The Saga of Jill Nicole Blair Taunton

Saturday night we went to the 30th birthday party of one of my special girls.  Jill grew up with Kat and they have been friends forever.  The party was at her mom's house and everyone who loves Jill was there.  Family and friends celebrated the birthday of this precious life.  I was part of the entertainment....usually for these monumental birthday's I put together a musical tribute to their lives.  I take clips of songs and put them together with a story that I read in between song snippets.  I felt bad but with all the deaths in my family I just did not have the music in me.  This year I opted for a quieter tribute and wrote a poem for Jill, which I read after Gwen (her FIL) sang Kawliga for her.  I put it in a scrapbook that had a quote about life on the front cover and figured she could put all the pictures from the party and her cards in their with it and have a neat memoir of her 30th.  I thought today I would share the poem with you guys and let you know a little bit about our life with Jill.

Thirty years ago, 1981, on June 4th

Into this world a baby girl she was born

Her name was Jill she was precious and sweet

She was placed in the nursery for her admirers to meet.

There stood Paw Paw, and Nita and even two Danny’s

The doctor was there and spanked her on her fanny.

Pam, Mandy, her dad, there were loads of us there

She had the sweetest smile and a head full of hair.

From day one on she and Kat were best friends

They would laugh, giggle and dance until the days end.

They played with their Barbies and made up cute songs.

And no matter where we went Jill was always along.

The lake and the trips-oh we had so much fun

We traveled together, we were always on the run.

From Knoxville to Disney, VBS’es to gymastics

We all had a ball and our time together - fantastic.

Once Jessi and Kat had a big crush on Brad

Jill did too I think …and they’d all get so mad

If Brad showed one a bit more attention

Til Brad played the Hulk and got Sunday School detention.

New Kids on the Block were their favorite fellows

And when their songs came on they both would just bellow.

They danced, they sang, they spent time with each other.

It was like Debo was Kat’s new second mother.

At birthdays they would become the bow girls

Wearing their bows with the sparkles and curls.

They posed for pictures and rode in the boat

They swam in the lake or they’d lay there and float.

Then came Radney dances and they dressed up like 50’s

They both had on pink poodle skirts- Oh how nifty.

Remember P. Forge and the terrible flood

We stayed in the cabin man this trip was a dud.

You were at graduations for Scott and for Jan

You always went with us – you were part of the clan

Ronnie called you Thrill Jill and I called you Jilly

My mom would laugh when your jokes were so silly.

You both came with me to school during the summer

Most kids would have thought that this was a bummer

You would clean and arrange my room nice and neat

You both thought that this was a humongous treat.

Then came the summer when Kat was hurt

You gave up your summer to help take care of my squirt.

You watched television, colored and such

Your time, love, and sweetness I cherished so much.

Faculty Follies and traveling some more

Life with the Harrell’s was never a bore.

I was the puppy murderer and killer of squirrels

Made memories for me…with my two bestest girls.

Cleveland, Knoxville, P Forge and there’s Helen

Picnics, VBS’es, pizza, watermelon.

We were there that Thanksgiving when you marched at Disney

We cheered as you passed and we all waved at Mickey.

Having you both at high school for me was a blast

I hate it that those times well…they just did not last.

In New York we rode on the bus and saw sites

Being with you guys made this trip a delight.

I have to admit even though I’d already been

This trip was much better than the one I took with Kim

We laughed, ate gross burgers and nasty spaghetti

We found a McDonalds even though we weren’t ready.

We have shopped til we dropped and enjoyed buying shoes

We have had such a good time and acted like fools

Then all of a sudden our lives they were changed

You both went to college and life rearranged

Funny thing you both chose the exact same profession

And both married in almost immediate succession.

We all changed our last names in the second millennium

Kat now a Jones and you were a Taunton.

Jill you’ve become a sweet mommy of one

And now here you are thirty….but your story’s not done.

Frank loves you as much as I do I believe

How our lives have all changed and how much we’ve achieved.

