America had not only the most brutal system of slavery in modern times but a unique juridical system (compared with other slaveries, say in Latin America and the British colonies) which did not, in a single respect, recognize slaves as persons. — Susan Sontag (1966)
Oh, Maryland
The authors of The 1619 Project did not mention the very blue and liberal state of Maryland until page 31. It is not a historical reference to slavery either. The passage concerns housing segregation patterns in Baltimore, Maryland, in the early 20th century.
Yet, the second time Maryland is discussed in the book is more noteworthy. It concerns the passage of a law in Virginia in 1663 automatically declaring the children of the enslaved as also enslaved. That same year, Maryland passed its own ordinance doing the same. Thus, by 1664, Maryland codified the practice of chattel slavery for life for Africans, even though it had been in practice and recognized as such since 1639 in the colony. (Alpert)
Today, the state of Maryland is my personal refuge. It is where I live. I grew up in Washington D.C., the nation’s capital. Maryland is right there next door and is mostly a good neighbor to my hometown.
In fact, growing up in D.C., I spent much time in the Maryland suburbs of Prince George’s County and Montgomery County. African Americans who once lived in Washington D.C. during the “Chocolate City” period flocked (and still do flock) to Maryland’s suburbs for educational opportunities and professional ambitions. The Maryland suburbs are an extension of the city.
The population here is amongst the most racially diverse in the nation. And because of those dramatic demographic changes and successful political struggles and organizing, the politics in most of Maryland is liberal, progressive, and rational. The state isn’t perfect but it is working hard as a state to be open and welcome and done with our racial past.
Yet, none of this changes Maryland’s ugly past as a slave colony where Africans were in bondage in large numbers for over two centuries. Maryland, like other liberal states, oftentimes is not associated with the worst of America’s slave past.
However, the colony of Maryland and then the state once held thousands of Africans in chattel slavery to work mostly on tobacco plantations. (DeFord) The state and its institutions is not running from this history like much of the nation. Some of it is well known and easily accessible.
Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, two of the nation’s and the world’s most well-known freedom fighters, were born in Maryland and escaped from the state to freedom. Slavery was pervasive in Maryland despite the fact that Maryland is a state rooted in its connections to the church. The church is central to the history of African slavery in the state.
The Catholics and Their Colony
The colony of Maryland, itself, was founded in 1632 by charter when Charles I “granted to the Lords Baltimore all of the rights and powers which the Bishop of Durham … ever heretofore hath had, held, used or enjoyed …” (Alpert) By 1634, colonists landed at St Mary’s and by 1639, a legislature has been formed and slavery was recognized as legal in the jurisdiction.
At the same time that the British colonists invaded the state, the Catholic Church, via the Jesuit order, also arrived in the region on the same ships. (Curran) They quickly acquired land and soon became planters in the region as well. They also spread the religion of Catholicism throughout the region. (Curran)
By 1640, slavery appears in the colony’s court records and evidence strongly suggests both Africans and Indigenous persons were enslaved. (Alpert) Yet, the Indigenous persons almost immediately were granted legal protections from slavery in 1649 and 1654. The Africans were not as fortunate though initially some Africans, in Maryland, worked as indentured servants and could work and obtain freedom. (Terry) Available records indicate the colonists were engaged in African slavery by 1642 and by 1644, at the latest. (Alpert)
Yet, resistance to slavery was also underway as well, likely from the beginning of the practice. The story of John Babtista, described as a “moore of Babtista” is evidence of the constant struggle for freedom. (Alpert) Babtista successfully petitioned the “Provincial Court for his freedom” in 1653. (Alpert)
At the time, in Maryland, only African slaves (servants) were sold into slavery for life. Babtista argued that though he was African, he had been sold for a term. According to Alpert, if Babtista had to petition for his freedom he was likely African. Alpert also reports later that in 1679, an African petitioned the same court in the colony for freedom but was unsuccessful.
