Page 2 - A Brief History of Racism and Health in So MD

Calvert slave population

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860

Total population 8,652 8,652 8,005 8,073 8,900 9,229 9,800? 10,447

Slave 4,305 4,101 3,937 3,668 3,899 4,170 4,468 4,609

Free persons of color 694 1,213 1,474 1,530 1,841

Southern Maryland resembled the deep South economically and socially

The plantation economy in Southern Maryland continued right up to the time of the Civil War. Levels of
slavery increased by 1860. The economy and population were deeply committed to slavery. In today's
dollars, according to Christopher Haley of the Maryland Archives, Calvert's slaves would have been val-
ued at $80,000,000. That was for a total white population of 3,997. According to the Maryland Archives
Project, "By 1860, the approximately 46,000 slaves in the counties of southern Maryland (includes
Prince Georges and Anne Arundel), outnumbered those found in all other regions of the state combined.
However, the southern counties had a relatively small free Black population."

During the American Civil War, Maryland remained in the Union, though many of her citizens (and vir-
tually all of her slaveholders) held strong sympathies towards the rebel Confederate States. Maryland, as
a Union border state, was not included in President Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which
declared all slaves in Southern Confederate states to be free. Slavery would hang on in Maryland until
the following year, when a constitutional convention was held which culminated in the passage of a new

state constitution on November 1, 1864. Article 24 of that document at last outlawed the practice of

slavery. Calvert County legislators voted 57 for and 634 against Article 24.
The story of Charles Ball presents what slavery was really like

What was life like for a slave in Calvert County? For this we have the benefit of the book Fifty Years in
Chains, or The Life of an American Slave written by a slave, Charles Ball, and published in 1838. Ball
grew up in Calvert County.

Charles Ball was sold to a slave owner in Georgia before the War of 1812. He escaped and made his
way north to Calvert County, a journey that took a year. His constant objective was to return to his fam-
ily. On his arrival in Calvert, he worked for farmers as a free man. He enlisted with Joshua Barney, serv-
ing as a cook for the sailors who fought the British at St. Leonard Creek. He then fought with Barney's
men at Bladensburg and Baltimore. On his return to Calvert, he lived free for years until he was caught
as a fugitive slave and sold again to a southern slave owner. Once again he escaped, but this time he
could not find his family. He lived out the rest of his life in Philadelphia, where he wrote his story.

His descriptions include the following:

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