Revolutionary era
He and his father-in-law Tacitus Gaillard were both signatories to a 1768 petition to establish a parish church in the vicinity of Orangeburg, Berkeley County, South Carolina. [2] In 1770 he participated in a planning committee to establish what became the College of Charleston. [3] In 1768 and 1775 he was appointed a justice of the peace for Berkeley County. [4] He served in the South Carolina Provincial Assembly in 1772. [5] From 1775 to 1776 he was listed as a representative to South Carolina provincial assembly from the Saxe-Gotha district of Berkeley County. [6] Farar had had been a physician in South Carolina, and in the words of Paul H. Smith, an editor of the collected letters of the Continental Congressmen, Farar "been a leading supporter of the South Carolinian Regulators. Farrar's father-in-law Tacitus Gaillard, also a former South Carolina provincial assemblyman, was thought to be a lukewarm patriot and therefore fell obliged at this time to leave South Carolina with his family and settle in West Florida". Founding Father Henry Laurens, who had been soliciting the patriotic support of Gaillard and his sons-in-law through intermediaries since 1775, wrote Farar on March 7, 1778:
Three days ago I was honoured with your favor of 11th Febry. by the hand of our worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Turquand whom I immediately warned of danger to which your families & effects might otherwise have been exposed on the Water & even at any landing place after having once embarked & proceeded down the Mississippi, directed him to the best means for guarding against such danger, & in a word I have according to your request given him the best advice & assistance in my power in all respects, which renders it unnecessary to add that I wish your whole party, beleiving them to be in Strict friendship with these United States of America, happiness & prosperity. I am, Sir, Your obedient & most humble Servant.
Benjamin Farar and his father-in-law arrived in British West Florida in 1778. They had traveled up to Pittsburgh and used "five big bateaux equipped with cannon" to transport approximately 35 free whites and 400 to 500 enslaved people via the Ohio River and the Mississippi River to the Natchez settlement. They were initially suspected of intrigue, and people who encountered them believed they would prefer to settle under a Spanish, rather than British, flag. According to historian Robin F. A. Fabel, "...suspicion lingered. One [reason] was the unwillingness of their leader to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown until he had seen Governor Chester at Pensacola. Another was their background. Tacitus Gaillard had been a member of a rebel provincial congress. Benjamin Farrar, a former deputy surveyor in South Carolina, had been a Son of Liberty. Alexander McIntosh, the Indian commissary who had to entertain them at Natchez, thought it prudent not to insist that they take the allegiance oath there. Governor Chester had heard that the pair were supporters of the popular party in the Carolinas up to the time of the declaration of independence, after which they had turned decisively against the American cause, but he remained uncertain about their ultimate intentions."
Circa 1781 he took in the children of John Alston, who with his brother Philip Alston, had tried and failed to overthrow the Spanish colonial government based at Fort Panmure. [12] One of the children, Ann Alston, married Farar's overseer Alexander Stirling. [13] In 1783 he imported 18 Angolans from South Carolina to Louisiana, which was unusual because 97 percent of the 3,152 West Central Africans listed in the Louisiana Slave Database are recorded as Kongo.
Spanish Natchez and Louisiana
In February 1785, Benjamin Farar Sr. was named a justice of the peace for the ultimately short-lived jurisdiction of Bourbon County, Georgia, along with his father-in-law Tacitus Gaillard, Nicholas Long, William Davenport, Nathaniel Christmas, Sutton Banks, William McIntosh, Cato West, Thomas Marston Green, William Anderson, and Adam Bingaman.
In an attempt to improve overland routes for migration and commerce, in 1785 Spanish colonial governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró hired Farar to break a new Natchez–Baton Rouge road. Farar estimated that it would cost him $250 to have his enslaved labor force clear a horse path, and $1,000 to have them create a wagon road.
In 1789 he was approached by a representative of the speculative enterprise South Carolina Yazoo Company, Alexander Moultrie, to serve as a local agent and point of contact with the Spanish. Moultrie wrote to Farar in January 1790 from Charleston, South Carolina, describing "...the grant of 8,750,000 acres to his company as lying just south of the area granted to the Virginia group, which was headed by Patrick Henry. A grant had been made to Moultrie and three others 'in behalf of ourselves and the other original associates.' The company was divided into twenty shares, each one represented by an ostensible holder who alone had the right to attend meetings and to vote...Moultrie's own share in the project was 500,000 acres, of which he offered 5,000 or 10,000 acres to Farrar at a price to be determined by negotiation". According to a history of the Yazoo land-speculation scandal, "Governor Miró described him, in 1790, as the largest planter in the province of Louisiana, and stated that he owned 290 slaves. In view of Moultrie's letter to him...it is interesting to note that Farrar sought and, in September, 1790, obtained permission to visit the United States on the pretext of purchasing tools and clothing for his slaves and spying on James Wilkinson."
The elder Benjamin Farar, called doctor, reportedly died in 1790 at Point Coupee. [20] An inventory of his estate in 1790 listed 225 enslaved people. [21]
He had been granted 10,500 arpents of land in the vicinity of Point Coupee by the Spanish. [22] The Spanish grant was made on the April 26, 1790; 236 arpents fronted False River. [23] The Farar plantation in Point Coupee originally produced indigo. His Point Coupee plantation was among those involved in the 1795 Point Coupée slave conspiracy along with the plantations of widow Baron, M. Bergeron, Simon Croizet, Charles Doufour, M. Goudeau, Colin Lacour, Leonor Lacour (widow of Jean Baptiste Lacour), Frederic Leonard, M. Patin, Poydras, Louis and Frédéric Richet, and M. Vigne. The Farar estate was likely the only "English" plantation in the vicinity. [23]
In or about 1785, Nancy, an enslaved woman owned by Farar, was raped by a white man named Christopher Beard. From this was born a "mulatto girl" child named Venus. Farar made a provision for her in his will. She was to be manumitted and educated as a mantuamaker; he left her three male and three female slaves in his will of 1790, to be distributed to her when she was 18 years old. [26]
