Early Life
Roberts was born free in Norfolk, Virginia, the second oldest of seven children. His father was said to be a planter of Welsh origin. Joseph's mother Amelia, described as a mulatto who was quite fair, was the planter's slave mistress or concubine. He freed Amelia and her children when she was still young. Amelia gave all of her children but one the middle name of Jenkins, which suggests that may have been the name of their biological father.
Once free, Amelia married James Roberts, a free black. Roberts gave her children his surname and raised them as his own. Roberts owned a boating business on the James River. By the time of his death, he had acquired substantial wealth for an African American of those times.
Joseph Roberts and his siblings by the planter were estimated to be seven-eighths European in ancestry. As the Liberian historian Abayomi Karnga noted in 1926, "He was not really black; he was an octoroon and could have easily passed for a white man." As a boy, Joseph began to work in his stepfather's business, handling goods on a flatboat that transported materials from Petersburg to Norfolk on the James River. The family moved to Petersburg, which was an industrial city. Shortly after the move, the stepfather James Roberts died. Joseph continued to work in his family's business, but also served as an apprentice in a barber shop. The owner of the barber shop, William Colson, was also a minister and one of Virginia's best-educated black residents. He gave Roberts access to his private library, which provided much of the youth's early education.
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