In 2008 I stood in what was the nursery in a house called Travellers Rest in Nashville, Tennessee. I say “house,” although its former owner John Overton, a judge, banker, planter, the founder of the city of Memphis, and a slave owner—might have objected what he might have considered a puny term. It was a sizable home, built in 1799 and added on to and renovated over the next 120 or so years. Still, as part of a tour of the city, I had already seen Belle Meade, a Greek Revival mansion on what was once a 5,400-acre plantation, and I’d been to the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson, where I literally had to jog to get a look at the slave cabins, time being so short and the grounds being so expansive. So to my mind, in comparison with those others, Overton’s home seemed almost quaint.

In the room was a small wooden coffin. Resting on top, protected in plastic, was the original last will and testament of Rose Condon, written in 1860. It was a part of an exhibit, at the time, about death in the nineteenth century and the practices and customs surrounding it.

Condon was an unmarried free woman of color who lived in Nashville prior to the Civil War, according to Rob DeHart, the former curator at Travellers Rest. Although she never worked or resided on the property, DeHart explained, Condon is a worthy example of how free blacks lived. Her status “gave her the right to earn wages and own property. By 1860, when she died, she had raised at least five children, possibly without the benefit of a husband,” said DeHart.

“Free black women like Rose, along with many lower-class white women, were in some respects the first ‘working mothers.’ They were responsible for home and family while also earning wages. By the time of her death Rose had managed to acquire an estate large enough to pay for her funeral and bequeath property to her children.”

At Belle Meade, blacks played a prominent role both during and after slavery. The business of the plantation, begun in 1807 on a 250-acre tract by a man named John Harding, rested not on agriculture but on skilled labor. Slavery was slavery, and there’s no putting a positive spin on it, but many of the African-Americans there were employed in jobs beyond field hand: They worked at the gristmill, the sawmill, the dairy and creamery. They were wheelwrights, stonemasons, and because the plantation was also a horse farm—horse groomers and trainers (the bloodlines of traced to Belle Meade).

One was Bob Green, a head hostler who came to Belle Meade a slave but stayed on after the Civil War. Only a few of the formerly enslaved remained as paid staff, but that staff grew. Green became one of the highest paid employees on the plantation, with a staff of 26 under him. Wealthy horse owners from all over consulted with Green, who was considered a master of his profession.

Inside the mansion, hung high above a bookcase is a painting of Bob Green with a horse. The existence of more than one such portrait testifies to his position. He died in 1906, having survived slavery and the Civil War.

Another photo shows Susannah Carter, the head domestic at Belle Meade and, after the war, its head housekeeper. Literate when it was against the law for anyone to teach blacks to read and write, Carter was also held in high regard. In the nursery, a photograph stands on the fireplace mantelpiece: A handsome black woman, dressed in a white blouse, sits in a chair, looking relaxed by nineteenth-century standards. She, our tour group is told, was a nurse to the family at one time. Her name was Savannah. Savannah and Susannah Carter most likely lived in servant quarters inside the house.

Outside, the grounds are beautiful. From the back porch I see a smokehouse, handsome stables, and gorgeous Southern magnolia trees. There are tulip poplars (the state tree), catalpas, and black walnut trees, to name but a few. Fresh-cut grass and the scent of cedar combine with the crisp, air to signal the end of summer in Nashville. A little way past the house stands a stone dairy, and beyond that what Belle Meade calls an “enslaved African American dwelling.” The terminology should be noted, the acknowledgement that happenstance, not ideology, was what made a person a slave.

It is a two-room cabin with a central chimney. Each room housed either a family or unmarried workers, up to eight at a time. It might have even been cozy under the right circumstances.

“The right circumstances” meant freedom, and free people of color in antebellum Tennessee often thrived despite the decision to codify slavery into state law in the 1830s and disenfranchise free blacks from serving in the state military, among other restrictions. By 1860 there were nearly 40 free black women in the state who owned a little under $250,000 in real property. One, Sarah Estell, owned a bustling ice cream parlor in Nashville before the war. There were black men who were barbers and ran hack services.

Being free, black, and of decent means did not make Rose Condon, whose will was displayed at Travellers Rest, an anomaly. Condon did not live to see the Civil War, or to hear of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, or to learn about the U.S. Colored Troops fighting alongside white Union soldiers in the Battle of Nashville. Federal forces occupied the city in February of 1862, a little less than a year after Tennessee seceded from the United States.

The Cumberland River snakes through the center of Nashville, so capturing the city meant controlling river transportation in and out of the capital city. In December 1864 Travellers Rest served as Confederate headquarters for Gen. John Bell Hood, commanding the Army of Tennessee. At Peach Orchard (or Overton) Hill, located on the Overton plantation, several regiments of U.S. Colored Troops fought the Confederate soldiers, who were holding a line that stretched from Peach Orchard Hill to the Confederate left flank on Shy’s Hill. Depending on the source, either the black soldiers were repulsed by the Confederates or they repelled the Confederate charge. What is certain is that the African-American troops helped to put a strain on the Confederates’ already outnumbered army, making it easier for their Union compatriots to mount a successful attack at Shy’s Hill, sending the Rebels into retreat.—Audrey Peterson

You can find additional information about the black presence in Nashville in the African American Guide to Nashville, which includes places to stay, restaurants, and other helpful information. To obtain a free copy, you can order it through its publisher, Kinnard and Associates or 888-292-0660.

The African American Cultural Alliance is an organization dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and sharing the city’s and state’s black history and culture in as many ways as possible. To find out about annual events such as the Jefferson Street Blues and Jazz Festival, the Civil War Colored Tribute to U.S. Colored Troops, and the African Street Festival, held every year on the campus of Tennessee State University, and sponsored by the Alliance, write to P.O. Box 22173, Nashville, TN, 37202, or telephone 615-251-0007. Or visit www.aacanashville.org