The Woman Who Spied on Confederates In Jefferson Davis’ Home

[struggle4progress]

Erin Blakemore
May 31, 2016

... Bowser was born a slave in Richmond around 1839. She was raised in the home of Virginia’s prominent Van Lews, a family with Northern roots who nonetheless owned slaves. Elizabeth Van Lew, Bowser’s owner, was Quaker-educated and loyal to the abolitionist cause. When her father died in 1843, the Van Lews freed all of their slaves, and Elizabeth later used money from her father’s estate to buy and free relatives and friends of the people she had freed ...

... Bowser soon headed to Africa, to live in Liberia. At the time, there was increasing pressure for former slaves to leave the U.S. and settle there, and perhaps Bowser sought a new life in a place where she did not face the threat of the pervasive racism that faced even free blacks in the abolitionist North. But for whatever reason, Bowser did not stay in Africa. Instead, she returned to Richmond illegally.

Back at home with the Van Lews, Bowser remained with the family as a free servant. But Virginia would not recognize her freedom and arrested her for “claiming to be a free person of color.” Elizabeth paid her bail and claimed that Bowser was in fact a slave, laying the foundation for one of the Civil War’s greatest ruses.

... While Elizabeth Van Lew had to feign insanity to remain in Richmond without arousing suspicion about her abolitionist views, Mary Richards Bowser’s stupidity was assumed by Southerners who did not allow black people educations or dignity. Aided by those prejudices and a photographic memory, Bowser posed as a dim-witted slave and began spying on Confederate officials. Van Lew encouraged a friend to take her to events and eventually Bowser — in the role of a slave who had been hired out by her master — was employed full-time by Jefferson Davis himself. Her time working in the house of the Confederate president — reporting all the while on the comings and goings of the household — was by far her biggest coup ...

http://time.com/4350450/mary-richards-bowser/

[Todays_Illusion]

1. I loved that story thanks OP

Edit.

As I read I was hoping there was a book somewhere about her. I was especially interested in reading about her experience in Libya if she had by chance left us a book or dairy.

[appalachiablue]

2. I knew of pro-Union, anti slavery Elizabeth Van Loo of Richmond,

derided as 'Crazy Bette' but not the assistance of courageous Mary Richards Bowser who spied for the Union. What an interesting story in a difficult and shameful period in American history.