Isaac M. Burgan was born a slave October 6, 1848 in McDowell County, North Carolina near Marion to a slave, Sylva Burgan. Held in slavery until the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Burgan first learned to read from reviewing the homework of white children on the farm. Burgan was regarded as too smart to make a good slave, but his owner valued Burgan's intelligence and refused to sell him as a child. However, the relationship between master and slave was not always positive. When once his mother was being whipped, Burgan struck the man whipping Sylva with a poker, stopping the whipping. Burgan fled, but when he returned was himself whipped. He then was hired out, eventually taking work in Tennessee where he began to attend school when he had spare time from his work on the railroa