Ella Sheppard (February 4, 1851 – June 9, 1914) was an American soprano, pianist, composer, and arranger of spirituals. She was the matriarch of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee. She also played the organ and the guitar. Sheppard was a friend and confidante of African-American activists and orators Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass.

A direct descendant of the brother of Andrew Jackson, Samuella "Ella" Sheppard was born on The Hermitage, Jackson's plantation. Sheppard's father Simon hired himself out as a Nashville liveryman and hack driver. This enabled him to earn $1,800 allowing him to pay for his own freedom. Sarah Hannah Sheppard, Ella's mother, was promised that her freedom could be purchased by Simon, but the slave mistress reneged on the agreement. "Sarah shall never belong to Simon," she declared. "She is mine and she shall die mine. Let Simon get another wife." Fed-up with slave life, Sarah threatened that she'd rather "...take Ella and jump into the river than see her a slave." Legend says that Ella's mother took her to the riverbank to carry out the threat, but an elderly slave woman prevented her, saying, "Don’t do it, Honey! Don’t you see God’s chariot a-comin’ down from Heaven? Let the chariot of the Lord swing low. This child is gonna stand before kings and queens! The Lord would have need of that child." Sarah took the woman's advice, walked back up the hill to slavery with Ella in her arms. Fearing the loss of the child, the slave mistress allowed Simon Sheppard to purchase his own daughter for $350. When Ella was three, Sarah was sold to a plantation in Mississippi, a state that slaves practically never returned from. Ella stayed with her father in Nashville. He later married another enslaved woman for whom he paid $1,300 to free her.

Following an 1856 Nashville race riot, whites tightened controls on free Negroes in the area. As a result, Simon was unable to work and soon found himself in debt. Fearful of the potential seizure of his family (as assets to be sold into slavery), he fled to Cincinnati, Ohio. Ella showed exceptional musical talent. To support this talent, her father purchased a piano for his daughter, and paid a German woman to give her private music lessons. Young Ella attended a colored school in Cincinnati, and also studied with a white American teacher who gave lessons on the condition she keep it a secret. The teacher taught Ella late at night and made her sneak in through the back entrance to his school since she was his only black student. After her father's death from cholera in 1866, Ella supported herself, her stepmother and half-sister by playing for local functions, working as a maid, and teaching music in Gallatin, Tennessee.

After about five months she was only able to save a little more than $6, because the poor black pupils were not always able to pay for their lessons. She took that $6, packed her belongings in a "pie box"-sized trunk, and enrolled at the Fisk Free Colored School in Nashville, Tennessee in 1868, where her $6 lasted three weeks. She had planned to leave after her money ran out, but was able to convince other students to take music lessons from her, and found additional work in the campus dining room and as a dishwasher in order to stay in school.

Sheppard paid for two years of studies by teaching music in Nashville, including as a summer assistant music teacher for Fisk. She was the sole black member of the faculty at Fisk prior to 1875.

Fisk was struggling financially at this time, needing better buildings, dining resources, and supplies for their students–worse, the American Missionary Association was considering closing the school. When Fisk's treasurer, George L. White, overheard some of the students singing the original old "plantation songs," which were not meant to be heard in public, he was so moved by these haunting melodies that he decided to have them arranged for concert performance, in European-style four-part harmony. Sheppard did most of the arranging of these works. The first tours were successful, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers were formed in 1871 to go on a national tour. Sheppard worked as the primary vocal coach and director for the group, collecting over one hundred songs for their repertoire. She sang soprano, accompanied the choir on piano, organ, and guitar, but also oversaw rehearsals and conducted during performances.

They sang for Mark Twain, President Ulysses S. Grant, congressmen, diplomats, and royalty. "These singers," according to one newspaper, "are doing a great work for humanity." The first tours were immensely financially and critically successful, with one tour of Ohio churches raising $50,000 that they donated for relief after the Great Chicago Fire. They performed all this under the racial discrimination of the towns they toured, facing hostility during performances and hazardous travel. Some incidents were documented of the singers moving hostile audience members to tears.

Sheppard was with the Jubilee Singers for both tours of Europe, including performances for the British, Dutch and German monarchs. They earned $120,000 from their first tour, which Fisk used to construct Jubilee Hall, named in their honor and one of the largest buildings in Nashville. Queen Victoria stated when she heard the group while Ella Sheppard served as their matriarch, "[The Fisk Jubilee Singers] sing so beautifully they must be from the Music City of the United States." Sheppard wrote that the British were "so stupid or ignorant" about black people and Americans, but appreciated the praise of a reverend in Berlin and the enthusiasm of the Crown Prince in Pottsdam.