History of slavery in Maryland

The early settlements and population centers of the province tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay[citation needed].

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[citation needed].

By 1755, about 40 percent of Maryland's population was black enslaved people, with African Americans slaves concentrated in the Tidewater counties where tobacco was grown.

[3] During the American Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery, Maryland remained in the Union, though a minority of its citizens – and virtually all of its slaveholders – were sympathetic toward the rebel Confederate States.

John Ogilby wrote in his 1670 book America: Being an Accurate Description of the New World: "The general way of traffick and commerce there is chiefly by Barter, or exchange of one commodity for another".

The Act was apparently intended to save the souls of the enslaved; the legislature did not want to discourage slaveholders from baptizing his human property for fear of losing it.

At the same time, Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 led planters to worry about the prospective dangers of creating a large class of restless, landless, and relatively poor white men (most of them former indentured servants).

During the eighteenth century the number of enslaved Africans imported into Maryland greatly increased, as the labor-intensive tobacco economy became dominant, and the colony developed into a slave society.

The British, desperately short of manpower, sought to enlist African Americans as soldiers to fight on behalf of the Crown, promising them liberty in exchange.

As a result of the looming crisis in 1775 the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to servants and slaves who were able to bear arms and join his Loyalist Ethiopian Regiment: ...

And I do hereby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY'S Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His MAJESTY'S Crown and Dignity.About 800 men joined up; some helped rout the Virginia militia at the Battle of Kemp's Landing and fought in the Battle of Great Bridge on the Elizabeth River, wearing the motto "Liberty to Slaves", but this time they were defeated.

The writer Abbe Robin, who travelled through Maryland during the American Revolutionary War, described the lifestyle enjoyed by families of wealth and status in the Province: [Maryland houses] are large and spacious habitations, widely separated, composed of a number of buildings and surrounded by plantations extending farther than the eye can reach, cultivated ... by unhappy black men whom European avarice brings hither ... Their furniture is of the most costly wood, and rarest marbles, enriched by skilful and artistic work.

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.

[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.

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.

[16] Responding to Methodist and Quaker persuasion, as well as revolutionary ideals and lower labor needs, in the first two decades after the war, a number of slaveholders freed their slaves.

Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro and Cordova, probably in his grandmother's shack east of Tappers Corner (38°53′04″N 75°57′29″W / 38.8845°N 75.958°W / 38.8845; -75.958) and west of Tuckahoe Creek.

[35] Although Carroll supported the gradual abolition of slavery, he did not free his own slaves, perhaps fearing that they might be rendered destitute by the difficulties of earning a living in the discriminatory society.

Free passage was offered, plus rent, 5 acres (20,000 m2) of land to farm, and low-interest loans which would eventually be forgiven if the settlers chose to remain in the colony.

Persons who were manumitted were given a deadline to leave the state after gaining freedom, unless a court of law found them to be of such "extraordinary good conduct and character" that they might be permitted to remain.

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.

The many Indian trails and waterways of Maryland, and in particular the countless inlets of the Chesapeake Bay, afforded numerous ways to escape north by boat or land, with many people going to Pennsylvania as the nearest free state.

The western and northern parts of the state, especially those Marylanders of German origin, held fewer slaves and tended to favor remaining in the Union, while the Tidewater Chesapeake Bay area – the three counties referred to as Southern Maryland which lay south of Washington, D.C.: Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's – with its slave economy, tended to support the Confederacy if not outright secession.

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.

The belated assistance of Governor Hicks also played an important role; although initially indecisive, he co-operated with federal officials to stop further violence and prevent a move to secession.

[50] 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 days later, on September 22, encouraged by relative success at Antietam, President Lincoln issued an executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all enslaved people in Southern states to be free.

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.

The document, which replaced the Maryland Constitution of 1851, was pressed by Unionists who had secured control of the state, and was framed by a Convention which met at Annapolis in April 1864.

At the meeting, Thomas Swann, a state politician, put forward a motion calling for the party to work for "Immediate emancipation (of all slaves) in Maryland".