On the night of November 20, 1849, a child was born into slavery on a prosperous Georgia plantation, and from the very first breath, her life was shaped by a cruel contradiction. Her mother, Julia Frances Lewis, was barely twelve years old when she was raped by her master, David Dixon, a wealthy planter and agricultural reformer who was forty years her senior. By thirteen, Julia was a mother, and her daughter, Amanda America Dickson, entered a world where her father was both her family’s oppressor and the man who would give her every privilege his wealth could buy. For a time, Amanda was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother, but once she no longer needed her mother’s milk, she was taken away.
David Dixon and his family decided that Amanda would be raised in the household of her white grandmother, Elizabeth, in the master’s house itself. Although the law regarded Amanda as property, Dixon made certain she was educated. She learned to read, to write, and to play the piano. She was taught social customs, proper etiquette, and how to dress and behave as a lady of society.
More practically, her father taught her how to conduct business, knowledge that would one day allow her to protect and maintain whatever wealth she came to possess. David Dixon had built his fortune on innovative farming techniques. By 1861, he was known as the Prince of Georgia Farmers, and much of the state’s prosperity was credited to him. He was remembered for insisting that violence was unnecessary to profit from slave labor, but the treatment of Julia Frances told a different story.
She worked as his housekeeper, enduring long hours and forced to satisfy all of Dixon’s needs, including sexual ones. When she was able to see her daughter, Julia gave Amanda love, but her own life remained one of servitude and abuse. Amanda developed a special relationship with her grandmother Elizabeth, spending hours in her company. Elizabeth died in 1864, when Amanda was fifteen.
By law, Elizabeth had been Amanda’s owner, and it is likely that she would have freed her granddaughter if she could. But Georgia law prohibited the independent manumission of slaves, and so Amanda remained enslaved until the abolition of slavery in 1865. At sixteen, Amanda left her father’s plantation to marry her white cousin, Charles Eubanks, a Confederate veteran recently returned from the Civil War. They settled on a small plantation in Floyd County, Georgia, near the city of Rome.
Because Georgia law prohibited marriage between interracial couples, there is no record of a legal ceremony, and whether they married in another state remains unknown. The couple had two sons, Julian Henry and Charles Green, both of whom would grow up to become part of Georgia’s high society and marry women from prominent families. But Amanda was deeply unhappy in the marriage, and in 1870, shortly after the birth of her second son, she left Charles and returned to the Dixon plantation. Charles Eubanks died on July 31, 1873.
At twenty-seven, Amanda left home again to attend the Normal School of Atlanta University, where she taught from 1876 to 1878 before returning once more to the plantation. On February 18, 1885, David Dixon died suddenly. His death set off a furious legal battle, because his will left everything to Amanda and her two sons. The estate included more than 15,000 acres of land, his personal possessions, and $3,000 in cash, all to be placed under Amanda’s sound judgment and unlimited discretion.
The will explicitly prohibited interference from anyone, including any future husband. Dixon had made clear he did not want the will contested, but his wishes were ignored. Seventy-nine relatives filed a lawsuit, taking the case to court. They argued that David Dixon had not been of sound mind when he wrote the will.
Others insisted he had been unduly influenced by Amanda and Julia. Some went so far as to claim Amanda was not his daughter at all. A probate court initially ruled in favor of the will. After an appeal in November 1885, the Superior Court of Hancock County upheld its validity.
Still dissatisfied, Amanda’s distant relatives appealed again, and the case finally reached the Supreme Court of Georgia. Associate Justices Samuel Hall and Mark Blandford ruled that Amanda was entitled to everything Dixon had left her. The ruling cited the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which holds that property rights are equal for everyone, regardless of race. After more than two years of legal battle, Amanda was finally able to claim her inheritance.
She became one of the wealthiest African American women of the nineteenth century. The legal dispute had taken a heavy toll. Feeling the pressure and discontent of her family’s attacks, Amanda left the plantation on July 15, 1886, and settled in Augusta, Georgia, a city she already knew. There she purchased a large seven-bedroom red brick home in one of the city’s best neighborhoods.
Her wealth allowed her to enter the elite black community of Augusta, where her intelligence, elegance, good nature, and fortune made her well liked throughout much of Georgia’s high society. On July 14, 1890, Amanda married Nathan Toomer. He resembled her in many ways: well educated, wealthy, and mixed-race. Nathan had also been born into slavery yet had learned the ways of upper-class white gentlemen while working as a personal assistant to Colonel Henry Toomer.
After her marriage, Amanda suffered from many health problems, attended to constantly by the family physician, Thomas Duel Coleman. Her health eventually improved, but it deteriorated again because of a stressful family ordeal in 1893. Her youngest son, twenty-three-year-old Charles Green Dickson, although married, became infatuated with his stepsister, Mamie Toomer, who was only fourteen. To protect the young girl, Amanda and Nathan decided to send her to a convent school in Baltimore, Maryland.
This did not deter Charles. With the aid of three accomplices, two of whom were his in-laws, he planned to kidnap Mamie. The plan failed, and all those involved except Charles were arrested for conspiring to kidnap the young girl. After about a month in Baltimore, the ordeal was over, and Nathan and Amanda headed home to Augusta.
On the way, they were discriminated against when they were denied first-class seats on a Pullman car. Forced to change their travel plans, the journey home was unpleasant, and the extreme heat caused Amanda’s health to worsen once again. The couple arrived home on June 9, 1893. A doctor diagnosed Amanda with neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, a condition marked by unexplained chronic fatigue, insomnia, back pain, anxiety, depression, and headaches.
Just two days later, on June 11, 1893, Amanda America Dickson Toomer died of complications from her illnesses. She was forty-three years old and had been married to Nathan for only about a year. Her funeral was held at Trinity Methodist Church, and she was buried in her wedding dress in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Richmond County, Georgia. Because Amanda left no will, a legal battle followed over control of her estate.
It was ultimately settled out of court, with her mother and sons reaching a friendly agreement.