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African Americans in Maryland

December 20, 2023

See also: Demographics of Maryland

The history of African Americans in Maryland is long and complex. Southern Maryland is the home of the first person of African descent to be elected to and serve in a legislature in America. His name was Mathias de Sousa and he was one of the original colonists to arrive in 1634. Southern Maryland is also the place where Josiah Henson was enslaved, and the place of brutality he wrote about in his later autobiography, which became the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

African Americans in Maryland
Total population
1,965,413[1] (2017)
Languages
American English, African-American Vernacular English, Baltimore English
Religion
Historically Black Protestant[2] and Black Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
African Americans

A descendant of Josiah Henson, Matthew Henson, was also from Southern Maryland and he was one of the first people to reach the North Pole along with Admiral Robert Peary in 1909. There are so many more stories than these, both of triumph and of pain, of subjugation and of perseverance. Come walk the paths of these remarkable people and help us all to remember them.[citation needed]

Slavery in Maryland edit

 
Runaway slave reward in Maryland

Maryland did not begin as an "official" slave state, although the founders were possible slave traders. It began, as with the story of Mathias de Sousa, as a place that any person that arrived as an indentured servant, could become a free person after they had served the time of their indentureship. Tragically, this did not last. The first slaves arrived in Maryland in 1642 and by 1694 persons of African descent, and their descendants, could be enslaved throughout the colony.[citation needed]

Notable Individuals edit

Mathias de Sousa edit

Mathias de Sousa was one of the nine indentured servants brought to Maryland by Jesuit missionaries, and was on the Ark when Lord Baltimore's expedition arrived in the St. Mary's River in 1634. He was one of the first individuals of African descent to settle in the Maryland colony. His indenture was finished by 1638, and he became a "freemen" (a term for any man who was not a servant). Mathias became a mariner and fur trader. In 1641, he commanded a trading voyage to the Susquehannock and in 1642 was master of a small cargo vessel. Mathias was elected to and served in the 1642 legislative assembly of freemen. This makes Mathias de Sousa the first man of African descent to participate in an Assembly or Legislature in America.[citation needed]

Josiah Henson edit

Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery on June 15, 1789, in Charles County, Maryland, he was sold three times before the age of eighteen. He escaped to Upper Canada in 1830 and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves in Kent County, Canada. Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, inspired Harriett Beecher Stowe to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin".[citation needed]

Matthew Henson edit

Matthew Henson was an American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Admiral Robert Edwin Peary in 1909.[citation needed]

A year after the Civil War ended, Matthew Henson was born on August 8, 1866, to freeborn African American sharecroppers in Charles County, Maryland, and he was believed to be great-grandnephew of Josiah Henson. This famed African American explored the Arctic with Admiral Peary for two decades. On April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson and the rest of their team made history, becoming the first people to reach the North Pole. Matthew Henson died in New York City in 1955.[citation needed]

Notable Locations edit

Historic Sotterley edit

An historic plantation c. 1703, Sotterley has built itself into a premier location for exploring the complicated past of the region. This unique historic setting has transformed its mission into one of inclusion and exploration. Sotterley Mission Statement: "To preserve our historic structures and natural environment and use the powerful stories of our land, lives, and labor to bring American history to life while serving as an educational and cultural resource."[citation needed]

Sotterley Vision Statement: "To foster a better understanding of our world today by providing a living link to America's complex history and legacy of slavery."[citation needed]

Through the Descendants Project and the UNESCO Slave Route Project, Historic Sotterley will continue to be powerful place to visit in Southern Maryland.[citation needed]

Biscoe Gray Heritage Farm edit

The Biscoe Gray Heritage Farm, a site rich in natural and cultural resources, is a living laboratory to explore, understand, and experience Southern Maryland agricultural practices and lifestyles throughout its history—from Native American settlement, small scale colonial farming, 1800's era agriculture and 20th century tobacco farming to contemporary community supported agricultural and sustainable farming efforts.[citation needed]

The rehabilitation of the George E. Rice House and outbuildings provides an important aspect of interpreting the African American history of the site; they illustrate early to mid-20th century small-scale farming, as well as the role of African Americans as landowners and tenant farmers. Their preservation is vital to understanding African American heritage and culture in the region, and conveys the story of the Rice family and their connection to the land, and the ways in which African Americans shaped the physical and social landscape of Southern Maryland at the time.[citation needed]

