Slavery and Segregation in Maryland and Virginia

Montpelier, James Madison's home

I spent much of last week working on case studies of slave holders in Dorchester County associated with an advertisement offering a reward of $3,100 for a group of 26 runaways. William Still, a noted Underground Railroad conductor, documented this escape in his 1872 book. The fugitives also faced severe rainstorms and a lack of provisions. Also complicating this remarkable 1857 escape, was the fact that approximately 20 of the runaways were children and infants. Nevertheless, all but one of them reached the North safely. Around this time, Dorchester County was plagued (from the slave holder’s point of view!) with several instances of slaves running away. According to historian Kate Larson, although Harriet Tubman, a native of Dorchester County, did not lead this particular escape, her knowledge of Underground Railroad routes likely helped this group make it safely to the North.

This year, LOSIM will be participating in Washington, D.C.’s annual Emancipation Day celebrations in April. For background information about slavery in D.C. and the commemoration of freedom, we watched and discussed, Enslavement to Emancipation, a documentary produced for D.C. public television. It was really interesting to analyze the documentary as a public historian and to think of things we would have done the same or differently if we were doing something similar for our project.

On Saturday, I visited Montpelier (above), James Madison’s Virginia plantation. Like many of the founding fathers, Madison was a slave holder and recognized the contradiction of owning people while espousing freedom for a new nation. Currently, Montpelier has done much to include the stories of the enslaved in the site’s interpretation. Behind the main house, the site has built the frame replicas of the quarters for the domestic slaves. In sight of the mansion, these would have been better built and more attractive than the field slaves’ quarters. One of the interpretative panels featured a familiar sight to me–a runaway ad placed by James Madison.  Dolley and James Madison were probably more benevolent than many slave owners. For example, they gave their slaves Sundays off (something uncommon even for white paid servants), even if they had guests staying with them. Yet, because their slaves were considered property, the Madisons sold them as they wished, without regard for the bonds of family and friendship that they were breaking. Paul Jennings, the slave who helped Dolley save George Washington’s portrait from the White House, expected to be freed in Dolley’s will. However, the impoverished Dolley sold the 47 year old Jennings away from his family at Montpelier to an insurance agent in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, Senator Daniel Webster purchased Jennings shortly thereafter and allowed him to pay off his purchase price for his freedom.

Slave cemetery, Montpelier. Although the graves are unmarked, depressions have formed in the ground above each burial. The depressions are particularly visible in this photo where they are filled with snow. Photo from Montpelier interpretative panel.

One particularly ground-breaking form of interpretation at Montpelier is the recreation of the segregated train depot at the edge of property. Built in 1910 by William DuPont, then-owner of Montpelier, the depot features separate colored and white waiting rooms. This spatial restoration is a stark example that separate is not equal. The colored waiting room is much smaller, did not have direct access to the ticket agent, and did not provide a view of the railway tracks.

On Sunday, I went to the Walters Art Museum to hear Representative Elijah Cummings speak about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rep. Cummings discussed growing up in segregated Baltimore. He was among a group of schoolchildren, led by civil rights attorney Juanita Jackson Mitchell, who desegregated a neighborhood pool. Cummings still has a scar on his forehead from a milk bottle thrown at him by a segregationist. That experience, orchestrated by a role model (Juanita Jackson Miller), inspired Cummings to be a lawyer.  He faced many obstacles to this goal. He had been tracked in special education classes. He vividly described visiting the school counselor as a sixth grader, wearing crisply ironed but patched clothing, to discuss his career goals. Unfortunately, he was crushed by the counselor, who, after seeing that his parents were sharecroppers and that Cummings was tracked in special education classes, asked him, “Who do you think you are?” Those words have haunted Cummings throughout his life. Luckily Cummings also had a teacher who believed in him and with the help of the Enoch Pratt Library (the only non-segregated institution in his neighborhood), Cummings raised his reading level and got out of special ed. These incidents reveal why Cummings is so passionate about education and the well-being of children. He closed by challenging the audience to find a way to improve the world for others in the spirit of Dr. King.

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Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. (New York, Ballantine Books, 2004), 149.