You teach at Smith Station, Kat Monkey town, me at Ben Russell

You guys just beginning to dance the education hustle

Teaching, an honorable call I can say.

Yet, I’m looking forward now to my retirement day.

We have shared many smiles, many miles, and some tears

You were always a constant o’er the past thirty years

With the loss of my parents you were there with a hug

You have been loved a lot hope you know that lady bug.

As your life story unfolds may it be a best selling tale

May you have more successes…may you never fail.

Laugh when you want, dance in the rain,

And whatever you wish for I hope you attain…..

Happy Birthday Jilly!

Kat, Jill, and Brady at Kat's 30th birthday party

Jill, Jan, Scott, and Kat in Knoxville - One of the many trips

Bow Girls

Airport Park when they were just tiny

Radney Dance and the Pink Poodle Skirts - Their skirts were the colors of the bows they are wearing.

New York trip - skyline before 9/11

The Day Jill told us she was engaged to Blake - their birthday lunch

At a wedding - Kelly, Raegan, Jill and Kat

Project 365 - May 29th - June 4th

It is that time of week again and once again Sara has invited us to link up with our weekly picture offerings.  I have been off this week and pretty busy as you can tell.  If you want to participate and try your hand at this head on over to Sara's and check her site out.  It is a lot of fun.

Sunday, May 29th

 Sunday we went over to Renee's from Wal-mart.  I caught the barn at the corner of CR 87 and CR 16.  The martin house and little fishing boy were at the first house on the right on CR 16.  It belongs to Renee's MIL.  There was a ton of other stuff I wanted to get but just did not have time.  The sun was dropping quickly.

Monday, May 30th - Memorial Day

I wish I could tell you that I took some neat Memorial Day pictures but I was so excited about my blooming purple hydrangea I focused on that.  I love the way the sun is streaking across the second shot.  That's why you got both of them. 

Tuesday, May 31st

We worked at Ms. Sherry's and took pictures of some of the glassware I am putting on ebay, etsy, Craigs list, whatever.  Both of these pieces are coin glass.  The cream and sugar are amber and the plate is called amethyst.  I think they are lovely pieces and cannot wait to get them all listed.  I haven't even made a dent.

Wednesday, June 1st

Today we visited with Mr. Larry and Ms. Betty Jean.  She has an awesome garden.  I have shared pictures of her flowers before....this is what is blooming now.  The cat is her pet...he was napping....not blooming.

Thursday, June 2nd 

I found this little willow fly on Frank's windshield this morning.  Frank had never seen one and I was delighted to see the little fellow.  Whenever the first willow flies of summer appear, area anglers know this

is a sign of good fishing to come.  I have seen water boil with fish when these things started arriving.  It is amazing and if you look at them they do kind of look like the lures fisherman use when they fly fish.

Friday, June 3rd

Friday, Frank and I went to Leeds to the BASS Pro Shop to check on a holster for his new 40 Cal. gun.  Since we were that close we decided to go to Cokesbury and eat lunch at the Fish Market.  The Fish Market is one of the best places to eat.  It is owned by Greeks and the food is to die for.  Their Greek potatoes...and seasoning on their food....yuummmmmmmy!  It will make you want to slap your momma.

Saturday, June 4th - Jill's Birthday

Frank and Brady(Jill's son) in the kitchen.

Deborah (Jill's mom) was the cook of the hour.  She fed 30+ people tonight for Jill's 30th birthday.  I had a great picture of the darling cake Debo did for the party and deleted it accidentally.  I cannot believe I did that.  Griefus!  I am just sick and really angry at myself for not paying attention to what I was doing.

Gwen (Jill's FIL), plays with a Blue Grass Band called Highway 280.  They are so good.  He played her favorite song, "Kawliga" tonight.  I know you are dying to know what I did...singer that I am....well..I am having trouble with my mouth so I did the other thing I do best....I wrote her a poem/ode/saga and read it aloud.  She loved it.  I am posting it Sunday.  I hope you come back and read it and  I hope you enjoy it.

