From the Archives 104: Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, September 1941

This is the beginning of a 1941 interview with George Johnson, a formerly enslaved man who belonged to Joseph Davis, the owner of the Hurricane plantation in Warren County, Mississippi. Joseph Davis was the brother of Jefferson Davis, the President of Confederate States of America. Johnson discusses Benjamin Montgomery, another slave who belonged to Joseph Davis, who managed Hurricane. But Montgomery was also an inventor. Among other things, he invented a boat propeller, which became controversial in 1858, when Jefferson Davis tried to patent Montgomery's invention, and the Patent Office rejected Davis's application, because no one could take the patent oath. Davis was not the inventor, and under Dred Scott, Montgomery was not a person.The interview was recorded by Alan Lomax in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an African-American community founded by Benjamin Montgomery's son Isaiah Montgomery, which still exists today.More information about Benjamin Montgomery and his patent is available in Brian L. Frye, Invention of a Slave, 68 Syracuse Law Review 181 (2018). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.