Week Twelve at the Maryland State Archives

Last week I gave my first presentation to a class of undergraduates about the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project and using the records of the Maryland State Archives. The students, history majors at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, were very engaged and asked interesting questions. The professor appreciated that I showed them (digitized) primary sources, something that even history majors don’t always have a chance to work with frequently. I spent the rest of the week record stripping U.S. census records and Maryland State Colonization Society records for the mdslavery.net database. My work with the Colonization Society focuses on two counties, Kent and Queen Anne’s, of Maryland's Eastern Shore, a heavily agricultural area where slavery maintained a stronghold even while the institution was phasing out in other (less agricultural) areas of the state. I've come across only a few manumissions in Kent County but haven't yet encountered any emigrants from Kent County to Liberia, and I look forward into delving into the reasons why. 

Krystal