Property, Family, Humanity

For the Jackson family, enslaved people were property and the foundation of their wealth, with their monetary value far exceeding the combined worth of the Hermitage land, mansion, and other improvements. Andrew Jackson had no qualms about owning slaves, yet the Jacksons called the enslaved their “black family.” Jackson treated everyone in his life paternally—his family, his soldiers, his political associates, and his slaves—favoring those who behaved as he thought they should and bringing down his wrath on those who did not. The Jacksons could separate enslaved families through sale or by moving them to other plantations, and the threat of physical violence was constant. The enslaved left few records of their opinions about the treatment they received, but twenty years after Andrew Jackson’s death, their actions spoke loudly. After Union forces captured Nashville during the Civil War, most of Jackson’s “black family” still at the Hermitage fled behind Union lines, choosing an uncertain future with the potential for freedom over the certainty of perpetual servitude.

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