The Hermitage, Home of Old Hickory

by Stanley F. Horn

SECOND FLOOR PLAN

Allowing for the use of the then customary armoirs in place of the present-day closets and the fact that bathrooms were non-existent at the time, the most confirmed modernist could find no fault with this arrangement for living.

I will thank you to get Dr. Hogg to see Hannah. I would be sorry she would become a cripple. You may say to Dr. Hogg that her lameness was occasioned by a stroke from Betty, or jumping over a rope in which her feet became entangled and she fell and hurt her hip. I will thank you to say to the overseer to prevent Betty from beating or cruelly using the little negroes that are under her about the kitchen. A small switch only ought to be used, but sometimes she uses any weapon she can get, and chokes and abuses them and brings on disease. Give such directions about the negro girl as though she was your own.

This was not the first time he had had cause to complain to the conduct of Betty, the cook. Back in 1821, while he was in Florida at grips with the Spanish officials, word reached him from the Hermitage that this same Betty, then Mrs. Jackson’s maid, had been misbehaving; and he set aside his dispute with Señor Calava long enough to write to A. J. Donelson:

Mrs. Jackson informs me that her maid Betty has been putting on some airs and has been guilty of a great deal of impudence. On this subject I have wrote Dr. Brunaugh and Mr. Blair. I have said to Mr. Blair that I hold him responsible for the control of the servants, and I have directed that the first impertinence she uses or the first disobedience of orders that she is to be publicly whipped. It is humiliating to me to have to resort to this, but I have to request of you to observe her conduct and the first disobedience or impudence order Mr. Blair to give her fifty lashes. If he does not perform it, dismiss him, and as soon as I get possession I will order a corporal to give it to her publicly. I am determined to cure her.

This evidence of firmness on General Jackson’s part in the discipline of the slaves was very unusual, and indicates that the offending Betty must have worn out his patience with her incorrigibility. Seldom indeed was whipping resorted to on the Hermitage plantation. In fact, the principal criticism of Jackson around Nashville, regarding his treatment of his slaves, was that he was too lenient with them; and out of this leniency grew a tragedy in 1827 that became one of the minor controversial issues of the 1828 Presidential campaign.

One of Jackson’s slaves, a man named Gilbert, was a chronic and incurable runaway; but upon every such offense he was always forgiven by the General upon his promise of better behavior. This went on until at length Jackson’s patience was exhausted and when Gilbert was recaptured after running away in 1827 the General ordered him taken to Nashville and sold, with the stipulation that he must be sold as a runaway so that any purchaser would know of that defect. The overseer, Ira Walton, however, gave it as his opinion that this would not do, inasmuch as it was the prevailing idea that the Hermitage negroes had been detrimentally affected by their master’s indulgence and that one of them would be correspondingly hard to sell. Walton further said that if some example were not made of an habitual offender like Gilbert he could not promise to keep the slaves under control, and that Gilbert was a fit subject for punishment inasmuch as he was the most insolent slave on the place.

Jackson, over-persuaded, reluctantly instructed Walton to take Gilbert away from the house to a near-by woods lot that adjoined a cotton field where other negroes were working and there to “whip him moderately with switches.” Arriving at the woods lot, Gilbert who was described as “a very stout, strong man, possessed of a most violent and ungovernable temper,” suddenly turned on the overseer and knocked him to the ground. Walton hastily drew a knife from his pocket, but it was only after a long and bloody struggle that he succeeded in stabbing the negro sufficiently to free himself. Jackson was quickly summoned from the house, and he ordered the wounded slave carried back there where he was given attention by the family doctor. In spite of this attention, however, he died the next day.

Jackson was very much upset by the tragic episode and, for some reason, did not believe the overseer’s story of the affray. He not only discharged the overseer summarily the next morning, but went to Nashville and swore out a warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder. The grand jury, however, after hearing all the evidence including the testimony of a negro eye-witness, discharged Walton on the grounds of self-defense.