Week Eighteen at the Maryland State Archives

I’ve been doing background research on manumitted slaves and colonists who emigrated to Liberia. In the early years of the colony, there was the sad case of a colonist, Eben Parker, who had a contentious relationship with members of the indigenous population. He was in an altercation over goods which lead to his murder and the death of several Liberians. Although for the most part, the colony maintained an uneasy peace with native Liberians, there was often the fear that tensions would erupt into violence.

My supervisor came across a runaway ad for 26 slaves who escaped from Dorchester County in 1857. Although we have case studies for the fugitives, we don’t have any for the slave owners so I’ll be working on writing those.

I’ve been working on guidelines for our social media use and planning our Facebook page to launch next month on Frederick Douglass’ birthday. I just finished record-stripping my section of the Dorchester 1870 U.S. census. After team members take turns approving each other’s records, we’ll be able to push the records over the firewall and make them available to the public.  Have a great week!

Krystal