Allen Allensworth

Allen Allensworth (7 April 1842 – 14 September 1914) was an American chaplain, colonel, city founder, and theologian. Born into slavery in Kentucky, he escaped during the American Civil War by joining the 44th Illinois Volunteers as a Union soldier. After being ordained as a Baptist minister, he worked as a teacher, led several churches, and was appointed as a chaplain in the United States Army. In 1886, he gained appointment as a military chaplain to a unit of Buffalo Soldiers in the West, becoming the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in the US Army for 20 years, retiring in 1906.

Allensworth was a prolific public speaker, embarking on a speaking tour with the goal of inspiring Black youth. His lectures included ''Five Manly Virtues Exemplified'', ''The Battle of Life and How to Fight It'', and ''Character and How to Read It.'' While on tour in Pasadena, he met Professor William Payne, with whom he later founded Allensworth, California.

In 1908, Allensworth, Payne, and a small committee founded Allensworth, California, the first community established, financed, and governed entirely by African Americans. It continues to be restored and maintained as the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

Biography

Early life and education

Born into slavery in Louisville, Kentucky in 1842, Allensworth was the youngest of thirteen children of Phyllis (c. 1782 - 1878) and Levi Allensworth. Over the years, their family was scattered: his sister Lila escaped with her intended husband to Canada via the Underground Railroad; and the older boys William, George, Frank, Levi and Major were sold downriver to plantations in the Deep South, which continued to buy enslaved workers from the Upper South to develop the cotton industry. Mary Jane was his only sibling who grew up in Kentucky and married there; she purchased her freedom in 1849, gaining stability.Charles Alexander, ''Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth''
Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1914 (Electronic Edition), accessed 29 October 2011

His mother was enslaved by A.P. and Bett Starbird. The mistress assigned Allen as a young slave to her son Thomas. When the Starbird boy started school, Allen began to learn from him, although it was illegal. After his father died when Allen was young, his mother chose to be sold as a cook to a neighbor, the attorney Nat Wolfe. When the Starbirds found Allen was learning to read, they separated him from their son and placed him with another family, the Talbots. Mrs. Talbot, a Quaker, was kind to Allen and continued to teach him to read and write; she also took him to a Sunday school for slave children. When Bett Starbird discovered this, she took Allen back. In 1854 she made arrangements with her husband's partner John Smith to send the boy downriver to a plantation owned by John's brother Pat, in Henderson, Kentucky, to put an end to his learning. On the steamboat, the boy was placed in the care of a slave steward rather than being chained with other slaves below deck, who were being transported for sale to downriver markets.

Hebe Smith, Allen's new enslaver, assigned him to be a houseboy; she prohibited him from continuing his studies and whipped him for trying to do so. Also working in the household was a white orphan boy Eddie; the two boys became friends and helped each other. Suffering on the farm from a cruel overseer, in 1855 at age 13, Allen planned to escape to Canada. He spent two weeks hiding at a neighboring farm before returning to the Smiths for punishment. Later he ran away again. The Smiths and Starbirds agreed to sell him on the auction block in Henderson.

Allensworth was sold again in Memphis, Tennessee and shipped to New Orleans