Blues, haints and bayous: snippets from the Deep South: The Barber of Natchez

The house that kept us longest on the Natchez historical trail was William Johnson's. William was a freed man of colour, the son of a white man and a black slave. His mother had been freed in 1814 and had run a small shop to make a living bringing up William. She was a bit of a character and lived with William and his wife, Ann, in Natchez, in a house that William had built from reclaimed cyclone wood. William once said of her: "The Old woman is on a regular spree for quarrelling today all day -- oh Lord, was any One on this Earth So perpetually tormented as I am." Which made us smile.

William and Ann owned slaves. Their slaves lived close in a separate dwelling in the back yard of their property. The house slaves were Ann's responsibility. Under her direction they made cakes and pies and sold these, along with their garden produce and finely sewn products to the townsfolk -- affording the family a productive and supplemental income.

William owned the busiest barber shop in town which he bought for three hundred dollars. His barbershop, for instance, had six barber chairs, four mirrors, two washstands and dozens of framed photographs. He was a man of substance. His shop was the hub of gossip and activity in town for the nabobs. Men of opinion and standing came to him for pomades, trims, shaves, and to talk. And, here, William taught young black boys how to barber.

William kept a diary in which he recorded minute details. Over sixteen years he filled fourteen leather bound journals with entries. This shows how he took time for leisure and tells of time spent fishing, hunting, riding horses, enjoying himself. An amazing record from a black man in the Antebellum south. Full of rich detail describing daily life: anything from the visit of the President, to a search for a lost cow. It is a rare resource for the study of the lives of freed blacks.

It continued until William had a dispute with a neighbour over a boundary issue which ended up in court. And though the judge found in William's favour, the aggrieved neighbour, Baylor Winn, was not happy. And shot him.

William lived long enough to advise that Baylor Winn was the person with the gun. He died far too young, at just 42, the prime of life. His eleventh child had just been born. The value of his estate at that time was well over thirty thousand pounds.

Baylor Winn was charged. His defense argued that he was white, despite his part-Indian ancestry. They also argued that the witness who accompanied him at the time of the shooting whose testimony would have been vital was not white, so would not be able testify against Winn. Persons of colour could not testify against a white man. No court could ever get past this complicated issue. So Baylor Winn was never convicted of William's murder.

The white papers commended William after his death, calling him "a most inoffensive man" who had earned "a respected position on account of his character, intelligence and deportment."