What God has joined, let no man break apart

"The Register of Marriages at Cape Girardeau, July-August 1865" was the first official government record for 132 people named therein. Two by two, they took marriage vows and legitimized 66 families.

This simple, lined ledger represented a significant milestone for each family of African descent listed. Before this event, local norms allowed marriage only "in the tradition of slaves," though some enslaved unions appear in Catholic church records. But the harsh reality for most enslaved couples, often owned by different enslavers, was life apart, at best with a weekly visit and a few days together during holiday seasons. Many relationships were mercilessly severed when an enslaver sold a man or woman for punishment, profit or estate settlement.

Newly-freed by a Missouri law that abolished slavery "immediately and unconditionally" set forth in the new State Constitution, enacted Jan. 11, 1865, these folks exercised their rights to have a legal record of their marriage six months later. Most named were not youthful nor new to love's commitments. They were world-weary, but hopeful. They had survived slavery. Freedom was theirs, but even these marriages stirred gossip and reproach in Cape Girardeau's newspaper.

This 4-page ledger was organized and kept by Cape Girardeau's Freedmen's Bureau agent, Chaplain Edward O'Brien, who, with local Baptist preacher, the Rev. John Clark (white), officiated the recorded unions.

The ledger signified first steps on a long road to heal the wounds inflicted upon generations of Black families who served, built and sacrificed for their enslaver families. Each person named was birthed and nurtured by an enslaved mother. Each had grandmothers and grandfathers also denied the dignity of personhood and family cohesiveness. Some were likely fathered by enslavers who took sexual advantage of their mother, considered just property. Many suffered childhood separation from their biological parents, sold away at the whim of and for the profit of enslavers.

The ledger includes 132 individuals by given name and surname. In freedom, some retained the surname of their last enslaver while others chose past generation enslavers, in hope a name may help reunite them with long-separated kin. Names from the register are as familiar in Southeast Missouri now as they were in 1865: Sample, Ranney, Goins, Johnson, Criddle, Randol, Penny, Oliver, Rodney, Abernathy, Eulinburg, Wade.

Ages were recorded -- the oldest man was 74, his spouse aged 46. The youngest couple was 21 and 18. The ledger also noted the number of children, to date, born to the couple during their life together to date. One couple brought 11 children into the world before they were granted the rights of official matrimony.

Society was slow to acknowledge the rights and privileges of free personhood. This document was an early breakthrough in establishing personhood by relationship and geographic location in the first months of freedom. With the Missouri State Census enumeration of 1868, and the Federal Census taken in 1870, these local documents provide Black family historians a beginning point to find their southeast Missouri ancestors, by name.