Charles Cabe, an African, sold into slavery in England for 25 pounds sterling, did not gain his freedom as the expensive price of Mr. McCabe suggested to the court that the term of sale had been for life. (Alpert)
Slavery’s Growth in Maryland
One of the best studies of slavery in Maryland was completed by historian, Russell R. Menard in a 1975 article. Menard focused upon the growth of African slavery in Maryland in four counties — St Mary’s, Calvert, Prince George’s, and Charles. According to Menard, these four counties are where planters made the first early investments in chattel slavery in the state in the 17th century. (Menard)
In addition, Menard reports that the slave population grew at an “extraordinary rate” over a period of 62 years (1648 to 1710). (Menard) In 1648, there were approximately 100 Africans enslaved in Maryland,. This was only 3 percent of the population.
Yet, by 1710, there were 3,500 Africans living there who were enslaved according to Menard. By this point, the Africans comprised 24 percent of the population of these counties. To put the growth into more perspective, between 1695 and 1708, 4,022 Africans arrived in the state who are enslaved. This is only a 13-year period. (Menard) This period also coincides with the direct importation period of Africans from Africa directly to the Chesapeake region. (Menard)
It is during this same period that Africans, as slaves, slowly lost any rights or humanity that society had naturally granted to them. There were some enslaved Africans who were enslaved at this time who still retained some rights such as in legal proceedings. (Alpert). However, this all terminated in 1678 when the true dehumanization of Africans began.
The process occurred as follows:
“The legal dehumanization of the Negro began in 1678. All births, marriages, and deaths in each county were to be recorded. All that is “Except Negros Indians & Molottos . . .This statute, which contains the first legislative mention of mulattoes, does not specify whether or not the Negroes, Indians, and mulattoes, whose lives are not to be recorded, are slaves. Either it must have been assumed that most of them were slaves and hence insignificant or else that even those who were not slaves were not worthy or important enough to have their names recorded in the white man’s records.” (Alpert)
Prior to this date, the law treated any persons the same whether were regular citizens, servants, or slaves. If an African person, who was held in slavery, were convicted of a crime, they received the same punishment as someone else such as a white servant. (Alpert)
This was also true despite the fact that in 1664 the Maryland legislature passed laws that made it clear that Africans were enslaved for life and their children would be enslaved as well. Yet, slowly for the rest of the 17th century, any rights the Africans thought they might have to human equality were taken away legally by the legislature or Maryland’s judicial system. It is likely these actions were taken because the African population was on a steady rise in this period as well.
In addition, the Maryland state government’s report on slavery in the state historically demonstrates consistent growth of African slavery in the state of Maryland:
While fewer than one thousand Africans arrived in Maryland between 1619 and 1697, nearly 100,000 disembarked during the three-quarters of a century prior to the American Revolution. By 1755, about one-third of Maryland’s population — in some places as much as one-half — was derived from Africa, mostly from the interior of the continent. The colony became as much an extension of Africa as of Europe.
By the middle of the 18th century, Maryland’s planters collectively began to sense a stability in their labor force. They had brought more women into slavery which balanced out the numbers of women and men. The enslaved African Americans enslaved began to start families. Maryland officially stopped involvement in the trade in the year 1774. (Maryland History — government report)
This initial shift away from importing African men and women into Maryland as slaves was the beginning of the slow decline of the institution in the state of Maryland. There was less need for African enslaved labor in much of the state by the 19th century, which. It created conditions in the state conducive to significant change. (Maryland History — government report)
Frederick Douglass
With the exception of Harriet Tubman perhaps, no other individual tells the story of slavery in Maryland better than Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born in Maryland, into slavery, in Talbot County, Maryland. (The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass, 1925)
His life, almost from the beginning, became the struggle to end African slavery in the U.S. Douglass was a slave who, resented and abhorred his status, and sought to escape the institution early in life. And once he escaped, he dedicated his life to the abolishment of chattel slavery in the U.S. through his advocacy and oratorical skills.
