Samuel Tredwell Sawyer (1800 – November 29, 1865) was an attorney and politician. Although he served as

Congressional Representative A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...

, today he is mostly remembered for fathering the two children of the young slave Harriet Jacobs, in whose autobiography, '' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'', he features prominently.

Early life

Sawyer was born in

Edenton Edenton is a town in, and the county seat of, Chowan County, North Carolina, United States, on Albemarle Sound. The population was 4,397 at the 2020 census. Edenton is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. In recent years Edenton has b ...

, North Carolina, in 1800. He attended Edenton Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sawyer studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Edenton.

Political career

Sawyer was elected to the North Carolina State house of representatives, serving from 1829 to 1832. Sawyer was elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1834. He was elected in 1836 as a Whig to the

Twenty-fifth Congress The 25th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 183 ...

(March 4, 1837 - March 3, 1839), where he was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings. Sawyer was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-sixth Congress, moved to

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...

, and resumed the practice of law. He was editor of the

Norfolk Argus Norfolk () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern bounda ...

for several years. He was appointed a collector of customs at Norfolk on May 16, 1853, serving until April 6, 1858. Sawyer moved to Washington, D.C. During the Civil War, he was appointed on September 17, 1861, as commissary with the rank of major in the

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between ...

service. He served until August 2, 1862.

Personal life

As a young man, before he married, Sawyer had a relationship with an enslaved Black woman, Harriet Jacobs, who was seeking protection from her master, Dr. James Norcom of Edenton. They had two children together, Joseph and Louisa, who were enslaved at birth, according to law, which transferred the mother's status as free or enslaved to her children."Harriet Jacobs"
PBS, accessed 21 April 2009. After Jacobs went into hiding, she arranged with Sawyer to buy their children together with Harriet's brother

John S. Jacobs John S. Jacobs (1815 or 1817 – December 19, 1873) was an African-American author and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. After escaping from Slavery in the United States, slavery he published his autobiography entitled ''A True Ta ...

in order to protect them from a sale to slave owners further away. In her autobiography, Jacobs relates that Sawyer promised to legally manumit their children, but failed to do so. In August 1838, Sawyer married Lavinia Peyton, with whom he had three additional daughters, Fannie Lenox, Sarah Peyton, and Laura. He moved to Washington, DC with his family when he served as a congressman. Later Harriet Jacobs escaped from North Carolina, making her way to Philadelphia and then New York. She wrote her

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

, '' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'', and published it under a pseudonym in 1861. Sawyer features prominently in that book, pseudonymized as ''Mr. Sands''.

Later years

Moving to the North, Sawyer died in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1865.

References

External links

*
''A True Tale of Slavery''
by John S. Jacobs. London, 1861. Republished online by ''

Documenting the American South A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or ...

'' ( University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
''Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself''.
by Harriet Jacobs. Boston, 1861. Republished online by ''Documenting the American South'' (University of North Carolina) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sawyer, Samuel Tredwell Members of the North Carolina House of Representatives North Carolina state senators 1800 births 1865 deaths American slave owners People of North Carolina in the American Civil War Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina 19th-century American politicians People from Edenton, North Carolina