Rebecca Evans

rebecca evans

1854-1914

Life Story

From Enslavement to Landownership: Family, Labor, and Survival in Newton County, Mississippi

Rebecca Evans was born around 1854 in Newton County, Mississippi, during the final decade of American slavery. Her early years were spent within the enslaved African American community associated with Catherine McInnis Evans, whose plantation household was situated in the Mount Moriah and Bethel area of Newton County. Born into slavery, Rebecca belonged to a generation that experienced emancipation during childhood and subsequently worked to establish families, secure livelihoods, and acquire property in the uncertain economic circumstances of the postwar South.

Her surviving records trace a remarkable transformation. As a child, Rebecca was identified in a Presbyterian church register as an enslaved servant. Following emancipation, she appeared in federal census records under her own name, married Samuel Evans, raised a large family, worked in agriculture, participated in crop-credit agreements, and acquired a documented interest in land. By the time of her death in 1914, her life had spanned slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the establishment of Jim Crow segregation.

Childhood Under Slavery and Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church

The 1860 federal slave schedule recorded enslaved men, women, and children held by Catherine Evans in Newton County. Among those listed were two six-year-old girls whose ages correspond approximately with Rebecca’s reported birth year. Because the schedule did not identify enslaved individuals by name, neither entry can be conclusively assigned to Rebecca. Nevertheless, the schedule establishes the larger enslaved community in which she spent her childhood.¹

A more direct connection to Rebecca’s early life appears in the records of Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church. On April 22, 1860, the Reverend W. C. Emerson baptized three children identified as Becca, Lancy, and Emma, described in the church register as infant servants of Mrs. C. Evans.²

This entry is particularly significant because Rebecca, Lany, and Emma Evans appeared together ten years later in the household of Kizziah Evans in the 1870 federal census. The correspondence of names, ages, and association with Catherine Evans provides persuasive circumstantial evidence that the children baptized in 1860 were the same individuals recorded after emancipation.

Rebecca was approximately six years old when the baptism occurred. The church register does not identify her parents or explain who arranged the ceremony. Her baptism nevertheless documents her presence within the religious world of Mount Moriah, where enslaved African Americans participated in a congregation governed by white church authorities.

For Rebecca, the church record preserves something that the federal slave schedule generally does not: a personal name. It offers a rare documentary connection between an enslaved child and the woman she later became.

Emancipation and the Kizziah Evans Household

Rebecca was approximately ten or eleven years old when slavery ended in Mississippi in 1865. Emancipation changed her legal status, but it did not immediately remove the economic hardships confronting formerly enslaved families.

By 1870, Rebecca appeared in the federal census as a fifteen-year-old Black farm laborer living in Township 5, Range 11, Newton County, Mississippi. She resided in dwelling 37 with Kizziah Evans, age fifty-two; Emanuel Evans, eighteen; Lany Evans, fourteen; and Emma Evans, ten.³

Kizziah is identified in the family’s genealogical research as Rebecca’s mother. Although the 1870 census did not record relationships to the household head, the shared residence of Rebecca, Emanuel, Lany, and Emma suggests a closely connected family group.

Their household is especially important when considered alongside the earlier church records. The appearance of Rebecca, Lany, and Emma together after emancipation suggests continuity among individuals who had been identified as enslaved children of Catherine Evans before the Civil War.

Rebecca’s occupation was listed as farm laborer. At approximately fifteen years of age, she was already participating in the agricultural work upon which the household depended.

For African Americans in rural Mississippi, emancipation brought freedom from legal enslavement but not necessarily freedom from economic dependence. Landownership remained difficult to achieve, and many families continued to rely upon agricultural labor, tenancy, or credit arrangements to support themselves.

Marriage to Samuel Evans and the Establishment of a Family

By 1880, Rebecca had married Samuel Evans, commonly known as Sam. The federal census recorded the couple in Beat 4 of Newton County, at dwelling 514. Samuel was twenty-seven years old, while Rebecca was twenty-five.

