Antney Hensley

Antney Hensley and Charlie Treadwell sitting near a horse, an axe, and chopped firewood.

Kimberly Wyatt

Quick Facts

Significance:

Formerly enslaved person

Date of Death:

1914

Place of Burial:

Eula, AR

Cemetery Name:

Hall Cemetery

The first enslaved Africans were brought to English-occupied North America more than 400 years ago. Despite constant adversity throughout American history, African American culture and heritage strengthened each generation.

Most enslaved persons within Buffalo River Country belonged to relatively small slaveholdings rather than the larger plantation slaveholdings more common in southern Arkansas. For many enslaved people across the region, this meant extreme social isolation and loneliness, especially when slaveowners neglected to keep enslaved families together.

A young boy named Antney was sold at a slave auction to John Hensley, the largest slaveholder in Searcy County. Without parents or siblings to raise him, Antney endured the instability of Hensley's enterprise, where the constant buying and selling of slaves meant little consistency in potential family figures. Hensley eventually gave Antney to his daughter, Louisa, and her husband as a wedding gift.

Over the years, Antney became a skilled horseman and raced John Hensley's horses at the race track in Richland Valley. He later accompanied Hensley as a member of the 7th Arkansas Cavalry during the Civil War. According to oral family accounts, on one occasion Hensley's horse was shot out from under him in battle and Antney rode into the fighting to save him.

Antney remained in the Buffalo River Valley after emancipation. In the 1870 census, at age 30, his full name was listed as Antney Hensley. Antney's story resembles those of other enslaved persons who had been separated from their families as children: when freed, they remained in the environment they had come to know.