 
African American Schoolhouse Museum in Maryland

Early history edit

 
Slaveship diagram

In the 1630's, the colonial settlement of St. Mary's City was founded. Soon, the first African slaves were imported into the Province of Maryland by 1642 to develop the economy in a similar way to Virginia, with tobacco being the commodity crop, which was labor-intensive.[3] In 1755, about 40% of Maryland's population was African Americans and most of them enslaved. The populations were concentrated in the Tidewater counties around Chesapeake Bay where tobacco was grown.[4]

Changes in the main commodity crops to others less labor-intensive alternatives after the American Revolutionary War led numerous slaveholders to free their slaves before or at the time of their death. As a result, the percentage of black people that were free grew from less than 1% to 10%[when?] in the Upper South. By the time of the American Civil War a bit more than 49% of African Americans in Maryland were free.[5] The boys, denied education, were torn from their parents and sold South, to their lives as farm animals in the growing new territories of Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. Marylanders and Virginians viewed themselves as breeders, centers of slave production, for export to other states.[citation needed]

Beginning in 1816, a new way to deal with the growing numbers of freed slaves began in Maryland with the Maryland State Colonization Society. Its purpose was to form a colony of freed slaves back into Africa by forming Republic of Maryland in what is today, Liberia. This experiment had limited success as part of the abolitionist movement. However, the rapid expansion of the cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor, and the Southern states continued as slave societies. Maryland was one of the key states in the Underground Railroad with cities such as Baltimore and Cambridge focal points for transported the fugitives further north. Slavery in Maryland officially ended with the writing of the new Maryland Constitution of 1864; however, emancipation did not mean equality as the franchise was restricted to "white" males. Notably, the Maryland legislature refused to ratify both the 14th Amendment, which conferred citizenship rights on former slaves, and the 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to African Americans.[citation needed]

Civil War to civil rights edit

The Civil War impacted the African-Americans in Maryland in several ways with a few large battles and many smaller skirmishes fought in Maryland, but also with the status of the enslaved being bought further into question. Although emancipation would not begin until near the end of the war in Maryland, the possibility for escaped slaves increased during the war and the numbers of contraband swelled with many seeking refuge in D.C.[6] The beginning of the war saw African-Americans pressed into service for manual labor in Union Army camps and building defenses throughout the state, both free men and escape slaves; but others chose to travel to states where they were allowed to enlist. The Slave codes were replaced by the Black codes in restricting the rights of African-Americans until the Jim Crow laws took effect to limit civil rights protections and continue the codified segregation that lasted until the mid-1900s.[citation needed]

Negro children were required to attend schools by 1872, but these schools were to be governed by existing county and district boards, which were already struggling to provide adequate education to white children.[7] Maryland was required to pay black and white teachers equally by 1941, based on a case argued by Thurgood Marshall. In 1955, schools in Maryland were forced to start the process of integration with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and this process not completed until 1967, with mixed success.[8][9][10]

Lynchings such as those of Joseph Vermillion, Michael Green, Matthew Williams, William Burns and Stephen Williams were not unheard of and were used for intimidation affect, with the last recorded lynching occurring in 1933 in Princess Anne, Maryland. Laws criminalizing marriage and sex between white and black people were enacted in colonial era Maryland, and not repealed until just before the Supreme Court ruled on Loving v. Virginia in 1967, further reinforcing segregation in the state.

The 13th Amendment ended slavery and the 14th Amendment extended full rights of citizenship to African Americans. The continuation of support for Jim Crow and segregation laws led to protests in which many African-Americans were violently injured out in the open at lunchroom counters, buses, polling places and local public areas. These protests did not eradicate racism, but they forced racism to become used in more coded or metaphorical language instead of being used out in the open.[11]

Civil Rights era edit

Following the example of student sit-ins as those in Greensboro, North Carolina, by the spring of 1960, students from Morgan State College began their own sit-in in Baltimore department stores restaurants.[12] While such protests continued in Maryland, by 1961, the Freedom Riders began rolling through the state as they headed further into the deep South, from Washington, D.C. The 1960s continues with rallies, marches, protests and riots with the largest of and most violent happening in 1968 upon hearing of the death of Martin Luther King jr. in 1968. Notable among the unrest is Cambridge riot of 1963, Cambridge riot of 1967 and Baltimore riot of 1968.

