Enslavement in Memphis

by G. Wayne Dowdy

During the first forty-five years of the city's existence, slavery dominated the cultural and economic life of Memphis. The lives of enslaved people reveal the brutality, and their perseverance contributed greatly to the city's growth. Henry Davidson played a crucial role in the development of the city's first Methodist church and worship services for slaves. Mary Herndon was purchased by Nathan Bedford Forrest and sold to Louis Fortner, for whom she was put to work in the field, where she "chopped cotton, plowed it and did everything any other slave done." Thomas Bland secretly learned to read and write from a skilled slave and later used that knowledge to escape to Canada. Author G. Wayne Dowdy uncovers the forgotten people who built Memphis and the American South.

130 pages, Hardcover

Published August 9, 2021

About the author

G. Wayne Dowdy is the agency manager of the Memphis Public Library and Information Center's history department and Memphis and Shelby County Room. He holds a Master's Degree in history from the University of Arkansas, is a certified archives manager and is a member of the Tennessee Historical Records Advisory Board. He is the author of Mayor Crump don't like it: Machine Politics in Memphis; Hidden History of Memphis; Crusades for Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the American South, a Brief History of Memphis and On This Day in Memphis History. Dowdy has served as a consultant for the NBC-TV series who do you think you are? and the PBS series History Detectives: Special Investigation. The host of the WYPL-TV program the Memphis Room, Dowdy has appeared on C-Span, NOS Dutch Public Radio and the documentaries Overton Park: a Century of Change, Memphis memoirs: Downtown and Citizens not Subjects: Reawakening Democracy in Memphis.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have done any study of slavery in the United States, then there will be little in this book that will be new to you. There is mention of slaves, even very young children, being sold off to pay debts or to settle an estate. After all, they were property. Announcements of upcoming auctions of prime slaves are also displayed. While most slaves worked in the tobacco and cotton fields, some had skills needed to build things. Memphis is a city in Tennessee, and slave labor did a great deal to build the structures of the city.
This book is a description of the basic components of the social construct of slavery as it was practiced in Memphis and the enormous economic value of slavery. It is often forgotten that for many white southerners, their most valuable asset was the slaves they owned. This led to much of the resistance that whites had to the abolition of slavery. Such an act would have wiped out billions of dollars of assets.
Some of the personal experiences of slaves are described, generally, the owners come across as less than ideal as owners and people. Some of the free blacks are also mentioned, there are also stories of blacks determined to flee their plight and head north to freedom.
While slavery was generally practiced in a similar manner in all the states where it was legal, the actual practice did differ a bit from location to location. In this book, you will learn some of the specifics of how slavery was practiced in Memphis, Tennessee. While slavery was part of the society, the level of support for the practice was not as strong as it was in other states.

[Jeremy Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some good information in this book, but I really wish that the author would have made a better attempt to connect the stories with the development of the city and community.