Two sons lived with them: Joshua Evans, age six, and Benjamin Evans, age four. Rebecca’s occupation was recorded as housekeeper, and the enumerator indicated that she could neither read nor write.⁴

Their marriage would continue for decades, during which they raised children and participated in the agricultural economy of the Bethel community.

The precise date of their marriage remains uncertain. The 1900 census reported thirty years of marriage, suggesting a union around 1870, while the 1910 census also reported thirty years, suggesting a later date. Their children documented in 1880 establish that the couple had formed a household by the mid-1870s.

The available records identify or associate several children with Rebecca and Sam, including Joshua, Benjamin, Harry, Glover, Mary, Coit, Bell, Laney or Lany, and Neffie.

Agricultural Credit and the Crop-Lien System, 1896–1898

The surviving deeds of trust provide an unusually detailed account of Rebecca and Samuel’s economic circumstances during the 1890s.

Between 1896 and 1898, the couple executed three agricultural deeds of trust involving W. B. Richardson, a Newton County creditor. These agreements secured existing indebtedness and anticipated advances of money, supplies, and merchandise against land, livestock, farming equipment, and future crops.

On February 11, 1896, Sam and Rebecca executed a deed of trust securing an obligation of $272, due November 1 of that year. The property pledged included a twenty-acre tract described as the north half of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East.⁵

The agreement also identified livestock and equipment used in the family’s agricultural operations: a black mare named Molly, approximately ten years old; a horse mule named Mack, approximately five years old; and a road wagon. The deed further covered the corn, cotton, and other agricultural products to be grown during the year.

These details provide a rare glimpse into the material circumstances of Rebecca’s household. Molly and Mack were not simply anonymous items of collateral. They were named working animals whose presence in the records helps reconstruct the farm on which Rebecca and Sam labored.

The deed contained the customary provisions of the crop-lien system. The couple pledged future agricultural production and specified property to secure their obligations. If the debt remained unpaid, the creditor could pursue remedies against the collateral under the terms of the agreement.

A marginal notation indicates that the 1896 deed of trust was canceled in 1897.

On February 20, 1897, Rebecca and Sam entered another deed of trust involving Richardson, this time securing an obligation of $237.05 due November 1, 1897. The agreement again identified the twenty-acre tract, Molly, Mack, the road wagon, and the year’s agricultural production.⁶

The recurrence of the same livestock and equipment suggests continuity in the family’s farming operations. A marginal cancellation notation dated 1899 indicates that this security instrument was subsequently released.

A third deed of trust followed on February 2, 1898. This agreement secured an obligation of $300, due November 1, 1898. In addition to Molly, Mack, and the wagon, the property pledged included a red-and-white cow and calf associated with the name Biddy. The deed again covered the twenty-acre tract and the crops to be grown during the agricultural year.⁷

The 1898 instrument was also marked canceled in January 1899.

Together, these three deeds document a recurring relationship between the Evans household and the agricultural credit system. They demonstrate that Rebecca and Sam obtained credit secured by their land and farming property over successive years.

The cancellation entries are significant because they show that the recorded security instruments were released. They do not, however, establish the precise circumstances under which each obligation was discharged.

Rebecca’s participation in these transactions also deserves attention. Her name appeared alongside her husband’s in the recorded agreements, and she acknowledged the instruments through her mark. The documents establish her formal participation in legal transactions involving the family’s agricultural property and obligations.

The repeated use of credit does not necessarily mean the family was destitute. Rather, the records place Rebecca and Sam within an agricultural economy in which farmers frequently depended upon merchants for advances against anticipated harvests.

For formerly enslaved families, such arrangements could provide access to essential supplies while also exposing land, livestock, and future crops to the risk of loss.

The Conveyance of Twenty Acres in 1899

On January 3, 1899, Rebecca and Samuel Evans executed a deed conveying their twenty-acre tract in Section 18 to W. B. Richardson for a stated consideration of $100.⁸

This transaction differed from the earlier deeds of trust. Rather than merely pledging property as security for an agricultural obligation, the 1899 instrument conveyed the identified land to Richardson.

The deed described the property as the north half of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East—the same twenty-acre tract identified in the earlier credit agreements.

