Slavery's Legacy

Wait...that flag has too many stars and stripes. Something's not right...

The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland research project at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis began with a volunteer effort to digitize runaway slave advertisements published in Maryland newspapers. When volunteer Jerry Henson first showed then reference director Chris Haley a clipping that charged Aaron Salisbury with aiding and abetting a runaway, something clicked. He knew “such charges could have some relation to the existence of the Underground Railroad in Maryland.” Although Haley shepherded the project from volunteers to a full time staff of researchers, summer interns, an extensive website, and outreach contacts throughout Maryland, he declined the first offer to lead the program because he believed it was important to have a black presence at reference desk.

With Roots author Alex Haley as his uncle, it was no surprise that he possessed a deep personal interest in black history and genealogy. In addition to possessing substantial state records crucial to the study of black history in Maryland, the MSA was proximal to Washington, D.C., libraries and archives. It was at the Maryland State Archives that Alex Haley read the advertisement for the ship Lord Ligonier—the vessel he claimed brought Kunta Kinte to America in chains. It was this personal and documentary connection that encouraged Haley to stay in reference. “A neophyte (researcher) … will feel more comfortable given that connection,” Haley claims. “When you talk about something as sensitive as people who were enslaved according to the law of the land, it might be easier to share that lineage with someone of the same background.” This sharing of the “inner pain, inner shame, inner pride … the molecule” of a collective history, Haley believes, gently encourages the descendants of former slaves to research their family history. In its nearly 10 years of existence, the project has  recorded the names of thousands of slaves, slave owners, composed biographical case studies of compelling Marylanders linked to slavery, given lectures, and conducted workshops to extract  the legacy of slavery from scattered state records and thus placed the legacy before the public.

Maryland website utilizes in-house databases, original biographical research, newspaper transcriptions, and digitization of primary documents to bring together otherwise disparate records of an underrepresented caste. Slave owners, especially politically prominent or wealthy ones, generate more records than slaves or free persons of color. The history of their slaves are scattered in probate records like wills and inventories, tax assessments, court records, muster rolls, the federal census, and even land records—reflecting the slaves’ status as highly valued property, or perhaps a 19th century desire to keep government simple, Maryland’s manumission processes were for a time undertaken by the land office. Bounty and muster rolls, for example, of former slaves in United States Colored Troops are a wealth of biographical information. Haley’s love of the project won out after the second offer when he accepted the directorship. He no longer sits at the reference desk, but, with regards to sensitivity, the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland “is always pushing to explore and present all sides of the story from legal, moral, and financial as well as genealogical points of view which often merge black and white.”

The entire research project takes a holistic interpretation of the Underground Railroad and relies on its mythology. The locus of LOSIM’s current phase of grant-funded research are five Eastern Shore counties—Caroline, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, and Dorchester; the latter is the birth county of Harriet Tubman, the railroad’s greatest celebrity. The approaching centennial of her death and concurrent but separate efforts to commemorate her life put a cloistered and historical area of Maryland under the microscope and the imaginations of the public. On March 8, I attended the 13^th Annual Harriet Ross Tubman Day of Remembrance at the House of Delegates building. A testament to the geographical and historical extent of her legacy there were representatives from state and federal agencies, counties, New York state, and even Canada. I was pleasantly surprised that speakers did not use clichés typically associated with the railroad. No one referred to her as a “conductor” more than once in their remarks, few referred to “stops,” and never once did I feel the event was all about her. Whatever the name of the event, or her romantic place in history, they actively talked about her contemporaries and present day persons who contributed to the goal of undermining slavery and propagating her legacy. The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland research project does that every day and I’m proud to be a part of it.

For succinct descriptions of recent efforts to honor Tubman and her legacy, click here and here.

Honorees and the Rosses, descendants of Tubman pose for photos