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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Colored Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866 Tennessean

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About The Colored Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866

The Colored Tennessean first published on April 29, 1865, making it the first Black newspaper in Tennessee and one of the first in the South.

The editors were William Bennett Scott and his son, William B. Scott Jr. William B. Scott Sr. was born free in North Carolina and moved to East Tennessee in 1847. He moved to Knoxville shortly after the beginning of the Civil War and learned the fundamentals of newspaper work through a two-year apprenticeship. In 1865, the Scott family moved to Nashville, where he began the Colored Tennessean. It published weekly on Saturdays.

Black Tennesseans depended on the newspaper to provide expression for their newfound freedom. On August 12, 1865, the paper stated, “The rebel slave-masters and their abettors, know in their secret souls, that they deserve to be scourged by the worst dangers their imaginations can conceive.” The paper also ran notices from people searching for families and loved ones separated by slavery. On August 12, 1865, a notice read: “Information Wanted. Of a man by the name of Elias Lowery McDermit, who used to belong to Thomas Lyons, of Knoxville, East Tennessee.” The newspaper included local ads for businesses in the Nashville area and local, state, and national news. The Tennessean also promoted the 1865 Nashville Colored Convention, advertising it in advance and publishing its proceedings in the August 12, 1865, issue.

After starting the Colored Tennessean, Scott Sr. soon realized that most of the newspaper’s support came from East Tennessee. In 1867, he therefore moved the paper to the city of Maryville in Blount County, and the newspaper changed its name to the Maryville Republican. In 1869, Scott Sr. was elected mayor of Maryville. Over 100 years after starting the Colored Tennessean, in 1997, William B. Scott Sr. was inducted into the Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Note: A portion of the issues digitized for this newspaper were microfilmed as part of the Miscellaneous Negro newspapers microfilm collection, a 12 reel collection containing issues of African American newspapers published in the U.S. throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Creation of the microfilm project was sponsored by the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1947. For more information on the microfilm collection, see: Negro Newspapers on Microfilm, a Selected List (Library of Congress), published in 1953. While this collection contains selections from more than 150 U.S. newspapers titles, for further coverage, view a complete list of all digitized African American titles available in the Chronicling America collection.

Provided By: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Colored Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866

Other Title

  • Tennessean

Dates of Publication

  • 1865-1866

Created / Published

  • Nashville, Tenn. : W.B. Scott & Son

Headings

  • -  African Americans--Tennessee--Nashville--Newspapers
  • -  African American newspapers--Tennessee--Nashville
  • -  Nashville (Tenn.)--Newspapers
  • -  Davidson County (Tenn.)--Newspapers
  • -  African American newspapers
  • -  African Americans
  • -  Tennessee--Davidson County
  • -  Tennessee--Nashville
  • -  United States--Tennessee--Davidson--Nashville

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began with Apr. 29, 1865 issue; ceased in 1866.
  • -  Also issued on microfilm from the Library of Congress, Photoduplication Service.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 1, no. 14 (July 29, 1865).
  • -  Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn. : 1866) (DLC)sn 83025746 (OCoLC)9773080

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn83025745

OCLC Number

  • 9773024

ISSN Number

  • 2835-7477

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://aj.sunback.homes/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://aj.sunback.homes/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Colored Tennessean Nashville, Tenn. -1866. (Nashville, TN), Jan. 1 1865. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83025745/.

APA citation style:

(1865, January 1) The Colored Tennessean Nashville, Tenn. -1866. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83025745/.

MLA citation style:

The Colored Tennessean Nashville, Tenn. -1866. (Nashville, TN) 1 Jan. 1865. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83025745/.