Presented here are selections from two groups of narratives: 19. th-century memoirs of fugitive slaves, often published In an unusual case, Nell Butler was an Irish-born indentured servant of Lord Calvert. . They believe that McGruder is the patriarch to most Black people from Alabama with the surname McGruder. Oral histories of erased Black cemeteries: Corey Givens, Jr. On large plantations, enslaved families were separated for different types of labor. Thomas Jefferson was President at the time, he had no problem with slavery. The wording of the 1664 Act suggests that Africans may not have been the only slaves in Maryland. The quest by white slave owners to dominate Africans was so dire that they devised Buck Breaking (Male Slave Rape) to break the intimidated and strong enslaved African males they have taken delivery of. To combat the high rate of death among the enslaved, plantation owners demanded females start having children at 13. By the 18th century, Maryland had developed into a plantation colony and slave society, requiring extensive numbers of field hands for the labor-intensive commodity crop of tobacco. And to America and breeding farms another devious scheme hatched all in the interest of making money. [5][6], The slaves were managed as chattel assets, similar to farm animals. The Methodist movement in the United States as a whole was not of one voice on the subject of slavery. The conditions were right for a massive forced migration of enslaved . A great proportion of the population was enslaved. The Lloyds were the biggest landholders and slaveholders on the Eastern Shore. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote about a cruel slave overseer named Mr. Christiana Resistance. Slaves were also shipped by railroad packed in boxcars or sent by stagecoach. [52][53][54] The citizens of Maryland voted to abolish slavery,[54] but only by a 1,000 vote margin,[54] as the southern part of the state was heavily dependent on the slave economy. [15] They argue that there is very meager evidence for the systematic breeding of slaves for sale in the market in the Upper South during the 19th century. After serving in the Union Army, the former slaves who returned to the area were offered plots of land for $1 a month for 30 years by a Quaker farmer, who stipulated that they build a church and a school for their families. Severe who lived in this cottage, at the end of a large green where slaves worked. Proceedings of the Union State Central Committee, at a meeting held in Temperance Temple, Baltimore, Wednesday, December 16, 1863", 24 pages, Publisher: Cornell University Library (January 1, 1863). [6], The first documented Africans were brought to Maryland in 1642, as 13 slaves at St. Mary's City, the first English settlement in the Province. [50], On April 10, 1862, Congress declared that the Federal government would compensate slaveholders who freed their slaves. Support for the institution of slavery was localized, varying according to its importance to the local economy and it continued to be integral to Southern Maryland's plantations. Two of the largest breeding farms were located in Richmond, VA, and the Maryland Eastern-Shore. They said that Christian planters could concentrate on improving treatment of slaves and that the people in bondage were offered protections from many ills, and treated better than industrial workers in the North. Wye House Farm, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, was originally settled in the 1650s and grew to cover 20,000 acres. After that, Baltimore Mayor George William Brown, Marshal George P. Kane, and former Governor Enoch Louis Lowe requested that Maryland Governor Thomas H. Hicks, a slaveholder from the Eastern Shore, burn the railroad bridges and cut the telegraph lines leading to Baltimore to prevent further troops from entering the state. Over time, I've not only gained additional knowledge . Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 02:49, Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean, Marriage of enslaved people (United States), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States&oldid=1141443578, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 02:49. In addition, by this time, the vast majority of blacks in Baltimore were free, and this free black population was more than in any other US city. 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The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. [47] In addition, families of free people of color had been formed during colonial times from unions between free white women and men of African descent and various social classes, and their descendants were among the free. Further legislation would follow, entrenching and deepening the institution of slavery. Thousands were enslaved there. Until then, I want my voice to be heard and to make a difference. Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro and Cordova, probably in his grandmother's shack east of Tappers Corner (.mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}385304N 755729W / 38.8845N 75.958W / 38.8845; -75.958) and west of Tuckahoe Creek. [40], In December 1831, the Maryland state legislature appropriated $10,000 for twenty-six years to transport free blacks and formerly enslaved people from the United States to Africa. McGruders family believes he changed the last name to show his independence. Jill Magruder, who is a descendant of the white Magruders, recently found out that the white Magruders and Black McGruders are linked by blood. Rarely is it shown those ships originated in Richmond and Baltimore. Over the course of the next 230 years of slavery's existence in Maryland, 22 counties were formed, defining the boundaries of one of the 13 original colonies. There were no specific slave breeding farms in the USA. For braver souls, impatient with efforts to abolish slavery within the law, there were always illegal methods. [26] This was historically one of the largest single slave sales in colonial Maryland. Severe, made famous in Frederick Douglass' writings. Free blacks and white supporters of abolition of slavery gradually organized a number of safe places and guides, creating the Underground Railroad to help slaves gain safety in Northern states. By 20, the enslaved women would be expected to have four or five children. One way of comprehending plantation life is by reading the Maryland Slave Narratives, Leone says. The numbers of slaves in Maryland was increased even more by continued imports up until 1808. Wye House Farm was settled in the 1650s by Edward Lloyd, a Welsh Puritan. She used the Underground Railroad to make thirteen missions. [23], In the mid-1790s the Methodists and the Quakers drew together to form the Maryland Society of the Abolition of Slavery. The 550,000 enslaved Black people living in Virginia constituted one third of the state's population in 1860. Louisville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River was a major slave market and port for shipping slaves downriver by the Mississippi to the South. New York. Slave owners often bred their slaves to produce more workers. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2016. [1] It included coerced sexual relations between male slaves and women or girls, forced pregnancies of female slaves, and favoring women or young girls who could produce a relatively large number of children. [42], Following Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion in 1831 in Virginia, Maryland and other states passed laws restricting the freedoms of free people of color, as slaveholders feared their effect on slave societies. It is a well-known fact that slave-owners fathered children with their slaves while some encouraged marriage to protect their investment in their slaves. Slave women and men continued to do other work on breeding farms in Maryland, but the main source of income was the breeding and sale of Black children. In 1790, his great-grandson, Edward Lloyd IV, built the plantation house. Jefferson was a Virginia farmer, knowing full well the value of slavery to the Southern economy. I am African! The remainder was spent on agents paid to publicize the new colony. [52] Since Kennedy was the former speaker of the Maryland General Assembly, as well as being a respected Maryland author, his support carried enormous weight in the party. John Punch, the . In 1863 and 1864 growing numbers of Maryland slaves simply left their plantations to join the Union Army, accepting the promise of military service in return for freedom. An African American slave child had a greater chance of . Congress at that time was controlled by the Party he created; the Democratic-Republican Party (not to be confused with either the Democrats or Republicans of today). In 1640, five indentured servants, four white and one Black ran away to escape their harsh treatment. [3] The small state of Maryland was home to nearly 84,000 free blacks in 1860, by far the most of any state; the state had ranked as having the highest number of free blacks since 1810. According to psychiatrist, Dr. Patricia Newton, the breeding farms account for Boston having a high incest problem in the U.S. with seven out of 10 people having had an incest experience. I am Ghanaian. On one breeding farm, the mother would be freed after birthing fifteen children. Ex-slave Maggie Stenhouse remarked, "Durin' slavery there were stockmen. The society was founded in 1827, and its first president was the wealthy Maryland Catholic planter Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who was a substantial slaveholder. [16] In 1780 the National Methodist Conference in Baltimore officially condemned slavery. The political sentiments of each group generally reflected their economic interests. Those looking for Biblical support cited Leviticus Chapter 25, verses 4446, which state as follows: 44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. In this way, slaves could be bought and sold as chattel without presenting a challenge to the religious beliefs and social mores of the society at large. Two decades later, the boy escaped slavery and became the abolitionist and scholar Frederick Douglass. "It's comforting to me to know at least there were some peaceful times. [2] Although the colonial and state legislatures passed restrictions against manumissions and free people of color, by the time of the Civil War, slightly more than 49% of the black people (including people of color) in Maryland were free and the total of slaves had steadily declined since 1810. They were used to breed. