Mammy Kate

GEORGIA'S BLACK REVOLUTIONARY PATRIOTS

BY CAROLE E. SCOTT

Austin Dabney's female counterpart was called Mammy Kate. Like the white heroine, Nancy Hart, she lived in what was then Wilkes County. Today where she lived is in Elbert County. An imposing woman of more than six feet, she was a house servant belonging to Governor Stephen Heard, who fought with Austin Dabney in the Battle of Kettle Creek.

In an 1820 letter she was said to be the "biggest and tallest" black woman the writer had ever seen and had "proven herself to be a strong, a kindly, a never failing friend to Colonel Heard and his family." [14] Of pure African blood, she said she was the daughter of a great king.

Heard suffered a great deal at the hands of the Torries. They forced his wife out into a snow storm, and she and their young, adopted daughter died from exposure. Then he was captured by the British and sentenced to death.

Ostensibly to care for his needs, Kate followed him to his prison. One morning she presented herself with a large covered basked on her head. She told the sentry on duty that she was there to pick up Colonel Heard's soiled linen and was admitted to his cell. There she put Heard, who was of small statue, in the basket and calmly sauntered pass the guard with him in the basket balanced on her head.

The previous night she had secreted two of Heard's fine Arabian horses--Lightfoot and Silverheels--on the outskirts of Augusta, where he was imprisoned. She carried Heard to where she had hidden the horses, and she and Heard rode away. It is said that on the ride he offered to set her free, but she responded by telling him that he could set her free, butr she was never going to set him free.

He gave her her freedom and a deed to a small tract of land and a four-roomed house, but she continued to serve the Heard family, turning over on her death bed her children to his family. [15]

Sources

1. Woodson, Carter G. and Charles H. Welsey, The Negro in Our History, p. 123.

2. Foner, Philip S., History of Black Americans, p. 337.

3. Gilmer, George R., First Settlers of Upper Georgia, p. 165.

4. Sams, Anita B., Wayfarers in Walton, p. 541.

5. Dawson's Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, 1820-29, p, 3011.

6. Mitchell, Lizzie R., History of Pike County, Georgia, 1822-1932, p. 221.

7. Mitchell, p. 231.

8. Harris, Joel Chandler, Georgia, p. 110.

9. Sams, p. 54.

10. Tabor, Paul, The History of Madison County, Georgia, p. 220.

12. Gilmer, p. 166-167.

13. Gilmer, p. 166-167.

14. McIntosh, John H., History of Elbert County, Georgia, 1790-1935, p. 221.

15. McIntosh, p. 23