My two girls.  Jill and Kat doing what they have always done best...smiling for the camera.  Happy Birthday Jilly!  All in all it was an interesting first week of summer vacation.  I hope next week is better.  I am also not going to survive 100 degree weather I can assure you.  We need a break....we need mucho rain!  Send it on!

The Final Summit

Genre:  Self-help, motivational, general fiction

Price - 19.99

Publisher:  Thomas Nelson

ISBN:  978-0-852-3120-2

My Thoughts:  Unbeknownst to me this was part of a series by Andy Andrews and it took me a bit to understand who the main character was, what he had to do, yet once I had it I could not put the book down.  It was a thought-provoking, uncomfortable, easy read and although it is fiction has a huge motivational impact on the reader.  Andy Andrews is a master at drawing in his reader.  This book issues a challenge not to be satisfied with life as we know it now....it challenges us to get out there and make a difference.  I can promise you this won't be my last Andy Andrews book.
Summary of Book:  David Ponder, now 74, after losing his wife, sits in his office alone comtemplating the unthinkable...just as he had 28 years ago.  A visit from the archangel Gabriel informs Ponder that he is needed now more than ever before.  Together with the help of fellow "Travelers" like Winston Churchill, George Washington Carver, Joan of Arc, and Lincoln the group must discover one solution that will save mankind.  Time is running out and at the Final Summit of Travelers the group must work quickly to avoid terrible circumstances. This Summit is humanities last chance and only one solution can reset the compass and right the ship and that answer is only two words.  The catch?  The group is only allowed five tries to solve the challenge.  Will they succeed?

About the Author:  Andy Andrews is from Gulf Shores, AL and a best selling novelist.  He appears frequently on CNN, Fox News, and Good Morning America.  I was fortunate enough to hear him at a Women of Faith Conference in Atlanta last year and was mesmerized by him.  He is funny, serious, a captivating story teller all rolled up into the man known as Andy Andrews.  If you get a chance to see him in person don't pass it up.  Check out his website:  http://www.andyandrews.com/
Disclaimer:  I received this book from Book Sneeze for free for a fair and honest evaluation.  I have done my best to do just that.

Agriculture in 18th-Century Maryland

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Agriculture in 18th-Century Maryland

In the half-century century leading up to the American Revolution, tobacco exports from the Chesapeake tripled, marking an important evolution in Maryland's agriculture. Tobacco prices, which in the unstable market economy of seventeenth-century agriculture had fluctuated wildly, became relatively stable, and tobacco reigned supreme. In 1723, Britain dropped its re-export fees on tobacco, and France opened its market to Chesapeake-grown leaf, through the hands of British brokers. Though tobacco prices declined slowly and steadily, the result was relative stability. Profit from growing tobacco came from lowering costs rather than from rising prices.

Maryland's population during this same half-century also tripled, and presumably many newly arrived families entered the staple-crop business. More importantly, the slave population tripled, and virtually all of those hands went to tending this labor-intensive commodity. According to one estimate, a single worker could manage two and a half acres (roughly 6,800 plants), and produce 2,500 pounds of leaf.

Tobacco plants were so labor intensive because each plant needed close tending, first to keep down moisture-robbing weeds, then to pick off insects and pinch back smaller top leaves so that a few grew large. From seedbed preparation, to transplanting seedlings into hoed-up mounds, through the daily routine of picking and pinching, to cutting the mature plants, splitting their stalks and hanging them on poles in a barn to dry, no other crop required so much attention. Although a planter could employ his entire family in this work, and perhaps afford a white servant too, slaves provided a labor source that was more readily exploitable. As the eighteenth century progressed, slave-owning expanded and became entrenched, particularly among planters of modest means in southern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore, who borrowed money from tobacco agents to buy a slave or two, who then represented the most valuable assets of the owners' estates. By the first U.S. Census in 1790, slaves numbered over one hundred thousand, making up about a third of Maryland's population, and most of the labor force in the tobacco economy.

