A home for Jackson’s Slaves

Andrew Jackson arrived at the Hermitage in 1804 with nine slaves. By 1821, that number had risen to fifty. In 1823, Jackson brought another thirty enslaved African Americans here from his recently sold Alabama plantation. Faced with pressing need for additional slave housing, he built several new cabins and converted his long farmhouse into a one-story slave cabin. Over the next thirty years, Jackson’s slave population continued to grow, peaking at 150. When Jackson retired from the Presidency in 1837, he returned home to face debts accumulated by his son. After Jackson died in 1845, Andrew Jackson Jr. encountered continued money woes that eventually forced him to sell off slaves and land. In 1856, he sold The Hermitage to the State of Tennessee and moved his family and all but a few of his slaves to a farm in Mississippi. Shortly before the Civil War, the Mississippi farm failed and the Jacksons returned to The Hermitage as tenants. After the war, the Jackson family stayed at The Hermitage while only a few former slaves remained as paid employees.

Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance), Tennessee · United States