Leslie, Kent Anderson

Description

Encyclopedia article about Amanda America Dickson. Dickson, the daughter of a slave and her owner, became one of the wealthiest black women in nineteenth-century America. She was born on November 20 or 21, 1849, on the Hancock County plantation of her father, the famous white agricultural reformer, David Dickson (1809-85). Her birth was the result of the rape of her slave mother, Julia Frances Lewis Dickson, when Julia was twelve years old. At the time, David Dickson was forty and the wealthiest planter in the county. Amanda America Dickson spent her childhood and adolescence in the house of her white grandmother and owner, Elizabeth Sholars Dickson, where she learned to read and write and play the piano--the survival skills of a young lady but not ordinarily the opportunities of a slave. According to the Dickson family oral history, David Dickson doted on Amanda, and Julia quite openly became his concubine and housekeeper.

Record Contributed By

New Georgia Encyclopedia

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia