Why read The Vice President's Black Wife?

Book cover of The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn

Book description

Award-winning historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796-1833), the enslaved mixed-race wife of Richard Mentor Johnson, owner of Blue Spring Farm, veteran of the War of 1812, and US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn,…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Vice President's Black Wife as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jill Watts

Author

I appreciate how Myers takes the reader along on her quest to tell this history, one that has been purposefully forgotten. Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman, was essentially the United States Second Lady between 1837 and 1841.

While other enslaved women were forced into relationships with powerful white male politicians, Myers argues Chinn was unique. Her enslaver, Richard Johnson, who served as Martin Van Buren’s Vice President, openly acknowledged her as his wife. Johnson’s frequent absences from home, left Chinn with the responsibility for his plantation, placing her in a position of empowerment. But that privilege only extended as far…

From Jill's 3 favorite reads in 2023.