Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 Book

I began reading this in preparation for writing my novel, on whose characters this information will have a very direct bearing. Before reading his book, I saw that Laura Croghan Kamoie has done a review on it, in which she notes that
"While the structure of the book leaves the reader with the impression that the black community coalesced before the white onslaught began, in fact the black community gained strength and crystallized alongside growing white repression, making it all the more spectacular that blacks played the important role they did in defeating the re-enslavement movement.[3]"
(acc. 9:30am, 11June2020: ...)

I must agree with her assessment : when I was two-thirds of the way through the book, it still felt as if the black community had already coalesced to a certain extent and I hadn't even gotten to the legislation that was mentioned.

Some things that struck me on pages 42 and 62 were the ideas of "Term slavery" being unique to Baltimore , and yeah I hadn't heard of it, either: he says that it was unheard of anywhere else in the South except in the Netherlands, where they had a similar concept called "Half Free", and then on page 62, that two-thirds of the Baltimore free people of color were designated as "African," which meant dark skinned (I have actually seen this on one or two of the World War 1 draft registration certificates in my family on the Hall side). This is true from my previous research into my own family as well as other slaves in South Carolina: apparently 3/4 of manumitted slaves throughout most of the South were actually designated as mulattos since they were light skinned, like my family, rather than in Baltimore, where many Marylanders after the American revolution freed their slaves en masse, most of whom were obviously darker-skinned. So there was more of an egalitarian ethos in terms of skin color in Baltimore, and much less of the skin-color color line within the black community that you see in places like DC , where my family is from for example.

Other notes that I made included the fact that judge John Scott in 1810 did the opposite, for two free black people, of what the bailiff up in Baltimore did to Isaac, the literate slave of Georgetown College's Senior Jesuit who was offering a $30 reward for Isaac's capture. Judge Scott, in the early 1800s in Baltimore, allowed the benefit of the doubt for free black people, rather than forcing them to prove that they were free. The norm, especially in 1820s and 1830s in DC, was to put black men into the jail and then make them prove they were free after charging them room and board. Many free people were actually sold into slavery in this way.
As a side note, on page 78, my protagonist cannot be a laborer, if he's meant to be skilled like a blacksmith, which was a highly skilled job apparently.
On page 104: around 1825 we start to see segregated housing as a result of the segregated jobs ; starting around 1815 we see free people of color being denied skilled jobs, which went to white workers. Two decades later we see the resulting deep poverty of the black community in Baltimore.

We then see the close ties between the communities in Philadelphia and Baltimore which led to the first AME church, breaking away from the white Methodist Episcopal denomination. I'm very surprised to see on page 166 that Maryland apparently never prohibited slave literacy. But I was not surprised to see that I wasn't wrong about census-taker errors not being infrequent, particularly toward populations to whom they thought it was okay to be condescending.

Of course the Nat Turner rebellion created white fear, which resulted in 1831 and after in severe restrictions on the very large free black population of Baltimore (and of course the rural counties of Maryland hated Baltimore anyway because of the Free labor attitudes). This all begins to change in the 1830s when white workers replace colored workers in just about every trade they had been allowed to work in, all of which were either unskilled or semi-skilled, like caulking. (P. 197). In the decade between 1841 and 1851, whites replaced colored laborers in Baltimore City almost entirely , with the exception of hotels and house servant work for the fashionable white elite.

So page 192 in my humble opinion just about says it all with regard to White fears regarding non-white people

"... the increasing proportion of the free people of color, in this state,... and their withdrawing a large portion of employment from the laboring class of the white population... "

It really mostly revolved around economics , with racism used as a convenient tool for separating and excluding, especially economically , the black community.
Much like today.
may we soon all learn to work together and to take care of each other, all of us.

PS :. Some notes that I forgot to add early on:

P. 3;. "Baltimore's black community derived its vitality from a relatively concordant populace that was overwhelmingly poor. This economic deprivation allowed Baltimore's African-American residents to forge a community within which they not only avoided the deep fissures common to other black urban communities but also whether the racial tempests of the antebellum years."
Pages 9 through 11 about how tobacco didn't work so well in northern Maryland and Baltimore. P. 10:. "The entwining of the crafts and agriculture characterized the Baltimore county economy during the 18th century as well as the development of Baltimore Town itself. "

He begins with the description of a trip Douglas, who began life as Frederick Bailey, took, and was mesmerized by the description of Baltimore by a fellow slave who was a cabin boy on their master's sloop.
So... travel trains the mind, indeed...

Humanly Yours,

Shira Destinie Jones Faxio Booth Bourke Hall Mayo Porter Manzilla