Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer was an African American poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance and modernism. His first book Cane, published in 1923, is considered by many to be his most significant.

Nathan Pinchback Toomer was born in Washington, D.C. in 1894. His father Nathan Toomer was a mixedrace freedman, born into slavery in 1839 in Chatham County, Georgia. He, his mother Kit and siblings were sold to John Toomer in Houston County after his death, they were bought in 1859 from the estate by Johns brother Col. Henry Toomer. Among his siblings was a sister Fannie, who later married a Mr. Colomon. Nathan worked for Henry Toomer as a personal valet and assistant before and after the Civil War, learning the ways of the white upper class and later taking his surname. By 1869 Nathan Toomer had married a mulatto woman named Harriet, and they had four daughters, including Martha, who married Seymour Glover, and Theodosia, who married a Mr. Braswell. By 1870, Nathan Toomer was a farmer and the wealthiest freedman in Hancock County, with 20,000 in real estate and 10,000 in personal property. Harriet Toomer died on August 17, 1891.

Source: Wikipedia