Notable African Americans of Maryland edit

 
Harriet Tubman

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Maryland".
  2. ^ "Religious Landscape Study".
  3. ^ Chapelle, Suzanne Ellery Greene, p.24, Maryland: A History of Its People Retrieved August 10, 2010
  4. ^ John Mack Faragher, ed., The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America (New York: Facts on File, 1990), p. 257
  5. ^ Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619–1877, Hill and Wang, 1993, pp. 81-82, p. 146
  6. ^ Spivack, Miranda S. (September 13, 2013). "The not-quite-Free State: Maryland dragged its feet on emancipation during Civil War". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ "Origin". Maryland State Dept. of Education.
  8. ^ ""Are We Satisfied?": The Baltimore Plan for School Desegregation". THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY.
  9. ^ . Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions. Archived from the original on 2017-12-08. Retrieved 2017-12-18.
  10. ^ "Report on School Desegregation in 14 Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland Counties, 1966" (PDF). University of Maryland.
  11. ^ Villeneuve, Todd. "Racial Violence - Modern Era - Intro". racialviolenceus.org. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  12. ^ August, Meir (1992). A White Scholar and the Black Community 1945-1965. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 117–125.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to African Americans in Maryland.
  • Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture
  • African Americans in Maryland, Individual Biographical Files
  • Guide to African American Sources, Maryland Historical Society 2016-06-29 at the Wayback Machine
  • Discover African-American History in Maryland
  • African Presence in Maryland


