Discover Worcester County - Go Down Moses: Free Blacks
A ship similar to
the Liberia Packet |
Emerging as a new and significant part of the Worcester County populace during the first half of the 19th century were free blacks. Numbering only 446 in 1800, the population of free blacks had expanded to 3,500 by 1860.
While a few of the free blacks living in Worcester County in 1800 could trace their ancestry back to free black colonists, the larger part descended from ex-slaves who had been freed following the Revolution. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, a few of these former slaves were able to establish remarkable estates during the first half of the 19th century.
As tensions surrounding the issue of slavery escalated during the 1840s and 1850s, free blacks were viewed with suspicion as natural allies of the remaining slave population. As a result, the decades before the Civil War found free blacks across Worcester County segregating themselves in distinct communities with the obvious hope that strength in numbers would offer some measure of protection. The black neighborhood of the southwest side of Snow Hill is historically identified as "Freetown" and several dwellings, including the Harmon House, date before the Civil War.
Man with Ox Cart
(Fred Bruekmann) |
As the Civil War drew near the numbers of manumitted or freed slaves grew significantly in Worcester County. Several of these former slaves, as well as some free blacks, left Worcester County. Several of these former slaves, as well as some free blacks, left Worcester County in an effort to escape the hostilities common before the war.
Several families residing near Snow Hill around 1830 relocated to a watermens' community known as Sandy Ground on New York's Staten Island, Members of the Hinman, Lambden, Bishop, Purnell, Robins and Johnson families established new homes along the island's south coast, engaging primarily in the oyster business they had known on the Eastern Shore.
Other Snow Hill blacks are credited with establishing the town of Snow Hill, New Jersey, later changed to Lawnside in 1907. Some went even farther leaving the United States altogether. Dozens of free blacks or former slaves embarked on a return to Africa through the office of the Maryland Colonization Society. Members of the Bowen, Fooks, Johnson and Dennis families can trace ancestors who made the voyage across the Atlantic. Judge Ara Spence, owner of the Mansion House at Public Landing, left a specific clause in his will for his slaves, where were to be freed and transported to Liberia following his death.
Copywriting by Paul Touart
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