In New York, on May 6, 1845, Douglass spoke of his time in bondage in the state of Maryland. It is one of his more well-known speeches as he was seeking to make it clear to his audience and to all who called for the end of slavery that slavery in Maryland was inhumane and not milder than in other states:
“I ran away from the South seven years ago passing through this city in no little hurry, I assure you, and lived about three years in New Bedford, Massachusetts, before I became publicly known to the anti-slavery people. Since then I have been engaged for three years in telling the people what I know of it. I have come to this meeting to throw in my mite, and since no fugitive slave has preceded me, I am encouraged to say a word about the sunny South…
…I can tell you what I have seen with my own eyes, felt on my own person, and know to have occurred in my own neighborhood. I am not from any of those States where the slaves are said to be in their most degraded condition; but from Maryland, where Slavery is said to exist in its mildest form; yet I can stand here and relate atrocities which would make your blood to boil at the statement of them.” (Frederick Douglass — Black past)
Douglass was also quick to address the question of whether the Africans who were enslaved were prepared to fight for their freedom. He dropped this question squarely at the foot of the entire nation, and in particular singled out the states in the North as being also responsible for the enslavement of the Africans:
“We don’t ask you to engage in any physical warfare against the slaveholder. We only ask that in Massachusetts and the several non-slaveholding States which maintain a union with the slaveholder who stand with your heavy heels on the quivering heartstrings of the slave, that you will standoff. Leave us to take care of our masters. But here you come up to our masters and tell them that they ought to shoot us to take away our wives and little ones to sell our mothers into interminable bondage and sever the tenderest ties. You say to us, if you dare to carry out the principles of our fathers, we’ll shoot you down.” (Douglass — Blackpast)
The End, The Beginning, The Future
As the Civil War approached, the state of Maryland had a problem. The planter class of the state, located in tobacco country, still wanted free labor to continue though the need for Africans to work greatly diminished. Africans enslaved labor for over 200 years now had made some very rich and others plundered the Africans of their wages.
However, the northern and western parts were more connected with the union and did not benefit from slavery economically. When secession became an issue, Maryland had to make a decision — should it secede with the South and the Confederacy?
In the end, Maryland did not secede. Because the state remained in the union and the war was largely fought in Maryland over the enslavement of African people in the U.S. In 1864, Maryland officially abolished slavery. Slavery had ended in nearby Washington D.C. in 1862 anyway sending many Africans to the nation’s capital in search of paid labor and even more freedom.
When the war ended forcing the Southern states to surrender, Maryland as part of the Union became victorious.
This is important because Maryland was not subject to any of the Reconstruction programs and interventions by the Union. Maryland is a southern state but it did not make the fatal choice of leaving the union. As such, the state itself became an ideal location for the country to seek unification.
For example, when Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment (Voting Rights) to the U.S. Constitution, the announcement and celebration were held in Baltimore. It remains a source of pride for the state today. (Troy and Maryland State Archives)
Georgetown University
In 2016, it was discovered that Georgetown University sold 272 Africans to save the university. The transaction by priests of the Jesuit order at Georgetown is directly connected to African slavery in Maryland. Georgetown University is a Jesuit institution that owned the Maryland property where the slaves worked at the time of the sale in 1838.
When the colony of Maryland was founded in 1632, it was founded by the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus), an order of the Catholic Church. Eventually, the order began acquiring land on the Eastern shore of Maryland, which was held by individual priests. The land was acquired by various means but the estates were converted into plantations used to generate revenue.
While indentured servants initially maintained and worked on the land, African slaves, owned by the church, eventually began laboring in bondage and performed the plantation work. It is from these Africans that the sale was made. . (Curran) The Jesuits later sold many of the African slaves to secure the future of Georgetown University as a premier Catholic institution of higher learning, at the time.
