John Chester Buttre, Portrait of Sam Houston, 1858, after a daguerreotype by B. P. Paige[1]
Sam Houston was a slaveholder who had a complicated history with the institution of slavery. He was the president of the independent Republic of Texas, which was founded as a slave-holding nation, and governor of Texas after its 1845 annexation to the union as a slave state.[2] He voted various times against the extension of slavery into the Western United States and he did not swear an oath to the Confederate States of America, which marked the end of his political career.
Houston believed that it was more important to stand by other states and their interests than to divide the United States over slavery. He stated that the country was founded on slavery, but when it did not suit the economic needs of Northern states, those states abolished slavery. He claimed that Northern states benefited from slave labor when they bought cotton and sugar produced from Southern plantations. Although he governed Texas as a slave-holding state and was a slave owner himself, he did not feel that it was in the best interests of Texas to secede from the Union over slavery.
Houston and his wife, Margaret Lea Houston, relied on slaves to perform household, agricultural, carpentry, blacksmithing, and other duties for the family. Eliza, who came with Margaret into Houston's family, was critical to running the household and raising the children. She stayed with the daughters of Sam and Margaret until she died in 1898. The multi-skilled Joshua was important to meeting the needs of the family. Houston often hired his servants out for money and allowed them to keep a portion of the money for themselves. When Houston died, Joshua offered to give money to Margaret to help support her children.
Until they were emancipated Houston's servants did not control where and how they were employed. There were limits to how they could spend their free time. They had little power to make decisions for themselves and their children.
^"Portrait of Sam Houston". Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
^Kreneck, Thomas H. "Houston, Sam". Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 2021-07-11.
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