Shankleville, Texas
Freedom colony, freedom colonies
Shankleville is an unincorporated community in Newton County, Texas, United States, founded by James and Winnie Shankle and Stephen McBride. It was founded as a Freedmen's town, one of over 500 such "freedom colonies" in Texas.
James and Winnie Shankle
Jim (James) and Winnie (Brush) Shankle were the first Black couple in Newton County, Texas to purchase land. The Shankles were born enslaved, Jim in Kentucky in 1811 and Winnie in Tennessee in 1814. Winnie had three children prior to meeting Jim Shankle on a plantation of Isaac Rollins in Wayne County, Mississippi. The family was later separated when Winnie and the children were sold to a man moving from Mississippi to Newton County in East Texas. Following Winnie's departure, Jim self-liberated from the plantation in Mississippi, searching for his family; Jim traveled 400 miles on foot to East Texas, where the plantation owner arranged to purchase Jim as well. Along with Winnie's three children, the couple had six of their own: George Washington Rollins, Tobe Perkins, Mary Rollins (McBride), George, Henry, Houston, John, Harriet (Odom), B.M. (Lewis).
Following Emancipation, the Shankles and their son-in-law (husband of Mary) Stephen McBride began purchasing land in Newton County in 1867. They eventually owned over 4,000 acres and their neighborhood would grow to include farms, churches, grist mills, cotton gin, sawmills, cotton mill, store, blacksmith, and schools.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7488754. VIAF identifies the subject as 146788507. The Library of Congress control number is n2005000596. Authority coordinates are 30.970, -93.707. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1811, 1814 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shankleville, Texas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.