Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841 - 1898)

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Biography

Blanche Bruce is Notable.

Blanche Kelso Bruce was the only former slave elected to the U.S. Senate, and the first African American to complete a full Senate term. During his single term, he advocated for civil rights for Blacks, American Indians, Chinese immigrants and former Confederates.^[1] In 1881, President James Garfield named Bruce register of the Treasury, making him the first black person to sign his name to U.S. currency.^[2]

He was born into slavery on 1 March 1841 in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia, the youngest of eleven children of Polly Bruce, an African-American woman who served as a domestic slave. His father, Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia planter, was her enslaver. Previously, Polly had been enslaved by Perkinson’s father-in-law, Lemuel Bruce.^[1]

Since Lemuel Bruce died in 1836, it has been assumed that his heir, Pettus Perkinson, was the father of Blanche and several of his siblings. Throughout his public career, commentators noted that Bruce’s appearance suggested a lineage that was at least three-quarters white.

Bruce grew up in a twilight world between slave and slave-owner. He and his [also enslaved] half-brother, Henry Clay Bruce, later recollected childhoods mostly removed from the harsh realities of life for field slaves. Before their white mistress Rebecca’s early death, she and Pettus had one child together, a son named William. Bruce, only a year younger than his white half-brother, served as William’s playmate, and received instruction from the same tutor. Following his wife’s death, Pettus Perkinson moved his household to Missouri, back to Virginia, then to Mississippi, before finally re-settling in northern Missouri. Bruce remained with William until the latter enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. Only then did he make his way to Lawrence, Kansas, and thereby gain emancipation. He became a school teacher, but after narrowly escaping the bloody raid on Lawrence led by Confederate renegade William Quantrill, moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he established that state’s first school for African-American students.^[1]

He escaped slavery during the war by going to Kansas when his white half-brother enlisted,^[3] as he himself stated in an interview.^[4] In 1868, during Reconstruction, Bruce relocated to Bolivar, near Cleveland in northwestern Mississippi, became Sergeant-at-Arms in the Mississippi legislature in 1870, was appointed to the position of Tallahatchie County registrar of voters, and then the lucrative position of tax assessor. As a member of the Republican Party^[5] he ran for and won the combined office of county Sheriff and Tax Collector, and also received an appointment as county superintendent of education in 1872.^[1][6][3] He also edited a local newspaper.^[7][4]

In February 1874, Bruce was elected by the legislature of Mississippi to the U.S. Senate, the second African American to serve in the upper house of Congress (and the first to serve a full term). According to Andrew Glass:

Bruce’s Senate service began awkwardly when Mississippi’s other senator, James Alcorn, refused to escort him to take his oath of office. As Bruce walked down the aisle alone, Sen. Roscoe Conkling (R-N.Y.) rose to accompany him to the rostrum. In gratitude, Bruce named his only son Roscoe Conkling Bruce. On February 14, 1879, Bruce presided over the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American (and the only former slave) to have done so.^[2]

Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce and his wife Josephine Beall Willson.

On June 24, 1878, Bruce married the fair Josephine Beall Willson,^[8] a socialite of Cleveland, Ohio's Black upper class, amid great publicity; the couple traveled to Europe for a four-month honeymoon.^[9] In 1899 his wife became the Principal of Women at the Tuskegee Institute, which led to their son's position there when he graduated from Harvard. Blanche and Josephine had only one child, Roscoe Conkling Bruce.

Blanche Bruce left the Senate in 1881 as the only African-American to serve a full six-year term. He retained this distinction until Edward Brooke of Massachusetts completed his first term in 1973.

Blanche K. Bruce, Frederick Douglass, and Hiram R. Revels, "Heroes of the Colored Race."

In 1881, President James Garfield named Bruce Register of the Treasury, making him the first Black person to sign his name to U.S. currency. Bruce served as the District of Columbia recorder of deeds from 1891 to 1893 and again as Register of the Treasury until his death in 1898.

Blanche Kelso Bruce died of diabetes 17 March 1898 (aged 57), in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, in Benning, Washington, D.C.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Ed Payne, "Always the Gentleman: Senator Blanche K. Bruce and Newt Knight’s Relief Bill of 1880," in "Newt Knight, the story goes on forever, continued: Mississippi Senator Blanche K. Bruce," RENEGADESOUTH, (Sept 25, 2012)
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Andrew Glass, "Freed slave presides over Senate: February 14, 1879," Politico.com, February 14, 2008).
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Wikisource contributors, "Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Bruce, Blanche Kelso," Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Appletons%27_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_of_American_Biography/Bruce,_Blanche_Kelso&oldid=9294829 (accessed May 5, 2022).
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Wikipedia contributors, "Blanche Bruce," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blanche_Bruce&oldid=1075153928 (accessed May 4, 2022).
5. ↑ https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/10029
6. ↑ John Aaron Wright, Discovering African American St. Louis: A Guide to Historic Sites, (St. Louis, Missouri: Missouri History Museum, 2002).
7. ↑ Rev. William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive, and Rising, (Geo. M. Rewell & Co., 1887) pp. 699-703.
8. ↑ "Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZ6G-YQX : 29 September 2021), Blanche K. Bruce and Josephine B. Willson, 1878.
9. ↑ Eric Gardner, "Bruce, Josephine Beall Willson," African American National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2006).
10. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 20 September 2020, memorial page for Blanche Kelso Bruce (1 Mar 1841–17 Mar 1898), Find A Grave: Memorial #6126453, citing Woodlawn Cemetery, Benning, Washington D.C., USA; Maintained by Find A Grave

• "United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 ," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MVD3-FLC : 4 August 2017), Pettus Perkinson, Prince Edward county, Prince Edward, Virginia, United States; citing line number 4, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 444,982.
• "United States Census, 1880," ED 27, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, USA; page 2, family 14, B.K. Bruce household; FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6C7-JJF.
• Politico: Freed Slave Presides Over Senate.
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• "“Always the Gentleman”: Senator Blanche K. Bruce and Newt Knight’s Relief Bill of 1880" By Ed Payne
• Wikipedia: Blanche Bruce on Wikipedia
• Wikidata: Item Q881412, en:Wikipedia