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote about a cruel slave overseer named Mr. By making slave status dependent on the mother, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, Maryland, like Virginia, abandoned the common law approach of England, in which the social status of children of English subjects depended on their father. Today, the Lloyds' descendant, Richard Tilghman, occupies the great house. Americans did not take up breeding slaves in response to Congressional action, that action was taken at the behest of slave breeders as a protectionist means to keep the price of their product up. [50] In the same month Lincoln offered to buy out Maryland slaveholders, offering $300 for each emancipated slave, but Crisfield (unwisely as it turned out) rejected this offer.[50]. Their protests have been so successful that some of the artistes have been banned from Britain by the Home Office. Concerned about the tensions of discrimination against free blacks (often free people of color with mixed ancestry) and the threat they posed to slave societies, planters and others organized the Maryland State Colonization Society in 1817 as an auxiliary branch of the American Colonization Society, founded in Washington D.C. in 1816. And it was the members of these communities who fostered a spirit of rebellion . During the antebellum period, enslaved women wielded their reproductive capital and fought off white encroachment on their sexual health. Douglass wrote of his childhood: The opinion was whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing. With so much at stake, black womens reproductive role became politically, as well as economically, decisive. In a world where African men outnumbered African women, not surprisingly, slave reproduction was low. Miller, Randall M., and Wakelyn, Jon L., p. 214, "Total Slave Population in US, 17901860, by State", https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/the-not-quite-free-state-maryland-dragged-its-feet-on-emancipation-during-civil-war/2013/09/13/a34d35de-fec7-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html, Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Maryland State Archives, University of Maryland Special Collections Guide on Slavery in Maryland, Proceedings of the Maryland Colonization Society at, Brief History of Maryland in Liberia at www.buckyogi.com, Brief History of Maryland in Liberia at www.worldstatesmen.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_slavery_in_Maryland&oldid=1129801589. America's Breeding Farms: What History Books Never Told You William Spivey 19.7K 120 I've read. The imbalance was greater in the "selling states",[clarification needed] where the excess of women over men was 300 per thousand. Blacks were often the first to come forward to volunteer, and a total of 12,000 blacks served with the British from 1775 to 1783. Being considered as property, enslaved men and women were not legal persons who could enter into contracts, including marriage. Some whites used the Bible to justify the economic use of slave labor. But nobody seemed to want to discuss how Charles fit into that slave situation, and it seemed like everybody would whisper when they were talking about Charles., So this is what stands out in my mind that he must have been the big daddy because during his early years, he was considered a [slave] breeder.. In truth, it began decades earlier on plantations and farms and only because America was prepared to produce the slaves it needed did it allow the end of the importation of slaves from Africa. The ox and horse, driven by the slave, appear to sleep also; all is listless inactivity; all motion is evidently compulsory.[22]. By the end of the seventeenth century, planters shifted away from indentured servants, and in favor of the importation and enslavement of African people. History books when they even mention it, suggest slave breeding didnt begin until after the banning of the Atlantic slave trade. In this way the institution of slavery in Maryland was made self-perpetuating, as the slaves had good enough health to reproduce. Excerpted fromBirthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum Southby Marie Jenkins Schwartz. According to psychiatrist, Dr. Patricia Newton, the breeding farms account for Boston having a high incest problem in the U.S. with seven out of 10 people having had an incest experience. In the Caribbean, white masters treated the slaves like "disposable cogs in a machine," working them to death on sugar plantations and then replacing them with fresh stock from Africa. Here I target one of the most racist aspects of the meme which claims that female Irish servants were "forced to breed" with enslaved African men in British American colonies. Nobody talks about the 13-year-old girl on a breeding farm, forced to bear as many children as possible, only to have them ripped away and sent down South to endure a lifetime of hardship without . The historian E. Franklin Frazier, in his book The Negro Family, stated that "there were masters who, without any regard for the preferences of their slaves, mated their human chattel as they did their stock." Its worth noting that the Constitution of the United States, in addition to establishing the Electoral College to protect slave states, and valuing slaves at three-fifths of a person (while giving them no rights). [50] Some Marylanders, such as Representative John W. Crisfield, resisted the President, arguing that freedom would be worse for the slaves than slavery. The President of the Maryland Colonization Society points to this in his address, where he says "the object of Colonization is to prepare a home in Africa for the free colored people of the State, to which they may remove when the advantages which it offers, and above all the pressure of irresistible circumstances in this country, shall excite them to emigrate.