Both Sam and Rebecca appeared in the instrument, with Rebecca executing the document by mark.

The conveyance represents an important development in the family’s property history. For several years, the tract had served as collateral in agricultural credit transactions. In January 1899, it was transferred to the creditor himself.

The surviving deed does not explain why the property was sold. It would therefore be speculative to conclude that the conveyance resulted from foreclosure, inability to repay a debt, or financial distress. The transaction may have been connected to the parties’ prior financial relationship, but the available evidence does not establish the reason for the sale.

What the document does establish is that Rebecca and Sam relinquished their recorded interest in the twenty-acre tract through a formal conveyance.

The Evans Family Land Division of 1902

Three years later, Rebecca appeared in another series of land transactions, this time involving members of her extended family.

The 1902 deeds concerned property in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East, an area associated with the Evans family and the development of the Black community surrounding Mount Moriah and Pilgrim Grove.

These transactions are among the most revealing documents in Rebecca’s surviving history because they identify her independently of Samuel and connect her to family property arrangements.

On January 20, 1902, Nathaniel Evans, Rebecca Evans, Delaney Mosely, and other named parties conveyed eight acres in the southwest corner of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18 to Spencer McAdory for a stated consideration of $50.⁹

The deed places Rebecca alongside individuals associated with the wider Evans family. Delaney Mosely and Emma Evans McAdory belonged to the family network that had emerged from Catherine Evans’s enslaved community.

On November 10, 1902, another conveyance transferred eight acres to Emma E. McAdory, wife of Spencer McAdory. Rebecca Evans was among the named grantors, along with Nathaniel Evans and Spencer McAdory. The deed stated a consideration of $100.¹⁰

A separate deed executed that same day conveyed another eight-acre tract to Nathaniel Evans. Rebecca again appeared among the grantors, together with Spencer and Emma McAdory. The stated consideration was $100.¹¹

The fourth identified transaction, also dated November 10, 1902, is especially important to Rebecca’s individual history.

In that deed, Nathaniel Evans, Spencer McAdory, and Emma McAdory conveyed eight acres directly to Rebecca Evans for a stated consideration of $100. The tract began at the northwest corner of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18 and extended east, south, west, and north according to the boundaries described in the instrument.¹²

For Rebecca, this conveyance provides direct documentary evidence of land acquired in her own name.

Unlike the agricultural deeds of trust executed with Samuel during the 1890s, the November 1902 deed named Rebecca individually as the grantee. Her husband was not a party to the conveyance.

Samuel’s absence does not indicate that he had died. He remained Rebecca’s husband and was recorded with her in the 1910 census. His reported death occurred in 1920, six years after Rebecca’s death.

The 1902 transactions instead suggest that Rebecca was participating in the division or reorganization of land held among members of her extended family.

The four identified conveyances involved separate eight-acre parcels, with property transferred to Spencer McAdory, Emma McAdory, Nathaniel Evans, and Rebecca Evans. Their coordinated timing, overlapping parties, and common location strongly suggest an effort to establish separate ownership interests within the family.

However, the deeds do not, by themselves, establish the precise legal origin of every ownership interest or prove that the property passed through a formal inheritance.

That distinction matters because Rebecca’s family belonged to a community in which formerly enslaved African Americans had begun acquiring land after emancipation. The 1876 Evans family land purchase provides important historical context, but a complete chain of title would be needed to demonstrate precisely how Rebecca acquired her interest in the property divided in 1902.

Nevertheless, the 1902 deed naming Rebecca as grantee represents a significant milestone in her life.

A woman who had been identified as an enslaved child in 1860 was now named as the recipient of a legally described parcel of land in the community where she had spent her childhood.

Motherhood, Family Loss, and the Responsibilities of Rural Life

The federal census of 1900 recorded Rebecca and Sam in Beat 4 of Newton County. Rebecca was identified as Rebeca Evans, age forty-five, born in August 1854.

Their household included Harry Evans, sixteen; Glover Evans, fourteen; Mary Evans, twelve; Coit Evans, eight; Bell Evans, six; and Laney Evans, three.¹³

The census also recorded that Rebecca had given birth to sixteen children, eight of whom were living.

