Pierce Mease Butler was born on March 15, 1810, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into one of the city’s most prominent families. His father, Thomas Butler, was the son of Major Pierce Butler, a wealthy South Carolina rice planter, Revolutionary War veteran, and signatory of the United States Constitution. His mother, Eliza Mease, came from another distinguished Philadelphia family, and Pierce adopted her surname as his middle name. Major Pierce Butler, the grandfather who established the family fortune, was born in Ireland in 1744, the son of Sir Richard Butler, 5th Baronet of Cloughgrenan. As the third son in an aristocratic family, Major Butler pursued a military career and came to America as a major in the British Army’s 29th Regiment of Foot. However, during the American Revolution, he broke with the British Crown and joined the colonial cause, rising to the rank of major in the Continental Army. This strategic change of allegiance would prove beneficial for his future in the new nation.
In 1771, Major Butler married Mary Middleton, the daughter of a wealthy South Carolina planter and slave owner. Through this marriage, he acquired significant landholdings and hundreds of enslaved people. Butler quickly adapted to the life of a Southern plantation owner, establishing expansive rice plantations in coastal Georgia, including Butler Island and Hampton Plantation. By the 1790s, he had become one of the largest slaveholders in the United States, with more than 500 enslaved individuals working his lands.
Major Butler’s influence extended beyond his plantations. He represented South Carolina at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and was a signatory to the United States Constitution. During the Convention, he was a vocal advocate for protecting the institution of slavery and ensuring that slaveholding states maintained political power. He pushed for the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and representation. This position reflected his deep economic interest in preserving slavery.
Despite maintaining his Georgia plantations, Major Butler established his primary residence in Philadelphia, setting a pattern of absentee ownership that his grandson would later follow. He served as a United States Senator from South Carolina from 1789 to 1796 and again from 1802 to 1804. Throughout his political career, he consistently supported positions that protected slavery and the interests of wealthy planters.
Major Butler was known for his meticulous approach to plantation management, viewing his enslaved workforce primarily as economic assets. He kept detailed records of productivity, births, deaths, and punishments. Unlike his grandson, he was financially prudent and continually expanded his holdings through careful investments and strategic land acquisitions.
When Major Pierce Butler died in 1822, he was one of the wealthiest men in America. His estate, including the Georgia plantations and hundreds of enslaved people, was divided among his heirs. His son Thomas inherited a substantial portion, which would later pass to Pierce Mease Butler upon Thomas’s death in 1836. This inheritance included not only vast landholdings and enslaved workers but also the social and political connections that came with being the descendant of a Founding Father. The wealth that Pierce Mease Butler would eventually squander had been built by his grandfather through the systematic exploitation of enslaved labor and shrewd political maneuvering to protect the institution of slavery. Major Butler established a family legacy deeply entangled with slavery’s moral and economic contradictions—a legacy that would continue through his grandson’s ownership and eventual sale of hundreds of human beings.
Pierce was raised in the privilege and refinement of Philadelphia high society, far removed from the brutal realities of the plantations that generated his family’s wealth. He received a classical education befitting his social standing and was groomed to manage the family’s extensive holdings, though he showed little aptitude or interest in the business aspects of plantation management. In 1836, following his father’s death, Pierce inherited a share of the family’s vast plantation empire, including Butler Island in the Altamaha River Delta of Georgia. Butler Island was a 1,500-acre rice plantation that, along with the nearby Hampton plantation, formed the core of the Butler family’s agricultural holdings. The island plantation was strategically located in coastal Georgia, where the tidal waters of the Altamaha River created ideal conditions for rice cultivation—a labor-intensive crop that required the forced work of hundreds of enslaved people.
Butler Island plantation represented the harsh reality behind the Butler family’s Philadelphia refinement. The enslaved population lived in crude wooden cabins arranged in rows across the island, enduring the grueling work of rice cultivation in the swampy lowlands. They faced brutal conditions, including swarms of mosquitoes, the constant threat of malaria, and the dangers of alligators in the surrounding waters. The work was physically demanding and took place in oppressive heat and humidity, with enslaved laborers standing knee-deep in water and mud for hours. Despite inheriting this source of immense wealth, Pierce Butler showed little interest in actually managing the plantations. He preferred to live in Philadelphia and employed overseers to run the day-to-day operations on Butler Island and Hampton. This absentee management was common among wealthy plantation owners of the time, allowing them to enjoy the financial benefits of slave labor while remaining physically and emotionally distant from its realities.
In 1834, at the age of 24, Butler married Frances “Fanny” Kemble, a celebrated British actress who was eleven years his senior. Their marriage produced two daughters: Sarah Butler (born 1835), who would later take her mother’s anti-slavery views, and Frances Butler (born 1838), who would defend her father’s slave-owning practices. The family divide mirrored the nation’s growing tensions over slavery. Butler’s marriage to Kemble deteriorated rapidly after she accompanied him to the Georgia plantations in the winter of 1838-1839. Kemble was horrified by the conditions she witnessed on Butler Island and Hampton plantation. She documented the cruelty, sexual exploitation, and family separations in her journal, which she later published as “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839.” Her moral outrage at the treatment of enslaved people created an insurmountable rift in their marriage. They separated in 1846 and their divorce was finalized in 1849, with Pierce retaining custody of their daughters.
As the years progressed, Butler’s financial situation deteriorated due to his gambling habits and extravagant lifestyle. By the late 1850s, he was deeply in debt and facing bankruptcy. His creditors pressed for payment, leading to his fateful decision to sell most of his enslaved workforce in what became known as “The Weeping Time” auction in March 1859. The sale of 436 men, women, and children from Butler Island and Hampton plantations was the largest recorded slave auction in American history, generating over $300,000 (approximately $9.78 million in 2023 dollars).
Following the Civil War and the emancipation of the remaining people he had enslaved, Butler’s fortunes continued to decline. He attempted to revive rice production on Butler Island by hiring formerly enslaved people as wage laborers, but these efforts largely failed. The plantation system that had generated his family’s wealth for generations was no longer viable without slave labor. Pierce Butler died on March 11, 1867, in Philadelphia, just four days before his 57th birthday. He passed away in relative obscurity and diminished circumstances, though still maintaining the social connections of his class. Upon his death, his remaining estate was divided between his two daughters, who had taken opposing moral positions on their father’s legacy as a slave owner.
Today, Butler Island is preserved as a historic site, and the remnants of the plantation infrastructure serve as a somber reminder of the brutal system that once flourished there. The legacy of Pierce Butler lives on not through his own accomplishments, but through the documentation of the suffering he caused—particularly through his ex-wife’s journal and the historical records of The Weeping Time auction, which continue to provide insight into one of the darkest chapters of American history.