Slavery at Thompson's Station

Slavery at Thompson's Station. Thompson's Station, Tennessee. The agricultural wealth that developed around Thompson's Station in the first half of the 19th century was directly tied to enslaved labor, which was largely concentrated in the county's fertile river valleys. By 1860 slaves represented a majority (52%) of Williamson County's population. , At that time the largest slave holders around Thompson's Station included: Samuel A. Pointer (40), Solomon Oden (33), Gabriel Buford (32), Samuel Fleming, Sr. (30), Thomas Boxley (23), Bird Fitzgerald (22), and J.S. Fitzgerald (19). With his 40 slaves, Pointer worked 200 acres of improved land, valued at $94,000, which produced 12,000 bushels of wheat, 6,250 bushels of com, and 65,000 pounds of tobacco., Most Tennesseans who owned slaves owned five or less. But no matter the number owned, planters and farmers depended on their slaves to clear land, construct fences and buildings, and cultivate crops for market and home consumption. The expertise of skilled slaves-blacksmiths, masons, and carpenters--was especially valuable and could be hired out. Slaves toiled because they had to; they feared the whip, losing their family or being sold to Lower Mississippi Valley plantations where the mortality rate was higher., Precilla Gray, born in Virginia around 1830 and enslaved by the Holland and Pointer families, remembered life as part of a larger African American slave community. She recalled barn dances, her marriage on the plantation, and attending church, but never went to school a day in her life. She remembered the song, "On Jordan's Bank I Stand and Cast a Wistful Eye...". The first work she remembers was making clothes for "everyone on the plantation" with a loom and working in the tobacco fields. With the Pointers, she worked in the fields until she was called to help with the mistress' children. She also vividly recalled being whipped and admitted that "I try not to think about the old times."