Nelson Tindall

Description

Nelson Tindall (b. 1761), who owned land on what is now Tyson Research Center property according to plat maps from 1838 and 1846, was an enslaver. The 1850 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, District 82 records Tindall enslaving seventeen people. For a time Alvin Aaron Coffey, who traveled with a previous enslaver to California as part of the Gold Rush, was enslaved by Mary and Nelson Tindall, from whom Coffey purchased his freedom in 1854, and his family's freedom in 1857, from the gold he acquired in California.

Bio

Nelson Tindall was born in 1761 to Thomas Tindall and Mary Couch. He was a middle child with twelve siblings. After the death of Thomas Tindall around 1830, Nelson moved to Missouri with his wife, Rebecca, and the rest of his family.1

Tindall was an enslaver. The 1850 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, District 82 records Tindall enslaving four men in their twenties, six boys ages 4, 4, 7, 9 10 and 18, two women in their twenties, and four girls ages 1, 1, 2, and 10.2 Much of what we know about the Tindall family comes from a published reflection from Alvin Aaron Coffey, who was enslaved by the Tindalls and worked to purchase freedom for himself and his family.

Alvin Aaron Coffey was born into slavery in Mason County, Kentucky. In 1834, his enslaver, Margaret Cook, sold him to Henry H. Duvall, who took him to Missouri. Coffey married Mahala Tindall on October 9, 1842. In 1846, Duvall sold Coffey to Dr. Bassett. Coffey labored on Bassett’s farm for three years before being forced to leave behind his pregnant wife and two children to accompany his enslaver on a Gold Rush expedition. They departed from St. Louis on April 2, 1849. By 1851, Bassett decided to return to Missouri, keeping the $616 that Coffey had earned to purchase freedom.3

Basset sold Coffey to Mary Tindall, mother of Nelson Tindall and the enslaver of Mahala, Coffey’s wife, as well as his children, Mary, Lavina, John, Alvin, and Stephen Coffey. However, Coffey still had plans to work for his family’s freedom, and he negotiated to go back to California with Nelson Tindall’s brother, Benjamin. He used the money he made working tirelessly in California to return to Missouri and purchase freedom for himself and his family, bringing them out to California to live with him. He raised horses for the US army, opened a laundry, farmed turkey, and opened a school for African American and Native American children in Shasta, California. He is the only African American person to be inducted into the California Society of Pioneers. Coffey went on to describe a reflection on his experiences, which was published in The Society of California Pioneers Collection of Autobiographies and Reminiscences of Early Pioneers.

Sex

Male

Keywords

Tyson landowner

Enslaver

Alvin Aaron Coffey

Mahala Coffey

Mary Coffey

Lavina Coffey

John Coffey

Alvin Coffey

Stephen Coffey

1850 Census:
Woman, age 26
Boy, age 4
Boy, age 9
Young man, age 18
Man, age 25
Man, age 26
Girl, age 1
Girl, age 10
Boy, age 4
Boy, age 7
Boy, age 10
Man, age 23
Man, age 26
Man, age 40
Girl, age 2
Girl, age 1
Woman, age 24

1860 Census:
Young man age 18
Boy, age 14
Boy, age 8
Woman, age 32
Boy, age 16
Girl, age 12
Boy, age 1

Learn more about the people Tindall enslaved on SLIDE