Lettuce, Slavery, and the Complex Legacy of the Bib Family

The Cultivation of Bib Lettuce

• 🥬 John Bigger Bib, born in 1789, was an amateur horticulturalist who developed a variety of lettuce known as "limestone lettuce" in Frankfort, Kentucky.
• 💡 This lettuce was tender, pest-resistant, and grew in a compact head, thriving in Kentucky's limestone-rich soil.
• 🎁 Bib did not cultivate this lettuce for profit, giving most of it away; it was commercially sold and renamed "bib lettuce" decades after his death in 1884.

Richard Bib and the Institution of Slavery

• 👨‍🦳 Major Richard Bib, John's father, was a Revolutionary War soldier and a significant slaveholder in Prince Edward County, Virginia, before moving to Kentucky.
• 🌍 Richard Bib was friends with Henry Clay and supported the American Colonization Society's plan to send emancipated Black people to Liberia.
• 📜 In 1829, Richard Bib decided to emancipate one-third of his enslaved workforce, with the condition that they be sent to Liberia, while intending to free the rest upon his death.

Emancipation and the American Colonization Society

• 🚢 The American Colonization Society aimed to relocate enslaved and free Black people to Africa, a concept supported by some for humanitarian reasons and by others as a racist solution to remove Black people from the U.S.
• 💔 Richard Bib's plan involved selecting 31 enslaved individuals for emancipation and relocation, a decision complicated by the fact that many were married to enslaved people owned by other families.
• 🗣️ An account by Andrew Bib, a formerly enslaved man, describes the emancipation announcement, though it is noted as potentially romanticized and contradictory in its portrayal of the selected individuals.

The Voyage and Its Aftermath

• ⚓ The journey to Liberia for the 29 selected individuals, along with 118 others, was funded by colonization societies and took place on the brig Ajax in 1833, after a two-and-a-half-year delay.
• 🦠 The voyage was perilous, marked by a cholera outbreak that killed dozens, and contact with any of the Bib group in Liberia proved difficult, with only two women reportedly surviving and moving into the jungle.
• 🏡 Upon Richard Bib's death, his will provided for the emancipation of his remaining enslaved workforce, offering land and money, though the distribution was subject to the discretion of his executors.

Legacy and Interpretation

• ⚖️ George M. Bib, Richard's son, advised his brother John on executing the will, expressing anti-abolitionist views and suggesting a cautious approach to asset distribution to avoid burdening the estate.
• ⏳ John B. Bib began manumitting his father's enslaved workforce in waves starting in 1840, with many moving to land set aside in an area that became known as Bibtown, though deeds were not fully granted until decades later.
• 🏛️ Today, Major Bib's former home is the SEEK Museum, dedicated to telling the stories of the enslaved people emancipated by Richard Bib, acknowledging the complex and painful legacy tied to wealth built on slavery.
• ✍️ The story highlights how the wealth enabling John B. Bib's leisure time for horticulture was directly linked to the labor of enslaved people, a legacy explored in works like Len O'Neal's "The Bitter Harvest of Richard Bib."