Angela O. Bates:  Before homesteading as free men in the African-American settlement of Nicodemus in far western Kansas, Tom Johnson and John Samuels were enslaved by U. S. Vice President Richard M. Johnson (1837-1841) and his daughter Imogene Pence.  Johnson became a controversial figure when he married Julia Chinn, a bi-racial woman and mother of his two daughters.  This presentation follows Tom and John’s journey from enslavement in Kentucky to freedom experienced in an all-Black town.  Learn about their lives on the Johnson plantation, the tragic split of their families, and their migration and settlement in historic Nicodemus.

Location Parsons Public Library, 311 S. 17th St., Parsons, KS