If accurate, this entry indicates that Rebecca had experienced the deaths of eight children by 1900. The surviving record does not identify those children or establish when or how they died.

The information nevertheless suggests that motherhood brought profound challenges and losses into Rebecca’s life.

The 1900 census also recorded Rebecca as able to read and write, in contrast to the 1880 enumeration, which identified her as illiterate.

It is possible that Rebecca acquired literacy during adulthood, perhaps through family or community instruction. However, the 1910 census again reported that she could neither read nor write. The conflicting entries prevent a definitive conclusion about her literacy.

By 1910, Rebecca remained in Beat 4 with Samuel, then fifty-nine years old. Their household included Harry Evans, twenty-five; Coit Evans, nineteen; Neffie Evans, seventeen; and Lany Evans, thirteen.¹⁴

Rebecca, approximately fifty-four years old, was recorded as a farm laborer working on the home farm and classified as a wage earner.

This entry demonstrates that agricultural labor remained part of her life well into later adulthood. Her work extended beyond the responsibilities of maintaining a household and raising children.

The 1910 census also reported that Rebecca had given birth to ten children, seven of whom were living. These figures conflict with the sixteen births and eight surviving children recorded in 1900.

The discrepancy cannot be resolved from the presently available records. Both entries should be preserved as historical evidence rather than combining them into a single account.

What is clear is that Rebecca spent much of her adult life raising children while participating in the agricultural economy of Newton County.

Death in Newton County, 1914

Rebecca Evans died on June 27, 1914, in Newton County, Mississippi, at approximately sixty years of age.

Her Mississippi death certificate, number 10513, identified her as a married Black woman whose occupation was housewife. The certificate recorded her birthplace and the birthplaces of her parents as unknown, and it did not identify her father or mother by name.¹⁵

The attending physician recorded the cause of death as acute nephritic coma, with congestive bronchitis listed as a contributing condition. Rebecca’s death was recorded as occurring at approximately six o’clock in the evening.

Allen Chapman of Newton County served as the informant.

The certificate did not provide a completed burial-place entry in the image examined. Rebecca’s final resting place therefore remains unconfirmed.

Her death occurred approximately fifty years after emancipation. She had lived through a period of extraordinary change, from the final years of slavery through the emergence of independent African American families, churches, and landholding communities.

Samuel Evans survived her, reportedly dying in 1920.

The Historical Legacy of Rebecca Evans

Rebecca Evans’s life illustrates both the possibilities and limitations of freedom for formerly enslaved African American women in rural Mississippi.

Born into slavery around 1854, she was documented as a child in the religious records of Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church. Following emancipation, she appeared in a household headed by Kizziah Evans, established a family with Samuel Evans, and spent decades working in the agricultural economy of Newton County.

The surviving deeds reveal an additional dimension of her life that would otherwise remain largely invisible.

During the 1890s, Rebecca participated in agricultural credit transactions that pledged land, livestock, equipment, and future crops. These agreements demonstrate the financial obligations that shaped the lives of farming families in the post-emancipation South.

The 1899 conveyance of twenty acres to W. B. Richardson documents the transfer of land that had previously served as collateral for agricultural indebtedness. The circumstances surrounding that sale remain uncertain.

The 1902 family deeds reveal a different aspect of Rebecca’s economic history. Through a series of transactions involving Nathaniel Evans and members of the McAdory family, Rebecca participated in the division of land within the Evans community and received an eight-acre tract in her own name.

This documented acquisition is particularly meaningful when considered against the circumstances of her birth.

In 1860, Rebecca had been an enslaved child whose identity was preserved in a church register. In 1902, she was a named participant in recorded property transactions, with an eight-acre parcel conveyed directly to her.

Her life cannot be reduced either to the hardships of slavery and agricultural debt or to a simple narrative of economic success. The surviving evidence reveals both struggle and achievement: the demands of farm labor, the uncertainties of credit, the responsibilities and losses of motherhood, and the acquisition of a legally recognized interest in land.

