Slaves
Little is known about slavery on the farm. There were two main slaves that were spoken of consistently. The house slave was Easter, who was a valued family-like servant. She either slept in the room near the children upstairs, or in a cabin with her husband, "Uncle Alfred". A slave foreman was stolen by Indians, possibly Cherokee, and taken east. When Smith was a Senator, the slave contacted him and asked for a bounty so that he could be returned to his old master. The bounty of $900 was paid to the captors, and the man returned to the servitude of Daniel Smith, of whom the man said was “anxious to return to his old master and home.” By 1860, there were 98 slaves. In 1833, there are two letters of bill of sale that name the following slaves being sold from George Smith to Harry Smith:
Isaac, Martin, Charles, Cheshire, Larkin, Ina, Toby, Wilson, David, Henry, Sarah, Rachel, Judy or Juda, Baty, Patricia and her two children, Henrietta, Silva or Silvia, Mitchel, Daniel and Jeffrey.
Read more about this topic: Rock Castle (Hendersonville, Tennessee)
Famous quotes containing the word slaves:
“Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)