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Contribution #316 of 365
William Johnson
Barber, Property Owner and Natchez Entrepreneur
1820s–1851
The contribution
How this work helped shape America
Born enslaved in Natchez, Mississippi, William Johnson gained freedom and developed a diversified business career centered on three barbershops. He invested earnings in real estate, lending, trade, hauling and agriculture, building substantial property holdings in and around Natchez. Johnson's detailed diaries from 1835 to 1851 also preserve an unusually rich record of Black enterprise and daily economic life in the antebellum South.