Rebecca’s connection to the Evans, Mosely, and McAdory families also places her within the broader history of the Bethel and Mount Moriah communities. These families helped establish the African American social and religious institutions that developed after emancipation, including the community associated with Pilgrim Grove Presbyterian Church.

Although Rebecca’s personal religious activities after childhood have not yet been established, her documented relationships and land transactions connect her to the families whose efforts shaped that community.

The surviving record ends with her death in 1914. No subsequent deed establishing the disposition of her eight-acre tract has yet been identified in the research presented here.

That absence leaves an important question unanswered: whether the property passed to Samuel, their children, another relative, or an unrelated purchaser.

Until additional evidence emerges, Rebecca’s later landownership history must remain open.

What is certain is that Rebecca Evans was more than a name in a census or a signature by mark on a deed. She was a formerly enslaved woman whose documented life crossed the boundary between slavery and freedom and whose family, labor, and property transactions contributed to the history of African American life in Newton County, Mississippi.

Her story helps recover the experiences of women whose work sustained families and communities, even when the historical records preserved only fragments of their lives.

Chicago-Style Footnotes

1860 U.S. census, slave schedule, Newton County, Mississippi, Catherine Evans, slaveholder, entries for enslaved females age six; digital image, Ancestry.com, 1860 U.S. Federal Census—Slave Schedules (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7668/).
Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church (Newton County, Mississippi), baptismal records, 194, April 22, 1860, baptisms of Becca, Lancy, and Emma, identified as infant servants of Mrs. C. Evans, by Rev. W. C. Emerson; microfilm roll 36108, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.
1870 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Township 5, Range 11, Newton post office, dwelling 37, household of Kizziah Evans, including Rebecca Evans, age fifteen; digital image, Ancestry.com, 1870 United States Federal Census.
1880 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, dwelling 514, household of Samuel Evans, including Rebecca Evans, age twenty-five, Joshua Evans, age six, and Benjamin Evans, age four; digital image, Ancestry.com, 1880 United States Federal Census.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed of Trust Book 15, 124, February 11, 1896, Sam Evans and Rebecca Evans, deed of trust securing $272 to W. B. Richardson; canceled in 1897.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed of Trust Book 15, 437, February 20, 1897, Sam Evans and Rebecca Evans, deed of trust securing $237.05 to W. B. Richardson; canceled in 1899.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed of Trust Book 15, 676, February 2, 1898, Sam Evans and Rebecca Evans, deed of trust securing $300 to W. B. Richardson; canceled January 1899.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed Book 18, 24, January 3, 1899, Sam Evans and Rebecca Evans to W. B. Richardson, twenty acres in Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East, stated consideration $100; recorded January 14, 1899.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed Book 23, 172, January 20, 1902, Nathaniel Evans and other named parties, including Rebecca Evans and Delaney Mosely, to Spencer McAdory, eight acres in Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East; recorded February 4, 1902.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed Book 23, 390, November 10, 1902, Rebecca Evans, Nathaniel Evans, and Spencer McAdory to Emma E. McAdory, eight acres in Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East; recorded December 1, 1902.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed Book 23, 392, November 10, 1902, Nathaniel Evans, Rebecca Evans, Spencer McAdory, and Emma E. McAdory, conveyance of eight acres to Nathaniel Evans; recorded December 1, 1902.
Newton County, Mississippi, Chancery Clerk, Deed Book 23, 393, November 10, 1902, Nathaniel Evans, Spencer McAdory, and Emma E. McAdory to Rebecca Evans, eight acres in Section 18, Township 5, Range 11 East, stated consideration $100; recorded December 1, 1902.
1900 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, sheet 6, dwelling 105, family 108, household of Sam Evans, including Rebeca Evans, born August 1854; digital image, Ancestry.com, 1900 United States Federal Census.
1910 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, enumeration district 93, sheet 11B, household of Sam Evans, including Rebeca Evans, age fifty-four; digital image, Ancestry.com, 1910 United States Federal Census.
Mississippi State Board of Health, death certificate no. 10513, Rebecca Evans, died June 27, 1914, Newton County, Mississippi; Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi.

Resting Place

Evans Cemetery

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