Most Maryland farmers, however, did not own slaves, even if they aspired to do so one day. Some farmers were too old, some too young, and some too unlucky to reach a position where they could undertake the economic gamble slaves represented. Still others, like the Quakers who moved from Pennsylvania to the Eastern Shore, rejected slavery on moral grounds. But for the German and Scots-Irish farmers who came to the Monocacy Valley in the 1740s, slave labor simply did not meet the most pressing need. Plowing and harrowing fields for small grains, growing and hackling flax, pruning orchard trees, making brandy, and keeping livestock fat and healthy enough to sell required more skill than the extensive menial labor slaves typically performed. And, as the countryside became more settled, problems with growing things grew more challenging.

Increasing settlements meant that more land was occupied, reducing the amount of new land available for tobacco. Increased populations also meant that people, farms, crops, and livestock were closer together, making it easier for diseases to spread among animals and crops.

Sometime shortly before or during the American Revolution, wheat growers in Maryland began to experience the same fungal disease that had wiped out that crop in New England earlier-stem rust. Puccinia graminis can live on the barberry, a dense, spiny hedge, during the winter. The fungus spread its spores to wheat fields in summer, shriveling the kernels and turning the straw a rusty brown. Hard winters retarded the disease, but when a damp spring turned hot and dry after a mild winter, stem rust spread easily and could cause almost total crop loss.

Farmers knew that the barberry was implicated, but it was so common there was little chance of eliminating it. If they planted crops later to escape the disease, farmers ran the risk of insect damage from the highly destructive gall midge, Mayetiola destructor, that went by the more popular name "Hessian fly." Just as wheat plants ripened, the midge's larvae ate through the straw, causing the berry head, the part of the plant where the wheat itself grows, to fall off. Some believed this insect arrived in the bedding of Hessian soldiers, but whether it did or not, it coincided with stem rust to make growing wheat increasingly troublesome.

Horse glanders, an infectious and contagious respiratory disease; cattle fever, spread by ticks; and gapes, a worm affliction of poultry, all seem to have appeared in Maryland about the time of the Revolution. Glanders had been known in Europe since Roman times, and may have arrived with British cavalry mounts, as American observers claimed. Cattle fever originated from a protozoan, Babesia bigemia, that first infected ticks in the lower South, and then fed upon the blood of tick-infested cattle. Over time, cattle in the lower South developed resistance to the protozoan, but when drovers moved livestock from Georgia and the Carolinas up the Piedmont trails to supply Washington's army, the ticks spread the fever to susceptible animals.

Gapes existed worldwide from various nematodes whose larvae first took up residence in earthworms, snails, slugs and flies but ended up in the trachea of poultry. As Andrew Wiesenthal described it around Baltimore in 1799, "gaps" destroyed 80 percent of local chickens and turkeys on old established farms. As a professor of anatomy, he noted how the birds strangled, and used a feather to extract the worms from a chick's throat, but mentioned that no remedy existed.

In the eighteenth century, crop epidemics and livestock epizootics, or widespread diseases, emerged for the first time in Maryland, not just from the responsible pathogens appearing for the first time but because farmers had created an agricultural landscape significant enough to be vulnerable to contagious diseases. As the state's population increased from over 300,000 in 1790, to more than 400,000 in 1820, and more than a half-million in 1850, the challenges farmers faced from disease increased as well, forcing strategic changes, again and again.

Written by G. Terry Sharrer for the Maryland Online Encyclopedia.
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Africans in Maryland - Slave & Free - Men & Women

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Africans in Maryland - Slave & Free - Men & Women

Soon after the settlement of Marylandcxin the seventeenth century, British ships with Africans for sale as slaves began to appear in the Chesapeake. The Atlantic Ocean route between Africa and the Americas was called the Middle Passage. Planters looking for a cheap labor force were interested in using Africans as forced laborers on their tobacco plantations. For example, Governor Leonard Calvert negotiated with a ship captain as early as 1642 for the purchase of thirteen Africans to work on his St. Mary's property. Africans were in rising demand by the colonists and British merchants continued to bring them in large numbers. Between 1675 and 1695 about 3,000 Africans entered the Chesapeake region to be put to work mostly on the tobacco plantations of Maryland and Virginia.

