When Servants Ride Horses One Version of the David Dickson Story

Here is a fascinating story (researched for 20 years) of a southern white planter, David Dickson of Hancock County, Georgia, who lived from 1809-1885. So successful at planting, he was called The Prince of Southern Farmers. In 1864, the Federal Army ravaged his land destroying everything. By 1870 he had recouped his fortune which he willed to a quadroon, Amanda. Her mother, Julia, said the girl was David's. Apparently sterile, he never had another child--not by the many black women he kept, nor by his 25 year old white bride, Clara Harris, who died 22 months later, & one day after the white man who fathered Amanda's two sons, died. Weren't their deaths suspicious? Julia had two more children by two other men. Amanda married a mulatto opportunist, Nathan Toomer, in July 1892, & died June 1893, eleven months later, just half as long as Clara was married to David. Was this God's vindication for the hapless wife? She had experienced emotional hell on David's plantation. Nathan tried to take Amanda's sons' fortune. His son by his next wife, Nina Pinchback, was Jean Toomer, a well-known writer who was part of the 1920's Harlem, or New Negro, Renaissance.Morgan, Dorothy H. is the author of 'When Servants Ride Horses One Version of the David Dickson Story' with ISBN 9780963293602 and ISBN 0963293605.