[39]. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Planters in the Upper South states started selling slaves to the Deep South, generally through slave traders such as Franklin and Armfield. The American Revolution had been fought for the cause of liberty of individual men, and many Marylanders who opposed slavery believed that Africans were equally men and should be free. Miranda S. Spivack, September 13, 2013, "The not-quite-Free State: Maryland dragged its feet on emancipation during Civil War: Special Report, Civil War 150", CHAPTER 7, The Washington Post, Last edited on 27 December 2022, at 05:13, History of Maryland in the American Revolution, Maryland Society of the Abolition of Slavery, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, Charles Calvert at http://mdroots.thinkport.org, "Opinions: Five myths about why the South seceded", "Pope Gregory XVI 3 December 1839 Condemning Slave Trade", "The Search for Frederick Douglass' Birthplace", "Harriet Tubman's Daring Raid, 150 Years Ago". All rights were to the owner of the slave, with the slave having no rights of self-determination either to his or her own person, spouse, or children. [16] This was a period of the Great Awakening, and Methodists preached the spiritual equality of men, as well as licensing slaves and free blacks as preachers and deacons. Travelers to Virginia were appalled by the system of slavery they saw practiced there. Today, the plantation he described, Wye House Farm, is a classroom for understanding slavery. These individuals appear to have been treated as indentured servants. Required fields are marked *. [36] Carroll introduced a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the Maryland senate but it did not pass. The Long Green, a mile-long expanse from the Great House to the Wye River, was the center of working life. [28] The exact date of his birth is unknown, though it seems likely he was born in 1818. Several factors coalesced to make the breeding of slaves a common practice by the end of the 18th century, chief among them the enactment of laws and practices that transformed the view of slaves from "personhood" into "thinghood". The English observer William Strickland wrote of agriculture in Virginia and Maryland in the 1790s: Nothing can be conceived more inert than a slave; his unwilling labour is discovered in every step he takes; he moves not if he can avoid it; if the eyes of the overseer be off him, he sleeps. - Volume 77 Issue 4. . Tobacco was labor-intensive in both cultivation and processing, and planters struggled to manage workers as tobacco prices declined in the late 17th century, even as farms became larger and more efficient. Granting them a respite from the brutish black slaves they would otherwise be subjected to. [50] In 1863 Crisfield was defeated in local elections by the abolitionist candidate John Creswell, amid allegations of vote-rigging by the Union army. In Virginia, female slaves exceeded males by over 300,000. Free passage was offered, plus rent, 5 acres (20,000m2) of land to farm, and low-interest loans which would eventually be forgiven if the settlers chose to remain in the colony. On September 17, 1862 General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland was turned back by the Union army at the Battle of Antietam, which was tactically inconclusive but strategically important. Five remarkable facts about Emmet Tills mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, you should know, Big Bill Tate, the heavyweight boxer who used the rings to get jobs for 2,600 black workers, Attah Ameh Oboni, the Nigerian ruler who refused to shake the hand of the Queen of England because of his throne, Discovering Cape Towns gastronomic scene: 7 restaurants to try on your next visit, 24-yr-old makes headlines for marrying white man 61 yrs her senior. I'm shopping that book to literary agents. Colonial courts tended to rule that any person who accepted Christian baptism should be freed. The first bloodshed of the Civil War occurred on April 19, 1861 in Baltimore involving Massachusetts troops who were fired on by civilians while marching between railroad stations. [46] In 1806, the reward offered for the recaptured slaves was $6, but by 1833 it had risen to $30. Wealthy planters exercised considerable economic and political power in the state. Such was the importance of tobacco that, in the absence of sufficient silver coins, it served as the chief medium of exchange. [15] Alternatively, the wording in the Act may have been intended to apply to slaves of African origin but of mixed-race ancestry. At first, indentured servants from England supplied much of the necessary labor but, as their economy improved at home, fewer made passage to the colonies. In addition, mixed-race children were born to slave women and white fathers. They were not permitted to vote, serve on juries, or hold public office. In 2023, let us revisit the need for Freedom Schools, Kudos to Palm Harbor scholars and parents, Jehovahs Witnesses back at theDaytona 500after pandemic pause. By this means the supporters of colonization hoped to encourage free blacks to leave the state. The boy later remembered it as "alive with slaves.". On November 1, 1864, after a year-long debate, a state referendum was put forth on the slavery question: although tied to the larger referendum on changes to the state constitution, the slavery component was extremely well known and hotly debated.