In the seventeenth century, British ships with Africans for sale as slaves began to appear in the Chesapeake. The Atlantic Ocean route between Africa and the Americas was called the Middle Passage. Planters looking for a cheap labor force were interested in using Africans as forced laborers on their tobacco plantations. For example, Governor Leonard Calvert negotiated with a ship captain as early as 1642 for the purchase of thirteen Africans to work on his St. Mary's property. Africans were in rising demand by the colonists and British merchants continued to bring them in large numbers. Between 1675 and 1695 about 3,000 Africans entered the Chesapeake region to be put to work mostly on the tobacco plantations of Maryland and Virginia.

These Africans came from various West African ethnic groups from the region of the Gambia River around the coast of present day Nigeria. Men and women, whose complexions ranged from brown to black, brought with them numerous languages and customs, including their own African religious beliefs. Occasionally Muslims were among them, and sometimes Africans came from regions as far away as Madagascar. The Africans wore little clothing, sometimes only strings of beads. Many had filed teeth. Some had hair plaited in elaborate styles, while others had shaven heads. Slave owners often commented on the scarification—slave owners called them "country markings"—the Africans had on their bodies. These markings might be on their faces, arms, or torso and had a variety of distinctive designs, sometimes for ethnic identity and also for body ornamentation. African music, drums, and singing frightened whites who soon outlawed many African practices—especially drumming. After a time an Africanized English became the language that the Africans and their owners all understood. The Africans received new names and learned their work and the stringent boundaries within which slave life was confined. Owners wanted to break the Africans' rebellious spirits and restrict their movements.

Early accounts of Maryland history provide glimpses of the lives of some of the Africans. Ayubva Suleiman Dially was a well-educated Muslim merchant who was born about 1700 in an area located in an area that is now in Mali. He was captured and sold after he had traded two other Africans to a British merchant. He was taken to Annapolis where he was sold. He worked on a tobacco plantation for two years before he was rescued, taken to England and then finally allowed to return to his home.

Charles Ball, a slave sold into the cotton kingdom from the state of Maryland, wrote that after the sale of his mother, his master also decided to sell his father to a southern slave dealer. Ball said that his grandfather, an African, secretly went to his son's cabin, gave him some cider and parched corn, prayed "to the god of his native country" to protect his son, and told him to run away. Ball never saw his father again. His grandfather was originally enslaved in Charles County, Maryland, in about 1730.

By the eighteenth century, Maryland was beginning to get a new generation of Africans, born in America, who did not know their parents' African homeland first hand. In Tobacco and Slaves (1998) Allan Kulikoff uses records of several Maryland plantations to show the gradual changes in the fertility of the enslaved population. On the Edmond Jennings plantation in 1712 almost all the workers were Africans. By 1730, nine out of ten black men and almost all of the black women working on the Robert Carter estates were born in Africa, but beginning in the 1730s the enslaved population began to grow naturally and was composed of both Africans and African Americans. In a few generations Africa became simply a distant misunderstood land to most African Americans.

Written by Debra Newman Ham for the Maryland Online Encyclopedia.
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Fugitive Slaves in Maryland

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Fugitive Slaves in Maryland

African Americans used the act of running away as part of a broader system of resisting the physical and psychological manipulation of slavery. In most instances, slaves left plantations or work sites without permission but with the intention of returning in order to visit relatives or friends on nearby plantations, or to protest a harsh punishment. At other times, though, runaways attempted to escape slavery permanently. Those who ran hoping never to return understood that they risked their lives. Fugitive slaves plagued slaveholders from the first years of slavery in Maryland until its last days.

