Bertha Robinson Barnes

Mulatto female, born about 1885 in Pensacola, FL.  Her parents were Manuel (also spelled Emanuel) Robinson and Angela Borras Robinson.

Bertha first entered my research as the unnamed mother of an infant boy stillborn on 21 August 1904 in Pensacola. The child was named as the Infant of Frank Barnes and wife; the only information the death record gives on the child’s mother is that she was born in Pensacola.

Bertha was enumerated in the 1900 U.S. Census for Escambia County, FL at 1901 W. Government St. in Pensacola. The head of the household was Manuel Robinson, who was identified as White in this census. He was 43 years old and had been married to his wife for 22 years. He was born in Florida, his father in Portugal, and his mother in Florida. His occupation was Shoemaker. He rented his home, and he could read and write.

His wife was Angela, also identified as White, 44 years old. She had given birth to 9 children, 6 of whom were still living. She was born in Florida, her father in Spain, and her mother in Florida. She also was literate.

The children of the household were Mary, 16 years old; Bertha herself, who was 14; Paul, 11; Arthur, 9; and Mabel, 4. All the children were identifed as White and born in Florida; those old enough were attending school and could read and write.

According to the Escambia County marriage records, Frank Barnes and Bertha Robinson were married on 9 June 1902 by B.H. Burton, Notary Public. It was not a long nor a happy marriage, by all appearances, and Bertha’s appearances in records from here on out reveal a life marred by violence and heartbreak.

In May 1904, Bertha first appeared in the Pensacola newspaper for various criminal mishaps. It began with an arrest for disorderly conduct during what she described as her little sister’s eighth birthday. (This would have been Mabel.) She and several others were hauled before a judge and fined. Bertha was described as “a creole woman.”

August 21, 1904 is the date she delivered her stillborn son at 105 W. Romana Street, the home of Frank Barnes and his mother, Mollie Livingston.

In the 1905 Pensacola City Directory, Bertha was listed as Bertha Barnes (in the White section of the directory), but she was identified as a widow and lived in her father’s home at 518 Innerarity Alley. It is possible she and Frank were already living apart at this time. It is unclear if the information for the directory was compiled before or after the following:

In January 1905, Bertha was arrested for cutting the neck of her husband in an alley on Zarragossa Street (infamously called “The Line” for its brothels and bars). Apparently the two had quarreled in an alley behind a saloon. Upon arrest, she claimed he had drawn the knife and she was acting in self-defense. She was described as “colored” in this article. She was locked up in the county jail, but there is no further report of a trial.

In August 1905, Bertha, “a creole girl,” appeared before the recorder “on a number of charges, this being her third appearance in court inside of ten days. The recorder proceeded to read her a lecture of a very stiff nature, finally winding up by saying she was one of the very worst cases in town and gave her 30 days on the rock pile.”

The next time Bertha appeared in the newspaper was in February 1907, in the legal section, where notice of Frank’s filing a Bill of Divorce was announced.

Frank remarried in March of 1909, and in May of that year, Bertha was again in the paper, this time for partaking in a fight in which she received a serious head wound. The fight took place in a private home at 2 in the morning “in which bottles and knives were yielded.” Bertha was seriously injured – receiving a fracture to her skull from being struck with the edge of a metal clock – and hospitalized. Her assailant, Ollie Bennet, was charged with assault with intent to murder.

In November of 1909, Bertha made a brief appearance in the news, having been sentenced to 30 days for drunkenness.

In the 1910 U.S. Census, the Robinsons were living at 518 Innerarity Alley. Oddly, Angela was enumerated as the head and Manuel was identified as her brother-in-law. His occupation was still shoemaker. Both were identified as widowed. (I have not found enough information to decide whether this is a mistake in the census information or my misconstruing a relationship.) Angela had lost one more child since the 1900 census, as she said only 5 were still living. Mary was 26 years old, called “Mamie,” as she would be in her 1931 death record, and was working as a bookkeeper. Bertha was 24 and had no occupation. Arthur was 19 and worked as a barber. Mabel was 14. The family was identified as Mulatto in this census.

The 1910 Pensacola City Directed showed Bertha Barnes working as a domestic and living in her father’s home at 518 Innerarity Alley. Her brother Arthur and sister Mamie were also still living in the family home.

The 1911 Pensacola City Directory listed Bertha as Bertha Robinson, living at 518 Innerarity Alley, and working as a seamstress. Also still in the household was Emanuel (and presumably Angela, though she was not listed separately), Mamie, and Arthur.  Mabel was still too young to be listed on her own. They are all asterisked as “colored.”

In March 1911, Bertha was arrested along with six others in a raid on a “skin game.” (The best I can find, a “skin game” is some sort of con or swindle, but I cannot find any details.)

Bertha managed to not make the papers again until 1913, when she did so in spectacular style. On April 28, 1913, she was stabbed to death by Annie Adams (in later news articles, called “Anger” Adams). It happened at 8 in the evening in the restaurant of Carrie Dauphin on West Government Street near DeVilliers. Bertha was taken to the police station where she was operated upon, but she died on the operating table half an hour later. Annie Adams reported that Bertha had threatened to “cut her because she was dancing in the restaurant with Arthur Pete…” Adams claimed Pete gave her the knife to defend herself if Bertha carried out her threat, though Pete later denied this version of events. Bertha was called a “mulatto negress” in the article, and it was noted that she was better known as Bertha Robinson.

Later articles clarified that the stabbing had happened almost immediately upon the women exchanging words in the restaurant, and that Adams had been given the knife earlier in the day. Adams was charged with murder and Arthur Pete was held as an accessory. Adams later pled guilty and was sentenced to 3 years in the state penitentiary.

Bertha’s death notice in The Pensacola Journal on May 4, 1913, gave her name as Bertha Robinson and stated she was 28 years old. She died from a stab wound to the heart. A priest from St. Joseph’s gave her last rites. While I have not located an official death record for her, she appears in the St. Joseph’s funeral records, which indicates she was buried in St. Michael’s cemetery under the name Bertha Barnes.

FAMILY:

Father: Manuel Robinson

Mother: Angela P. Borras

Children: Unnamed stillborn son

Grandparents: Bartolo Borras, Thomas Robinson (aka Jose Alessandra), Rebecca Hardin

---

SOURCES:

Pensacola births and deaths, 1891-1910, Escambia County (Florida) Health Department. Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1973.

Florida Certificate of Death, Florida Deaths, 1877-1939. Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 14 June 2016. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

The Pensacola News, 31 May 1904, p. 8.

The Pensacola News, 17 August 1905, p. 3.

The Pensacola Journal, 27 May 1909, p. 2.

The Pensacola Journal, 28 May 1909, p. 8.

The Pensacola Journal, 30 May 1909, p. 6.

The Pensacola Journal, 15 June 1909, p. 5.

The Pensacola Journal, 27 November 1909, p. 3.

The Pensacola Journal, 5 March 1911, p. 16.

The Pensacola Journal, 29 April 1913, p. 2.

The Pensacola Journal, 21 June 1913, p. 2.

The Pensacola Journal, 28 June 1913, p. 6.

The Pensacola Journal, 30 April 1913, p. 3.

The Pensacola Journal, 4 May 1913, p. 21.

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Pensacola, Florida Burial Records, Book 1, December 16, 1892 – May 15, 1904; Book II, July 13, 1904-July 27, 1951.  Copied by Martin DePorres Lewis, transcribed by Rita Humphreys Saunders, July 1981. [University of West Florida University Archives and West Florida History Center, Pensacola, FL.]