In the Shadow of Liberty: Chapter 7–Afterword

A Mulatto Man Slave, about thirty years old, six feet and an inch high, stout made and active, talks sensible, stoops in his walk, and has a remarkable large foot...will pass for a free man.

At some point during the festivities, Alfred, one of the enslaved men from the Hermitage, “cryed out he was the best man in the House and [an] altercation ensued,” said a woman at the party.

At some point during the festivities, Alfred, one of the enslaved men from the Hermitage, “cryed out he was the best man in the House and [an] altercation ensued,” said a woman at the party.

As others joined the fray, one man named Frank attempted to stop the fight.

A wartime general and president beloved by many Americans as Old Hickory and the Hero of New Orleans, he was second in stature only to George Washington as the nation’s most admired leader.

In spite of Jackson’s prestige and his protests, a warrant was issued for George, Alfred, Jack, and Squire, another man involved in the fight.

A foreman, he ran the Hermitage cotton gin—an important position on the farm, where cotton was a cash crop.

Many slaveholders could be cruel, fickle, and unforgiving.

Small tastes of freedom, joy, and celebration were permitted, or even encouraged, because from the master’s point of view, it made sense to allow a measure of comfort and happiness. Many slaveholders believed that happy and contented enslaved workers—at least from the master’s perspective—made better workers.

But Jackson displayed no sign of a conscience bothered by slavery because it was evil. To him, slavery, in all its harsh brutality, was a fact of life.

Unlike his predecessors Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, Andrew Jackson was born far from Virginia’s privileged world of well-to-do planters.

And he wasn’t raised in the more refined world of Boston, like John Adams and John Quincy Adams, two other men who had preceded him as president.

This story, embellished or not, became part of Andrew Jackson’s legacy as a defiant and lifelong enemy of the British and the world of privilege and aristocracy they represented.

Rachel’s divorce had not been legally granted at the time of their wedding, so Rachel Robards was still married to her first husband when she married Andrew Jackson, a crime known as bigamy.

After one ferocious battle in which Jackson’s men cut off the noses of dead Creeks to tally the casualties, the Indians also gave Jackson a nickname—Sharp Knife.

When he arrived in Washington in March 1829, the seventh president was described as “a tall gaunt man, standing straight as a ramrod, his face wrinkled with pain and age, his thick gray hair...turning snow-white.”

Jackson’s eight years in office were marked by angry fights over such issues as a central bank for the United States (the forerunner of the modern Federal Reserve) and “states’ rights,” the idea that the individual American states retain certain powers and can ignore, or nullify, federal laws such as tariffs.

Jackson’s eight years in office were marked by angry fights over such issues as a central bank for the United States (the forerunner of the modern Federal Reserve) and “states’ rights,” the idea that the individual American states retain certain powers and can ignore, or nullify, federal laws such as tariffs.

A firm believer in the Union, Jackson rejected the idea that states could secede for any reason.

He called for his “afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren” to cast off their chains.

He called for his “afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren” to cast off their chains.

In the first issue of The Liberator (January 1, 1831), Garrison wrote, “Let southern oppressors tremble—let their secret abettors tremble—let their northern apologists tremble—let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.”

Jackson requested Congress pass a law to “prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.”

Jackson requested Congress pass a law to “prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.”

Jackson requested Congress pass a law to “prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.”

They believed, as Angelina once wrote, “Man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property.” In response, slavery proponents in South Carolina made huge public bonfires and burned the abolitionist mailings of the Grimkés and others.

In Jackson’s retirement, George remained his body servant, but Alfred became his constant companion during rides; that may have been one reason Andrew Jackson wanted to make sure Alfred was acquitted after the 1838 Christmas riot.

With Andrew Jackson’s popularity undiminished after the Civil War, visitors flocked to the plantation to hear Alfred recount tales of life with the president.

In the description of Alfred given in a 1915 book, the author said, “To him Gen. Andrew Jackson was the embodiment and concentration of all human grandness and nobility of character.... No general had ever achieved such victories. No President had ever equaled his hero.”

1841
The Creole rebellion takes place when a group of people being transported from Virginia to the slave market in New Orleans mutinies and captures the transport ship Creole.

An antislavery coalition forms the Free Soil party and nominates former president Martin Van Buren as its candidate.

1850
President Zachary Taylor dies in office and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore, a New Yorker with moderate antislavery views.

As a young man, he was a victim of the degradation of life in shackles.

In New York, Douglass met David Ruggles, an African American abolitionist fighting against kidnappers who seized free blacks and sold them into slavery. That was the harrowing story recounted in Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir made famous again by an award-winning film in 2013.

One night, abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison heard Douglass tell his story to a rapt audience.

Taken by his rousing speaking style and electrifying presence, Garrison immediately enlisted Douglass as a lecturer.

Perhaps expecting a patriotic speech celebrating the Founders, liberty, and equality, the audience in Rochester, New York, got something they hadn’t bargained for—the bitter and biting oratory of a man who asked them, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

By their own accounts and those of other witnesses, Billy Lee, Isaac Granger, Paul Jennings, and Alfred Jackson had only good words for the people who had “owned” them. Perhaps they truly felt some kinship to the men who held the power of life and death over them.

Each one of these five people demonstrated so many of the characteristics we admire in our historical heroes: resilience, sacrifice, loyalty, perseverance, faith, and, most of all, courage in the face of extraordinary challenges and seemingly impossible obstacles.

Perhaps the best we can do is shine a light on their stories to bring them out of the shadows of history and of the men who “owned” them. Through their stories, their voices, and a handful of images, we can recognize that they and all the millions they stand for were also “endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”