IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM JOHNSON BORN 1809 IN NATCHEZ MISS. DEPARTED THIS LIFE JUNE 17, 1851

“He was murdered,” Ms. Miller said of the man buried beneath this very large, flat rectangular stone slab, also in Plat 1. “Over a land dispute.” The Natchez Courier denounced “a horrible and deliberate murder” that was “committed upon an excellent and most inoffensive man” who held “a respected opinion on account of his character, intelligence and deportment.” It noted: “We observed very many of our most respected citizens at his funeral … Johnson left a wife, nine children, and quite a handsome property; probably twenty to thirty thousand dollars.” He owned plantations, a thriving barbershop, and slaves.

And he was black.

He was born a slave. The man who owned him, also presumed to have been his father, emancipated him at age 11, an act Mississippi made very difficult and later banned. William Johnson’s status as a free man of color, as one of Natchez’s more respected and successful businessmen and as a slaveholder are remarkable, but not unique. What really makes him special is that he kept a meticulously detailed diary. It’s a record of loans he made and game he bagged, local events (lots of brawls) and gossip (lots of feuds). In that regard, it’s about as scrupulous an eye-level account of antebellum Natchez as you will find. But it can also be a harrowing read, knowing what fate had in store for its author, and contemplating the peculiar existence of a black slaveholder. He had tried to train one of his slaves, Steven, as a barber, but it didn’t take:

“To day has been to me a very Sad Day; many tears was in my Eyes to day On acct. of my selling poor Steven … I felt hurt but Liquor is the Cause of his troubles; I would not have parted with Him if he had Only Let Liquor alone but he Cannot do it I believe …”

Mr. Johnson’s significance to history is confirmed by the fact that his house in town is today a museum run by the National Park Service; his significance to his contemporaries is confirmed by the fact that his and his family’s graves are surrounded by those of other prominent families of Natchez, all of whom were white. Natchez’s cemetery was, like others throughout the South, racially segregated — but unlike those others, Ms. Miller explained, in Natchez’s “it wasn’t always adhered to.” Other African Americans are buried throughout the cemetery, too.