Samuel Dangerfield

(1833 - 1905)

Samuel Dangerfield came to Evergreen Plantation in the mid-1850s, when he was in his early twenties.  Born around 1833 in Spotsylvania, Virginia, Samuel was sold south by a slave trader. He was purchased by Lezin Becnel and brought to the plantation to labor in the cane fields.  He had to learn a new language and adapt to a new community.  He also had to quickly pick up the skills needed to plant and harvest sugar cane, a crop that he had never worked with before.

During the Civil War, Union forces occupied Louisiana.  They began to recruit former slaves to fill the ranks.  When the 80th United States Colored Infantry made its headquarters in St. John the Baptist parish, Samuel enlisted as a private.  He was thirty years old and was given a $200 bounty for volunteering.

Samuel proved himself in the army.  He was promoted to corporal in October 1866.  After he was mustered out of service, he returned to the plantation.  His wife, Pauline, had been born a slave on Evergreen Plantation in 1845.  Her mother Ketty and father Thomas were American slaves brought to Louisiana through the domestic slave trade. The Dangerfields had three daughters: Eliza (1861), Caroline (1864), and Rachel (1871). Samuel legally wed Pauline in a ceremony performed by James Woods, justice of the peace, in 1873.

Just a year after leaving the army, Samuel was elected to the police jury, the governing body of the parish.  He served many terms as a police juror in the late 1860s and early 1870s.  Just a few years after Samuel had been enslaved, considered property with no civil rights, he became a leader in government and active in politics.  In November 1878, he was elected constable of the second ward.  In his old age, Samuel received a pension from the federal government for his service in the army. He was pensioned at the rate of $12 per month due to rheumatism, hemorrhoids, and general debilitation. He died on May 12, 1905.