Robert J. Lyles (1817 – May 18, 1860) was a slave trader who worked in Nashville, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana.[1][2]
Robert J. Lyles | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1817 Maryland or Tennessee |
| Died | May 18, 1860 |
| Occupation | Slave trader |
| Spouse | Mary Roy Hutchison |
| Children | 7 |
Early life and ancestry
editRobert J. Lyles was born in 1817 in Maryland or Tennessee to Robert Lyles and Juliet Johnson.[3] His grandfather was doctor Richard Lyles, a surgeon's mate at the hospital in Williamsburg during the Revolution.[4][5][6] This makes Lyles a relative of James Breathed, once leader of Jeb Stuart's horse artillery.[7]
Tennessee
editLyles married Mary Roy Hutchison in Sumner County, Tennessee on February 20, 1843.[8] In 1850, Lyles owned ten slaves.[9]
Lyles was first a scout for slave trader Henry H. Haynes at 33 Cedar St.,[10][11] then partnered with George W. Hitchings in 1859.[12][13] He also sometimes partnered with William L. Boyd Jr.[14] Historian Frederic Bancroft in Slave-Trading in the Old South described Lyles & Hitchings as one of Nashville's "resident leaders in the interstate traffic" in 1859–60.[15]
New Orleans
editLyles bought and sold slaves from the New Orleans market and frequently traveled there.[16] In 1842 he was a passenger on a steamboat that hit a snag while traveling between New Orleans and St. Francisville in Louisiana.[17] In 1847 he was a guest at New Orleans' St. Charles Hotel.[18]
Death
editUpon one such voyage, on the steamer B. L. Hodge, while on the Red River near Grand Ecore, he was stabbed to death by hunchback passenger Bazile L. Sheath.[19][20][21] Passenger Charles Fort also died and F. G. Jernigan was wounded severely in the neck.[22] Slave trader Montgomery Little applied in New Orleans for curatorship of the Robert J. Lyles estate.[23] Lyles' son-in-law G. L. Pierce was the administrator of his estate.[24] Lyles is buried in Nashville's Spring Hill Cemetery.
In 1888, more than 30 years after the fact, a Chicago Times reporter writing about the old slave markets in Nashville mentioned Lyles' death but erroneously reported his demise as a gun suicide, writing: "Robert F. Lyles, who was connected with the mart as a trader, committed suicide by shooting himself on a Mississippi river steamer in the year 1856 or 1857. He had delivered a number of slaves in Louisiana and was on his way home when the rash act occurred. The cause of his action was never ascertained."[25]
See also
editReferences
edit- ↑ "Nashville Sites". nashvillesites.org.
- ↑ "R. J. Lyles". Nashville patriot. July 4, 1859 – via chroniclingamerica.
- ↑ Maryland Marriages, 1655-1850, Robert Lyles & Juliet Johnson Montgomery County 14 Mar 1814
- ↑ "Pension application" (PDF).
- ↑ Of Sceptred Race, p. 270
- ↑ Centennial History of Arkansas, p. 1046
- ↑ The Broken Circle
- ↑ "Tennessee, Marriages, 1796-1950", FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XDQ5-NJV : 16 March 2020), Robert J. Lyles, 1843.
- ↑ "United States, Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 ", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MVHF-3L8 : Sun Mar 10 10:00:38 UTC 2024), Entry for Robert J Lyles, 1850.
- ↑ Slavery In Tennessee by Mooney, p. 214
- ↑ "Negroes at Auction". Republican Banner. July 3, 1857. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ↑ "Slave Dealers". Republican Banner. September 16, 1860. p. 1.
- ↑ Louisiana Supreme Court; Thorpe, Thomas H.; Gill, Charles G. (1870). Louisiana Reports: Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Louisiana. West Publishing Company. pp. 474–475.
- ↑ Franklin, John Hope; Schweninger, Loren (September 2005). In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-020760-1.
- ↑ Bancroft, Frederic (2023) [1931, 1996]. Slave Trading in the Old South (Original publisher: J. H. Fürst Co., Baltimore). Southern Classics Series. Introduction by Michael Tadman (Reprint ed.). Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-64336-427-8. LCCN 95020493. OCLC 1153619151.
- ↑ Jones, Dr Vanessa. "LibGuides: Black Nashville in History & Memory: Introduction". tnstate.libguides.com.
- ↑ "The steam Panola". The Times-Picayune. 1842-07-02. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ↑ "Arrivals at the Principal Hotels". The Times-Picayune. 1847-05-09. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ↑ "Terrible Tragedy on board the steamer B. L. Hodge". The Louisville Daily Courier. May 24, 1860. p. 3 – via newspapers.com.
- ↑ "The Murders on the B. L. Hodge". The Daily Delta. 1860-05-22. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
- ↑ "(No title)". Clarksville Weekly Chronicle. May 25, 1860. p. 2.
- ↑ "Robt J. Lyles, of Nashville, and Charles M. Fort, of Springfield, Tenn. Murdered". Detroit Free Press. May 30, 1860. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ↑ "Succession of Robert J. Lyles, No. 16,797". The New Orleans Crescent. 1860-05-28. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
- ↑ Court, Tennessee Supreme; Cooke, William Wilcox (February 3, 1883). "Tennessee Reports : Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Highest Courts of Law and Equity of the State of Tennessee". Soule, Thomas, and Winsor – via Google Books.
- ↑ n.a. (1888-04-22). "Southern Slave Marts: How Negroes Were Bought and Sold at Nashville, Tenn". The Critic. Vol. I, no. 10. Allentown, Pennsylvania. Chicago Times Syndicate. p. 6. ISSN 2641-3825. OCLC 137343977. Retrieved 2025-04-02.