Enslavement

The first recorded African American in Decatur, Georgia was an enslaved woman named Malinda who was put up for auction at the courthouse in March of 1826 and again in September of 1827 for the debts of her enslaver.

In 1831, DeKalb County had a white population of 9,020 and a black population of 1,867, meaning that approximately 17% of the County’s population was enslaved.

On Feb 1, 1831, 24 year-old Dick, 29 year-old Mill, and Mill’s 13 year-old daughter Clary were sold at auction on the steps of the Decatur courthouse for the heirs of John Clark of Franklin County.

The 1840 Census of DeKalb County listed 349 of its 1,406 households (19.8%) as enslaving at least one person. One individual named Francis Irvin enslaved 74 people in District 530. There were a total of 7 free African Americans in DeKalb County in 1840.

On February 16, 1842, a 30 year-old enslaved African American named Dave was held by Decatur jailer Simeon Williams. Dave had escaped from Dr. George Rastor of Baker County and had been free for seven months before being captured and held in Decatur. In September of the same year, a 60 year-old man named Peter was held in the Decatur jail, having escaped from Monticello, Jasper County.

Mason Shumate was an early settler of Decatur who moved to the area in 1824. He was the town’s first tavern-keeper and was a founder of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. According to Franklin Garrett in Atlanta and Environs (vol. 1), the elder Shumate was considered “moderately prosperous” (p. 45). When he died in 1849, his estate appraisal listed sixteen enslaved people, mostly women, along with a small wagon, one man’s saddle, one pair of shovels, tongs, and irons and candlesticks, among other household items. The value of the enslaved was placed at $7,162, far more than any other line item in the inventory combined, including the house and land.

Here are the names of the men, women, and children that this Decatur founder enslaved:

– Frances Sophia
– Rosella
– Savannah, Rosella’s daughter
– Mary
– Mary Emily
– Caroline
– Elvira
– Minerva
– Eli
– Frances Isabella
– Mary Loduska
– Adaline
– John Albert, Adaline’s son
– Felix
– Emaline
– Huldah

Between 1840 and 1850, the enslaved population of DeKalb County increased to 33%. In Decatur in 1850, a total of 248 people were enslaved by 44 men and women. Three free African Americans were listed in Decatur that year: Serena Robinson, Polly Smith, and a 50 year-old man with the last name of Douglas. Serena Robinson was a laundress originally from Kershaw County, South Carolina.

By 1860, 43.7% of the entire population of the state of Georgia was enslaved, compared to 23.7% in DeKalb County. This means that in DeKalb alone, nearly 1 in 4 people was legally owned by another. Free People of Color in DeKalb went from 32 in 1850 to just 8 in 1860.

In 1860, the only free African American in Decatur was a 35 year-old horse trainer named Preston Webb. He later married Sinai Calhoun, the daughter of an enslaved woman named Nellie Reynolds Calhoun and Decatur founder and future three-term mayor of Atlanta William Ezzard. Preston and Sinai Webb, their daughter Catherine Webb Graves and her family, and both Nellie Reynolds Calhoun and William Ezzard are buried in Oakland Cemetery, all but the latter in the segregated section.

Auctions

In DeKalb County, all sales and auctions, which included people alongside household goods, real estate, and livestock, took place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month at the door of the Decatur Courthouse.

It may never be possible to know all of the names of those human beings who were sold in Decatur as material possessions, but because of advertisements for auctions and sales in the county, we do know of some of the many individuals who were put through this horror. The following are the names and ages (when available) of the people who were sold at the door of the Decatur Courthouse between 1826 and 1863.*

The oldest person was 65 and the youngest a mere 20 days old.

Note that the last ten people on this list were auctioned in December of 1863 for the benefit of the heirs of Thomas Johnson, eleven months after the Emancipation Proclamation.

* While the new courthouse was under construction (1842-1847), these sales presumably took place in another officially designated location in Decatur.