Read more about Sally Thomas.
Sally Thomas was born enslaved in Virginia in 1787. When she was 21, she gave birth to a son, John, and then had another son, Henry, the next year. Since the sons were listed on the records as mulattoes, or part-white, the father was probably white.
Slave women were often given no choice about accepting or rejecting a white owner’s sexual advances. It is not known what Sally thought. Most white fathers did not claim their children, leaving them to be raised only by their black mothers. Under state laws in all southern states, children born to an enslaved mother became slaves.
Sally and her two young sons were taken by their owner to Nashville in 1817 when she was 30 years old. Once there, Sally obtained his permission to hire herself out as a laundress. This was a common practice among slaves who lived in cities. It meant she could go out and get business, and then keep part of her earnings.
Sally rented a house at the corner of Deaderick and Cherry streets and established a laundry business there. She specialized in washing fine fabrics, and soon had a number of regular clients.
At some point Sally became a quasi-slave, meaning she was free to come and go as she pleased, and make decisions about her children.
Sally arranged for her oldest son John, who was still owned by the Thomas family, to go work for river barge captain Richard Rapier. Apparently Sally knew Rapier and trusted him with her ten-year-old son. That trust paid off. Rapier went before an Alabama court and declared he had set aside $1,000 to buy John from the Thomas family, and that he intended to set him free. Rapier died soon afterwards. John was a free man at age 21.
In 1827, Sally gave birth to another son, James. The father was apparently Tennessee Supreme Court Judge John Catron, later a U.S. Supreme Court judge under President Andrew Jackson. The only way we know this is that James took Catron’s last name, and later in his memoirs, claimed to be Catron’s son. James wrote with some bitterness “he (Catron) had no time to give me a thought…He gave me 25 cents once.”
In 1834 the Thomas’ Virginia estate was broken up with Sally and her sons going to a distant Thomas relative, John Martin. James wrote that his mother didn’t trust their new owner and was afraid he would sell them. “My mother spent many sleepless nights on account of the turn things had taken,” James later wrote in his memoirs.
James was only seven years old at this time, but her second son, Henry, was in his mid-twenties, an age that slaves could bring a large selling price. Sally decided that Henry needed to escape to freedom.
Trying to escape was very dangerous. Captured slaves could be severely beaten or even die in the attempt. Anyone who saw Henry wearing chains could have him arrested. Nevertheless Sally urged Henry to leave. It would be months before Sally heard any news. Finally word came that Henry had made it to Indiana and was free. Sally never saw him again.
After this incident, Sally went to a prominent Nashville lawyer, Ephraim Foster, and asked him to act as her agent and talk to Martin about buying James. Foster did and found out Martin wanted $400. Sally had only saved $350, so Foster loaned her the rest of the price. Foster purchased James, but gave the papers to Sally. Sally soon paid him back.
Dig Deeper: Why didn’t Sally go directly to her owner and buy her son’s freedom?
Eventually Sally saved more money and went to Nashville businessman Godfrey Fogg, and asked him to purchase her from Martin. Fogg lent her money for the purchase, and was also paid back.
But both Sally and her son were still legally considered slaves belonging to the two men who helped them. They could only be emancipated or freed through the county courts. Because Tennessee law stipulated that blacks who were emancipated had to immediately leave the state, Sally didn’t want to go to court and have to leave the state, her home, and her business income.
Staying in Tennessee was dangerous for Sally and her son. They could have been kidnapped and sold as slaves in another state. If either Foster or Fogg died, both she and James could be sold by their heirs.
In 1841, Sally arranged for 14-year-old James to work as an apprentice to a quasi-slave named Frank Parrish who ran a barber shop in Nashville. After five years, James opened his barbershop in the same house as his mother who was still running her laundry.
James’ business quickly became a success. Some of his customers included Foster, Gov. William Carroll, Belle Meade Plantation owner William Harding, and future governor William Brownlow.
In 1850, Sally became sick and died from cholera. The next year Foster went to the Davidson County Courthouse and petitioned for James Thomas’s freedom. Thomas left the court a free man.
The Thomas family left Tennessee during the Civil War. All of Sally’s sons lived as free men, and died at an old age.
Age of Jackson >> Tennessee's People >> Slavery >> Free Blacks
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