Hettie McClain’s story was told by her daughter-in-law, Adah Isabelle Suggs (q.v.), for Hettie and her husband, Thomas Suggs, were no longer living at the time of the interview. Hettie was the daughter of Hulda McClain, a slave, and William McClain, her white owner. She was born in Henderson County, Kentucky. Fearing that Hettie might be separated from her mother or fall into the hands of other slaveholders, William McClain took Hulda and Hettie to Newburgh, Indiana, and gave them papers of freedom. There McClain bought a cottage for them so they could live in comfort. Hettie said that they were happy in Newburgh, and her mother made many friends.
When Hettie was twelve, she and another young girl were in an orchard gathering apples for their mothers when they were approached by some young white men. The girls climbed to the ground and asked the strangers what they wanted. The men seized the girls, threw them into a wagon, and took them to Kentucky, where they entered bondage on William McClain’s estate. The parents of the kidnaped girls thought they had drowned in the Ohio River. No one knows whether the girl picking apples with Hettie died or was sold after she was abducted and taken to a slave state.
McClain’s estate was only a few miles from Archibald Dixon’s plantation, on which Hettie’s future husband, Benjamin Dixon, was a slave. Born in Caswell County, North Carolina, Archibald Dixon moved to Henderson County, Kentucky, with his father in 1805. A member of the bar, he practiced in Henderson County for many years. He was a member of the state house of representatives in 1830 and 1841, and in 1836 he was elected to the state senate. In 1843 he became lieutenant governor, and in 1849 he was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy created by the death of Henry Clay. In 1863 he a was delegate to the Frankfort Peace Commission.
Dixon did not object to Benjamin’s marriage to Hettie. In fact, he allowed Benjamin to work for Hettie’s owner part of the time so that the two could be together. Archibald Dixon had been a kind master and would have given liberty to Benjamin when the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted; however, young McClain, who inherited the McClain estate, continued to hold Hettie, so she and her husband remained in Henderson County until after the birth of their son, Thomas Dixon, who later took the name of Thomas Suggs. After years spent in Kentucky, Hettie, her husband, and their son moved to Evansville, where they made their home.
The fieldworker explained why slaves were held in Kentucky after the Civil War. Lee’s surrender, she says, did not end slavery or slave recruiting. The Lexington Observer and Reporter, April 29, 1865, reported that although 72,000 blacks who served in the U.S. Army were freed, half the slaves in Kentucky still belonged to Confederate sympathizers and were not given freedom immediately at the end of the war. After the Thirteenth Amendment passed Congress, it was submitted to the states for ratification. Only a small group of Kentuckians were in favor of unconditional ratification. Some were in favor of rejecting the amendment altogether. Others favored ratification only on the condition that the United States pay Kentucky $36 million to compensate owners of slaves who had enlisted in the United States Army and were freed by the amendment. Governor Bramlette submitted the amendment to the Kentucky legislature on February 7, 1865, advising that it be ratified. He said that the institution of slavery was dead, but he wanted the federal government to compensate the state for the loss of slaves. This bickering delayed the freedom of a good many slaves in Kentucky.
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