December 20, 2023
african, americans, maryland, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jsto. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources African Americans in Maryland news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message See also Demographics of Maryland The history of African Americans in Maryland is long and complex Southern Maryland is the home of the first person of African descent to be elected to and serve in a legislature in America His name was Mathias de Sousa and he was one of the original colonists to arrive in 1634 Southern Maryland is also the place where Josiah Henson was enslaved and the place of brutality he wrote about in his later autobiography which became the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Tom s Cabin African Americans in MarylandTotal population1 965 413 1 2017 LanguagesAmerican English African American Vernacular English Baltimore EnglishReligionHistorically Black Protestant 2 and Black CatholicismRelated ethnic groupsAfrican AmericansA descendant of Josiah Henson Matthew Henson was also from Southern Maryland and he was one of the first people to reach the North Pole along with Admiral Robert Peary in 1909 There are so many more stories than these both of triumph and of pain of subjugation and of perseverance Come walk the paths of these remarkable people and help us all to remember them citation needed Contents 1 Slavery in Maryland 2 Notable Individuals 2 1 Mathias de Sousa 2 2 Josiah Henson 2 3 Matthew Henson 3 Notable Locations 3 1 Historic Sotterley 3 2 Biscoe Gray Heritage Farm 4 Early history 5 Civil War to civil rights 6 Civil Rights era 7 Notable African Americans of Maryland 8 See also 9 References 10 External linksSlavery in Maryland edit nbsp Runaway slave reward in MarylandMaryland did not begin as an official slave state although the founders were possible slave traders It began as with the story of Mathias de Sousa as a place that any person that arrived as an indentured servant could become a free person after they had served the time of their indentureship Tragically this did not last The first slaves arrived in Maryland in 1642 and by 1694 persons of African descent and their descendants could be enslaved throughout the colony citation needed Notable Individuals editMathias de Sousa edit Mathias de Sousa was one of the nine indentured servants brought to Maryland by Jesuit missionaries and was on the Ark when Lord Baltimore s expedition arrived in the St Mary s River in 1634 He was one of the first individuals of African descent to settle in the Maryland colony His indenture was finished by 1638 and he became a freemen a term for any man who was not a servant Mathias became a mariner and fur trader In 1641 he commanded a trading voyage to the Susquehannock and in 1642 was master of a small cargo vessel Mathias was elected to and served in the 1642 legislative assembly of freemen This makes Mathias de Sousa the first man of African descent to participate in an Assembly or Legislature in America citation needed Josiah Henson edit Josiah Henson was an author abolitionist and minister Born into slavery on June 15 1789 in Charles County Maryland he was sold three times before the age of eighteen He escaped to Upper Canada in 1830 and founded a settlement and laborer s school for other fugitive slaves in Kent County Canada Henson s autobiography The Life of Josiah Henson inspired Harriett Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom s Cabin citation needed Matthew Henson edit Matthew Henson was an American explorer best known as the co discoverer of the North Pole with Admiral Robert Edwin Peary in 1909 citation needed A year after the Civil War ended Matthew Henson was born on August 8 1866 to freeborn African American sharecroppers in Charles County Maryland and he was believed to be great grandnephew of Josiah Henson This famed African American explored the Arctic with Admiral Peary for two decades On April 6 1909 Peary Henson and the rest of their team made history becoming the first people to reach the North Pole Matthew Henson died in New York City in 1955 citation needed Notable Locations editHistoric Sotterley edit An historic plantation c 1703 Sotterley has built itself into a premier location for exploring the complicated past of the region This unique historic setting has transformed its mission into one of inclusion and exploration Sotterley Mission Statement To preserve our historic structures and natural environment and use the powerful stories of our land lives and labor to bring American history to life while serving as an educational and cultural resource citation needed Sotterley Vision Statement To foster a better understanding of our world today by providing a living link to America s complex history and legacy of slavery citation needed Through the Descendants Project and the UNESCO Slave Route Project Historic Sotterley will continue to be powerful place to visit in Southern Maryland citation needed Biscoe Gray Heritage Farm edit The Biscoe Gray Heritage Farm a site rich in natural and cultural resources is a living laboratory to explore understand and experience Southern Maryland agricultural practices and lifestyles throughout its history from Native American settlement small scale colonial farming 1800 s era agriculture and 20th century tobacco farming to contemporary community supported agricultural and sustainable farming efforts citation needed The rehabilitation of the George E Rice House and outbuildings provides an important aspect of interpreting the African American history of the site they illustrate early to mid 20th century small scale farming as well as the role of African Americans as landowners and tenant farmers Their preservation is vital to understanding African American heritage and culture in the region and conveys the story of the Rice family and their connection to the land and the ways in which African Americans shaped the physical and social landscape of Southern Maryland at the time citation needed nbsp African American Schoolhouse Museum in MarylandEarly history edit nbsp Slaveship diagramIn the 1630 s the colonial settlement of St Mary s City was founded Soon the first African slaves were imported into the Province of Maryland by 1642 to develop the economy in a similar way to Virginia with tobacco being the commodity crop which was labor intensive 3 In 1755 about 40 of Maryland s population was African Americans and most of them enslaved The populations were concentrated in the Tidewater counties around Chesapeake Bay where tobacco was grown 4 Changes in the main commodity crops to others less labor intensive alternatives after the American Revolutionary War led numerous slaveholders to free their slaves before or at the time of their death As a result the percentage of black people that were free grew from less than 1 to 10 when in the Upper South By the time of the American Civil War a bit more than 49 of African Americans in Maryland were free 5 The boys denied education were torn from their parents and sold South to their lives as farm animals in the growing new territories of Missouri Arkansas and Texas Marylanders and Virginians viewed themselves as breeders centers of slave production for export to other states citation needed Beginning in 1816 a new way to deal with the growing numbers of