Although laws requiring slavery for black women and their descendents did not appear until the Assembly's 1664 session enacted "An act concerning Negroes and other slaves," Maryland's first lawmakers did recognize that some people were made to work against their will and that such people frequently ran away. Along with the earliest legal references to slavery in Maryland, therefore, were attempts to control runaway servants and slaves through legislation.

If the American Revolution (1776-83) had an immediate impact on slave escapes it could only be found in the greater opportunities to escape created by the chaos of war. Revolutionary-era newspapers contained many notices for runaways. Although they spoke of "liberty," few slaveholding Maryland patriots saw any contradiction in denying it to their slaves. Indeed, John Hanson, the Marylander who served as president of the Continental Congress, spent much of the last years of the war pursuing Ned Barnes, an enslaved man who had fled Hanson's plantation.

A variety of factors moved fugitive slaves to attempt a permanent break: persistent brutality by an owner or overseer, relocation away from immediate family or relatives, a reduction in privileges such the ability of hired slaves to keep small portions of fees, a worsening of work conditions, and numerous other individual concerns. After 1800 the most common motivation was probably the threat of sale to the Deep South. Many blacks risked flight rather undergo the perils of the domestic slave trade.

Most runaways were young men fleeing alone. Young women without children ran more often than those with children. The months of April through October saw the most escape attempts, but no single week of the year emboldened more runaways than the days between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day because owners were distracted and supervision was relaxed. Though some made clandestine use of railway and water vessels, most runaways fled on foot. While at large and on the move, runaways stayed close to roads, rivers, and other normal routes, and traveled mainly at night. Many made use of family and friends on nearby plantations, or in towns and cities. Fugitives also generally helped themselves to provisions (food, clothing, sometimes money) before leaving, but when these ran out, they foraged in the woods, relied on the kindness of people encountered along the way, and even pilfered barns and storehouses to survive. Many fugitives even found short-term employment from whomever might be willing to hire a person of undetermined status with no questions asked.

Maryland fugitives generally tried to reach urban environments (Washington, DC, Frederick, Baltimore, Philadelphia) where they might disappear into free black populations. As northern states abolished slavery during the early 1800s, however, Maryland runaways and others sought to reach free territory, including, by the 1830s, Canada, where they believed the threat of recapture was much less.

Although creativity, perseverance, and good fortune were traits of successful runaways, those pursuing fugitives were not without advantages. For example, because of indifference and unreliable support in recapturing runaways early on, by the late seventeenth century Maryland laws mandated that sheriffs, constables, and even citizens cooperate in recapturing fugitives. Federal support came first in the late eighteenth century and was greatly strengthened in 1850 by the Fugitive Slave Law. Any black person found without direct white supervision was treated as a runaway unless she or he could provide a legitimate reason. Advertisements alerted the public to fugitives' names and physical characteristics, when and from where they had run, whom they knew in the area, and most importantly, what the owner would pay for their return. Even in the northern free states, local marshals taking fugitives before a magistrate received a greater reward ($10) if an apprehended black turned out to be an escaped slave than if he or she was free and could prove it ($5). Marshals who failed to arrest a fugitive slave, or permitted one to escape, were fined $1,000.

Most runaway attempts were unsuccessful, and the price of failure could be terrible for runaways and for those who attempted to help them. Punishments for free blacks and whites convicted of aiding runaways could be severe. Even unwitting ship captains and train conductors faced fines or jail for not knowing who traveled with them. Every town and hamlet in the state had a jail, and many had slave pens designated specifically to house runaways. Once captured, most slaves were returned to their legal owners, who might administer a variety of punishments. Many runaways, especially repeat offenders, were sold at auction to South-bound slave dealers, never to see their families again.

