death_place death_date birth_place article_title name occupation death_cause
darrow , louisiana , u.s. may 4 , 1867 unknown , u.s. abe hawkins
 abe hawkins sugar plantation slave : jockey tuberculosis
abe hawkins

abe hawkins , also known in later years as uncle able hawkins , the black prince , the dark sage of louisiana , and the slayer of lexington , was a slave on the ashland sugar plantation located in darrow , louisiana in ascension parish .
duncan farrar kenner owned the plantation and for ten years abe was his slave .
kenner was a businessman that owned and raced horses with a track located on the plantation grounds .
in 1854 , kenner purchased slave jockey abe hawkins .
abe was considered small and of `` light figure '' and suited to being a jockey .
abe rode for kenner until he became a freeman in 1864 , and then for robert a. alexander and was nationally known for fifteen years .
by 1865 , abe was rated the second best known athlete behind white jockey gilbert watson partrick , known as gilpatrick , and won against him in a match race before a crowd of 25,000 in new york city .
abe had a career twenty-five wins , including the two 1866 wins while under the employ of robert a. alexander , the travers stakes riding merrill with former slave trainer ansel williamson , and the first jerome stakes riding watson with trainer jacob pincus .
abe returned to ashland in 1866 and lived there until he died on may 4 , 1867 .