freed slaves began in Maryland with the Maryland State Colonization Society Its purpose was to form a colony of freed slaves back into Africa by forming Republic of Maryland in what is today Liberia This experiment had limited success as part of the abolitionist movement However the rapid expansion of the cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor and the Southern states continued as slave societies Maryland was one of the key states in the Underground Railroad with cities such as Baltimore and Cambridge focal points for transported the fugitives further north Slavery in Maryland officially ended with the writing of the new Maryland Constitution of 1864 however emancipation did not mean equality as the franchise was restricted to white males Notably the Maryland legislature refused to ratify both the 14th Amendment which conferred citizenship rights on former slaves and the 15th Amendment which gave the vote to African Americans citation needed Civil War to civil rights editThe Civil War impacted the African Americans in Maryland in several ways with a few large battles and many smaller skirmishes fought in Maryland but also with the status of the enslaved being bought further into question Although emancipation would not begin until near the end of the war in Maryland the possibility for escaped slaves increased during the war and the numbers of contraband swelled with many seeking refuge in D C 6 The beginning of the war saw African Americans pressed into service for manual labor in Union Army camps and building defenses throughout the state both free men and escape slaves but others chose to travel to states where they were allowed to enlist The Slave codes were replaced by the Black codes in restricting the rights of African Americans until the Jim Crow laws took effect to limit civil rights protections and continue the codified segregation that lasted until the mid 1900s citation needed Negro children were required to attend schools by 1872 but these schools were to be governed by existing county and district boards which were already struggling to provide adequate education to white children 7 Maryland was required to pay black and white teachers equally by 1941 based on a case argued by Thurgood Marshall In 1955 schools in Maryland were forced to start the process of integration with Brown v Board of Education in 1954 and this process not completed until 1967 with mixed success 8 9 10 Lynchings such as those of Joseph Vermillion Michael Green Matthew Williams William Burns and Stephen Williams were not unheard of and were used for intimidation affect with the last recorded lynching occurring in 1933 in Princess Anne Maryland Laws criminalizing marriage and sex between white and black people were enacted in colonial era Maryland and not repealed until just before the Supreme Court ruled on Loving v Virginia in 1967 further reinforcing segregation in the state The 13th Amendment ended slavery and the 14th Amendment extended full rights of citizenship to African Americans The continuation of support for Jim Crow and segregation laws led to protests in which many African Americans were violently injured out in the open at lunchroom counters buses polling places and local public areas These protests did not eradicate racism but they forced racism to become used in more coded or metaphorical language instead of being used out in the open 11 Civil Rights era editFollowing the example of student sit ins as those in Greensboro North Carolina by the spring of 1960 students from Morgan State College began their own sit in in Baltimore department stores restaurants 12 While such protests continued in Maryland by 1961 the Freedom Riders began rolling through the state as they headed further into the deep South from Washington D C The 1960s continues with rallies marches protests and riots with the largest of and most violent happening in 1968 upon hearing of the death of Martin Luther King jr in 1968 Notable among the unrest is Cambridge riot of 1963 Cambridge riot of 1967 and Baltimore riot of 1968 Notable African Americans of Maryland edit nbsp Harriet TubmanFreddy Adu Benjamin Banneker Eubie Blake Toni Braxton Cab Calloway Lewis Charlton former slave Harry A Cole Harry S Cummings Robert Curbeam Decatur Dorsey former slave Father Divine Frederick Douglass former slave Charles S Dutton Crystal Bird Fauset Charity Folks former slave William C Goodridge former slave Frances Harper Josiah Henson former slave and inspiration for Uncle Tom Matthew Henson Bryant Johnson Delano Johnson Joshua Johnson painter LaKisha Jones Mother Mary Lange Thurgood Marshall Clarence Mitchell Jr Parren J Mitchell John H Murphy Sr former slave Pauli Murray Isaac Myers James W C Pennington former slave Hasim Rahman Gloria Richardson Michael Steele Vivien Thomas Charles Albert Tindley Harriet Tubman former slave Charles Uncles Verda Welcome Clifton Reginald Wharton Sr Mo Nique Dave Chappelle Jada Pinkett SmithSee also edit nbsp Maryland portalHistory of the Jews in Maryland Native American tribes in Maryland Amish in Maryland History of the African Americans in Baltimore History of slavery in Maryland Maryland in Africa Reginald F Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History amp Culture Atlantic Creole Chesapeake Colonies Colonial South and the Chesapeake Slavery in the colonial history of the United States Tobacco colonies Demographics of Maryland List of African American newspapers in Maryland White Americans in Maryland Asian Americans in Maryland Hispanics and Latinos in Maryland Amish in Maryland Mennonites in MarylandReferences edit Maryland Religious Landscape Study Chapelle Suzanne Ellery Greene p 24 Maryland A History of Its People Retrieved August 10 2010 John Mack Faragher ed The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America New York Facts on File 1990 p 257 Peter Kolchin American Slavery 1619 1877 Hill and Wang 1993 pp 81 82 p 146 Spivack Miranda S September 13 2013 The not quite Free State Maryland dragged its feet on emancipation during Civil War The Washington Post Origin Maryland State Dept of Education Are We Satisfied The Baltimore Plan for School Desegregation THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY Historic African American Schools in St Mary s County Maryland Unified Committee for Afro American Contributions Archived from the original on 2017 12 08 Retrieved 2017 12 18 Report on School Desegregation in 14 Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland Counties 1966 PDF University of Maryland Villeneuve Todd Racial Violence Modern Era Intro racialviolenceus org Retrieved 2017 04 17 August Meir 1992 A White Scholar and the Black Community 1945 1965 Amherst MA University of Massachusetts Press pp 117 125 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to African Americans in Maryland Maryland Commission on African American History amp Culture African Americans in Maryland Individual Biographical Files Guide to African American Sources Maryland Historical Society Archived 2016 06 29 at the Wayback Machine Discover African American History in Maryland African Presence in Maryland Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title African Americans in Maryland amp oldid 1189056773, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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