AUGUSTA, Ga. — One of the most consequential inheritance battles in 19th-century American history ended with a formerly enslaved woman of mixed race taking possession of a vast Georgia fortune, a legal victory that stunned the post-Civil War South and made Amanda America Dickson one of the wealthiest African American women of her era.
Dickson, born enslaved on Nov. 20, 1849, on the Dixon plantation in Hancock County, Georgia, was the daughter of David Dickson, one of the region’s wealthiest planters and a celebrated agricultural reformer known across the state as the “Prince of Georgia Farmers,” and Julia Frances Lewis, a house servant who was only 12 years old when her master raped her.
The circumstances of Amanda’s birth were brutal and tragic. Her mother became a parent at 13. For a brief period, Amanda remained with her mother and maternal grandmother, but once she was weaned, she was taken from them and raised inside the household of her white grandmother, Elizabeth Sholars Dickson.
Although the law classified Amanda as a slave, her father ensured she received an education reserved for the privileged. She was taught to read and write, trained on the piano, and instructed in the social customs of her wealthy white family, including proper etiquette, dress, and the comportment expected of a lady of society.
David Dickson also gave his daughter practical instruction in business and finance, knowledge that would later prove decisive when his estate became the subject of a bitter legal war. By 1861, his innovative farming techniques had made him famous and vastly wealthy, and historians credit him in large part for the prosperity of the state during that period.
Dickson was widely remembered for teaching farmers that violence was not necessary to profit from enslaved labor. He treated his daughter with love and affection, and Julia, when permitted to see her, showered Amanda with affection as well. But Dickson treated Julia with cruelty, owning her as his housekeeper and forcing her to satisfy his every need, including sexual ones.
Amanda’s privileged upbringing could not change her legal status. Her grandmother Elizabeth was technically her owner, and although the two shared a close bond, Georgia law prohibited slaveholders from independently freeing enslaved people. Amanda spent many hours in her grandmother’s room, enjoying her company, until Elizabeth died in 1864, when Amanda was 15.
It was not until slavery was abolished in 1865 that Amanda was finally freed. At 16, she left her father’s plantation to marry her first white cousin, Charles Eubanks, a Confederate Army veteran of the Civil War, and the couple lived on a small plantation in Floyd County, Georgia, near the city of Rome.
Georgia law at the time barred interracial marriage, and no proof has ever surfaced that the couple legally wed in another state. Shortly after Amanda moved in with Charles, she gave birth to a son, Julian Henry, and in 1870 she bore a second son, Charles Green. Both boys would later join Georgia’s high society and marry women from prominent families.
Amanda was persistently unhappy in the relationship. In 1870, just after giving birth to her second son, she left Charles and returned to the Dixon plantation. Charles Eubanks died on July 31, 1873.
At 27, Amanda left home again to attend the Normal School of Atlanta University, where she taught for two years, from 1876 to 1878, before returning once more to the plantation.
On Feb. 18, 1885, David Dickson died suddenly, and the question of how his will would be divided set off a frenzy among his relatives. The will left his entire estate, including more than 15,000 acres of land, personal possessions, and $3,000 in cash, to Amanda and her two sons, to be held at her sound judgment and unlimited discretion.
The document explicitly prohibited interference from anyone, including any future husband. Despite Dixon’s wish that no one contest the will, 79 relatives filed suit, taking what became known as the David Dixon will case to court and presenting a barrage of arguments aimed at stripping Amanda of her inheritance.
A frequently raised claim was that David Dixon was not of sound mind when he wrote the will. Other family members insisted he had been unduly influenced by Amanda and Julia Dixon. Some relatives went so far as to deny that Amanda was his daughter at all.
A probate court first ruled in favor of the will. After an appeal in November 1885, the Superior Court of Hancock County upheld its validity. Unsatisfied, the restless distant relatives pressed on, 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, citing the Fourteenth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution and its guarantee that property rights are equal for everyone, no matter the race.
More than two years after her father’s death, Amanda could finally dispose of her inheritance.
The ruling made her one of the wealthiest African American women of the 19th century. But the legal dispute with her family left her under immense pressure and deeply unhappy. On July 15, 1886, she left the family plantation and settled in Augusta, Georgia, a city she knew well.
There she purchased a large, seven-bedroom red brick home in one of the best neighborhoods in the city. Her wealth soon made her part of Augusta’s elite black community, and her intelligence, elegance, and good nature made her well liked among much of Georgia’s high society.
On July 14, 1890, Amanda married Nathan Toomer, a man much like her: well educated, wealthy, and mixed race. He too had been born into slavery, yet he learned the ways of upper-class white gentlemen while working as a personal assistant to Colonel Henry Toomer.
After her marriage, Amanda suffered a series of health problems attended to by the family physician, Dr. Thomas D. Coleman.
Her condition improved, then deteriorated again amid a stressful family ordeal in 1893 involving her youngest son, 23-year-old Charles Green Dixon, a married man who became infatuated with his 14-year-old stepsister, Mamie Toomer.
To protect the girl, Amanda and Nathan Toomer sent her to a convent school in Baltimore, Maryland. Charles was not deterred. With the aid of three accomplices, two of them his in-laws, he plotted to kidnap the young girl.
The plan failed, and all involved except Charles Dixon were indicted for conspiring to kidnap her.
After roughly a month in Baltimore, the ordeal behind them, Nathan and Amanda headed home to Augusta. They were discriminated against when they were denied their first-class seats on a Pullman car, forcing them to change their travel plans. The journey home was unpleasant, and the extreme heat caused Amanda’s health to worsen again.
The couple finally arrived home on June 9, 1893. Amanda was seen by a doctor and diagnosed with neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, whose symptoms include unexplained chronic fatigue, insomnia, back pain, anxiety, depression, and headaches, among many others.
Just two days later, on June 11, 1893, Amanda America Dickson Toomer died of complications from disease. She was 43 years old and had been married to Nathan Toomer for 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.
Amanda left no will. Following her death, a legal battle ensued for control of her estate, which was ultimately settled out of court, with her mother and sons reaching a friendly agreement. Her life, from enslaved child to one of the richest Black women in America, remains a landmark chapter in the legal history of property and race in the United States.