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Sam Johnson (after 1901) was a laborer and carpenter who was enslaved by
Sam Johnson's great-great-grandson Ned Arter was a featured guest at Tennessee Emancipation Day celebrations in 2012 and 2023.
Sam Johnson supported his family by working as a carpenter, and lived on land in Greeneville known as Johnson's Woods. Circa 1901, he had white hair, owned his house and was considered an important figure in the African-American community of
hmdb.org Johnson's Parrottsville Slaves Origin of Tennessee Emancipation Day
TN PBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Sam 19th-century American slaves People who were enslaved by Andrew Johnson People from East Tennessee 1830s births 20th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain American fiddlers Freedmen's Bureau personnel
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
from 1842 until 1863. Sam Johnson was also a musician ("He played a violin he made himself that could be heard for a mile around...") and built his own home. In 1928, Andrew Johnson biographer Robert W. Winston described Sam as "Johnson's favorite slave."
Biography
Andrew Johnson paid a man named Elim Carter for Sam in 1842. Two months later he paid $500 for Sam's older half-sisterDolly
Dolly may refer to:
Tools
*Dolly (tool), a portable anvil
* A posser, also known as a dolly, used for laundering
* A variety of wheeled tools, including:
**Dolly (trailer), for towing behind a vehicle
**Boat dolly or launching dolly, a device fo ...
. Both were enslaved by Johnson until 1863, when he emancipated them amid the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. In the 1840s, Andrew Johnson regularly hired out Sam around town for jobs including "plastering a house, pulling corn, cutting oats with scythe and cradle, and doing janitorial work by 'attending the Court House.'" The income from this work was typically paid to Andrew Johnson. In January 1860, Charles Johnson wrote Andrew Johnson telling him he ought to sell Sam because he had refused to do some wood-cutting work Eliza had requested and wanted to be paid the full amount of his wages rather than a fraction. During the Civil War, after Andrew Johnson fled Tennessee on June 12, 1861, Sam worked for a Greeneville farmer named Robert C. Carter likely in "an attempt to avoid Confederate confiscation of Andrew Johnson's property, including his slaves."
After the conclusion of the American Civil War, Samuel Johnson became a commissioner for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a U ...
. Johnson is credited with organizing the first Freedom Day celebration in Tennessee, a celebration of the anniversary of the day Andrew Johnson freed Sam and his other personal slaves, on August 8, 1863. August 8 is still celebrated as Emancipation Day in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia. Emancipation Day "celebrations remained relatively small and isolated to small towns in upper East Tennessee throughout the 1870s. During the 1880s, the celebration spread across the region and the state, connecting Andrew Johnson to the memory of emancipation in Tennessee."
According to the Knoxville Mercury Project, over the decades Tennessee Emancipation Day developed into quite an event:
Sam Johnson's great-great-grandson Ned Arter was a featured guest at Tennessee Emancipation Day celebrations in 2012 and 2023.
Sam Johnson supported his family by working as a carpenter, and lived on land in Greeneville known as Johnson's Woods. Circa 1901, he had white hair, owned his house and was considered an important figure in the African-American community of East Tennessee
East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 count ...
.
Family
Sam married a woman named Margaret in the mid-1850s. They ultimately had nine children together, eight daughters and a son. * Dora * Robert * HattieSee also
*Andrew Johnson and slavery
Andrew Johnson, who became the 17th U.S. president following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was one of the last U.S. Presidents to personally own slaves. Johnson also oversaw the first years of the Reconstruction era as the head of the e ...
* African Americans in Tennessee
African Americans are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free cit ...
References
External links
hmdb.org Johnson's Parrottsville Slaves Origin of Tennessee Emancipation Day
TN PBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Sam 19th-century American slaves People who were enslaved by Andrew Johnson People from East Tennessee 1830s births 20th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain American fiddlers Freedmen's Bureau personnel