Georgetown University engaged in some development on campus that left the university in debt for the expansion of the college. The sale of the Africans helped to financially stabilize the college and pay its debts. (Curran) The Jesuits sold 272 Africans to two planters in Louisiana according to records, one of the largest sales of Africans in the history of the United States. (Curran)
John Thompson
At the end of his autobiography, the late John Thompson, a lifelong Catholic, considered the possibility that his ancestors had been owned and enslaved by Georgetown University. Thompson, to his credit, as coach of the university’s world-renowned men’s Division I basketball team, likely earned millions of dollars for the university when he coached there from 1972–1999. Thompson also transformed the lives of many African-American men through collegiate sports.
Thompson’s posthumous memoir references his family connections to St Mary’s County, Maryland. According to Thompson, his family attended a Catholic Church in St Mary’s County. It was a Jim Crow church in a Jim Crow county now known to once have been a haven for enslaved Africans.
Black people, according to Thompson, had to wait until the white parishioners received communion before they could then “take the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Thompson also notes that on the bus rides down to St Mary’s County to visit family, he and his family had to sit on the back of the bus and had to enter the bus station in the back. These are just a few of Thompson’s revelations highlighted in his autobiography.
Of the issue of slavery in Maryland, and Georgetown University, Thompson writes that he can’t prove it but he believes his father’s ancestors were held in bondage by the Jesuits, the same people he worked for at Georgetown University. Thompson notes that his father’s entire family was/is Jesuit and from St. Mary’s County, where the plantations were located.
“When Georgetown was founded in 1789,” Thompson said, “slaves helped lay the first stones. As students arrived, slaves emptied their chamber pots and cooked their food. Money from Jesuit plantations paid for Georgetown’s food, books, the priests’ robes, the bread and wine for Mass.”
Georgetown, as Thompson, and many noted, did not deny its role in African slavery. They decided to investigate the history and provide reparations to the descendants of the 272 persons the university sold back in 1838 to save the school.
The state of Maryland has also accepted its history and it is a story that is easily discoverable. It is up to the rest of us including projects like the 1619 Project to tell this story and others in full so America’s true origin story can be known to all.
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Previously Published on Medium
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Struggle for freedom in a Maryland barn.
Wesley Harris, a.k.a. Robert Jackson, has escaped with two comrades from Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. They travel 60 miles north to “Terrytown” [Hagerstown?], Maryland, where they are “informed by a colored man of the danger [they] were in and of the bad [c]haracter towards colored people, especially those who were escaping to freedom …”. A farmer invites them to take shelter in his barn but then apparently betrays them and a conflict ensues.
“The men all being armed and furnished with ropes, we were ordered to be tied. I told them that if they took me they would have to take me dead or crippled. At that instant one of my friends cried out—’Where is the man that betrayed us?’ Spying him at the same moment, he shot him (badly wounding him). Then the conflict fairly began. The constable seized me by the collar, or rather behind my shoulder. I at once shot him with my pistol, but in consequence of his throwing up his arm, which hit mine as I fired, the effect of the load of my pistol was much turned aside; his face, however, was badly burned, besides his shoulder being wounded. I again fired on the pursuers, but do not know whether I hit anybody or not. I then drew a sword, I had brought with me, and was about cutting my way to the door, when I was shot by one of the men, receiving the entire contents of one load of a double barreled gun in my left arm, that being the arm with which I was defending myself. The load brought me to the ground, and I was unable to make further struggle for myself. I was then badly beaten with guns, &c. In the meantime, my friend Craven, who was defending himself, was shot badly in the face, and most violently beaten until he was conquered and tied. The two young brothers of Craven stood still, without making the least resistance. After we were fairly captured we were taken to Terrytown, which was in sight of where we were betrayed. By this time I had lost so much blood from my wounds, that they concluded my situation was too dangerous to admit of being taken further; so I was made a prisoner at a tavern, kept by a man named Fisher. There my wounds were dressed, and thirty-two shot were taken from my arm. For three days I was crazy, and they thought I would die.”
Dictated by Robert Jackson a.k.a. Wesley Harris on 2 November 1853. From William Still‘s The Underground Rail Road, p. 50. “Engravings by Bensell, Schell, and others.”