of oral storytelling traditions, later generations remembered the couple’s tale, sued for their freedom, and won—if they could prove they were Eleanor Butler’s descendants through a direct female line.
Did you know?
- Colonial authorities attempted to separate White Bondsmen, Indigenous peoples and African enslaved people through strict laws and slave codes.
- As early as 1663, Virginia authorities brutally stopped an attempted insurrection, planned by White indentured servants and African enslaved people.
- The Colonial Assembly enacted cruel laws to punish interracial marriages to protect the property rights and inheritance of the planter class.
- Black-White marriages challenged the social narrative that Black people were less than human.
- Not all of Nell and Charles’ descendants were allowed to file freedom suits because by 1793 the testimony of Black people in freedom suits was prohibited.
Additional Resources
https://bayweekly.com/walking-into-black-history/
Butler Family Tree (https://www.lewismuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Butler-Family-Tree5.pdf) Six generations of Butler’s matrilineal descents.
Carroll, Joseph Cephas. Slave Insurrections in the United States 1800-1865. Dover Press, 2004. book.
“Irish Nell Butler” Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series). (http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/000500/000534/html/00534bio.html)
“A Love Story Carved in Callum’s Family Tree”, The Baltimore Sun. 22 June 2005. Maryland State Archives MSA SC 5496-000534
Maryland State Archives Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland Vol 1. January 1637-8- Sept 166 Maryland Reports “Most Important Law Cases in the Provincial Court and Court of Appeals of then Province of Maryland.” MSAS5381-52
https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5348/html/chap1.html