The Abolitionist Movement of the mid-nineteenth century, with its "underground railroad," focused the nation's attention on slavery to a much greater degree than earlier attempts to end the institution had done. Before the national debate gave way to sectional conflict and civil war, fugitives from slavery found both more allies and more obstacles in their path. Wartime measures such as the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia (April 1862) and the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1863), did not directly affect Maryland blacks, but they did encourage slaves to flee, creating what scholar W. E. B. DuBois called a "general strike" of the enslaved workers. By May 1863, the federal government had also begun to recruit black soldiers, the United States Colored Troops (USCT), for the Union army. Recruiters promised freedom to slaves who enlisted, further encouraging flight.

In the two centuries of slavery in Maryland, many runaways managed to remain at large and might be said to have succeeded in becoming free. Yet freedom for runaways seldom brought peace, as fugitives always lived in fear of recapture and return to slavery.

The National Park Service's Underground Railroad Theme Study (1998) estimated the number of successful escapes for the nation for the years 1790-1860 at 100,000, or about 1,500 per year.

Written by David Taft Terry for the Maryland Online Encyclopedia.
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Free Black Men and Women in Maryland

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Free Blacks in Maryland

From the seventeenth century on there was a growing free black population in Maryland. This population grew quickly in the antebellum years. African Americans were usually emancipated for diligent work, good conduct, familial connections, or commendable service. At other times white owners experienced a change of heart, an attack of conscience, or, in the case of Quaker meetings, freed their slaves in following their religion.

The methods for manumission in Maryland included court actions, instructions in owners' wills, self-purchase, purchase of one's own family member's freedom with money earned when hired out, governmental decrees, or rewards for military service. In Maryland, according to acts of 1697 and 1692, the law declared that children followed the condition of their mother. Thus, when children were born to a free mother, they were free also.

In 1752, the population of Baltimore County included 166 mulatto slaves, 96 free mulattoes, 4,027 black slaves and eight free blacks. The census of 1790 recorded that about eight thousand free blacks lived in the state at that time. The free black population was concentrated in northern and western Maryland.

In 1830, the free black population was just under 53,000, about 12 percent of Maryland's population, according to the U.S. Census. That meant that about one-third of the entire Maryland African American population in Maryland was free.

Free blacks generally were not accorded the same privileges as white citizens. Maryland changed its laws relating to free blacks depending on the political climate. For a brief period some free blacks had the right to vote, but the law was later rescinded. Blacks could not carry firearms or testify against whites in court.

Free blacks—especially children—lived under the threat of being beaten or kidnapped by whites who would sell them into slavery. One reason whites formed the Maryland Abolition Society was to try to protect free blacks from kidnappers. Maryland passed and repealed several laws prohibiting blacks from assembling or carrying firearms. Maryland county governments often vacillated about the right of free blacks to hold and bequeath property. Whites often sought to restrict the type of work blacks could do because they did not want to compete with them. At various times the Maryland Assembly tried to pass laws prohibiting blacks from reading abolitionist literature, operating boats, obtaining licenses for pedaling, participating in certain trades, or having or driving hacks, carts or drays. There was also an effort keep free blacks from owning dogs. Slaveholders' motive for many of the laws, particularly those prohibiting free blacks from owning conveyances, was to prevent them from aiding runaway slaves.

In spite of numerous restrictions, free blacks in Maryland formed their own churches, schools, benevolent societies, and businesses. By 1847 there were at least thirteen black churches in Baltimore alone. Many churches were a part of larger denominations which met periodically in various states to discuss both religious and political matters.

The 1850 Census indicates that over 50 percent of Maryland free blacks could read and/or write. Free persons of color worked as domestics, small farmers, innkeepers, street vendors, ship caulkers, stevedores, sailors and boatmen, draymen, barbers, teamsters, blacksmiths, and liverymen. Blacks who had purchased their freedom were usually able to do so because they had earned money with their skilled labor.

Some free blacks, like astronomer Benjamin Banneker and preacher Daniel Coker, were able to record their own experiences. Banneker published an almanac and aided in the survey of the Federal District, later to become the District of Columbia. Coker became one of the first emigrants to return to Africa with the American Colonization Society.

Written by Debra Newman Ham for the Maryland Online Encyclopedia.
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