Plantations Slavery Freedom On Maryland S Eastern Shore

African Americans, both enslaved and free, were vital to the economy of the Eastern Shore of Maryland before the Civil War. Maryland became a slave society in colonial days when tobacco ruled. Some enslaved people, like Anthony Johnson, earned their freedom and became successful farmers. After the Revolutionary War, others were freed by masters disturbed by the contradiction between liberty and slavery. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman ran from masters on the Eastern Shore and devoted their lives to helping other enslaved people with their words and deeds. Jacqueline Simmons Hedberg uses local records, including those of her ancestors, to tell a tale of slave traders and abolitionists, kidnappers and freedmen, cruelty and courage.

During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history.

What was antebellum life like for the two communities of people—one white and one black—who lived and worked on a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland? Thomas Marsh Forman was in his early twenties when he returned from the Revolutionary War to take over the proprietorship of Rose Hill plantation from his father. The estate lay alongside the Sassafras River in Cecil County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Rose Hill was a product of its historical moment, a moment in which men like Forman acted on their belief that the future prospects of the country required a continuation not only of their energy, their skills, and their desire to improve the lives of Americans but also of the slave economy they had done so much to shape. A focused study of this one plantation, The People of Rose Hill illuminates the workings of the entire plantation system in the border region between the end of the Revolution and the approach of the Civil War. Lucy Maddox looks closely at the public and private lives of the people of Rose Hill, who labored together in a profitable agricultural enterprise while maintaining relationships with one another that were cautious, distant, sometimes secretive, and often explosive. Making extensive use of the letters of wife, Martha Ogle Forman, Maddox places the experiences of Rose Hill's inhabitants (enslaved and free) within the context of the cultural, economic, and political history of the state. Piecing together the scattered information in these documents, she offers readers fascinating insights into life and labor on the plantation, from grueling daily work schedules to menus for elaborate dinners and teas. Her account includes comparative analyses of family structures and social practices within the Forman family and in the community of enslaved workers. Individual sections profile thirty-eight of the fifty enslaved people at Rose Hill, identifying, as far as possible, that person's primary work responsibilities, family connections, and history at the plantation, thus giving each a recognized place in the larger history of plantation slavery in the Upper South. Maddox's discussion of Rose Hill extends to the places around it where the slave culture of the plantation found confirmation and support: churches, law courts, social gatherings, agricultural fairs and societies, the parlors and sitting rooms of the Eastern Shore elite. The People of Rose Hill is a fascinating look at the intersection of the constricted world of the plantation with the larger world of early America.

Examines the history of slavery in Maryland and discusses the conditions of life of Maryland's slaves and free Blacks.

State Oddities takes a different kind of look at the American nation, spotlighting the fun foibles, peculiarities, and twists in each of the 50 states that are (mostly) united under the Stars and Stripes. State Oddities is a fascinating trip through the 50 states for students studying America, teachers planning classroom activities, and general readers who will enjoy an eye-opening journey through the nation's fun side. It offers a compelling look at the character of America through the individuality of 50 very distinct states that together form the USA. This book paints a picture of the broad sweep of the American story, offering a gateway to the country as it developed into one nation filled with individual states that can be remarkably different from each other, yet unified under such national symbols as the American flag and "The Star-Spangled Banner." The author of State Oddities has become known as a master of "painless history," telling America's story in a sparkling style along with the historian's eye for fascinating detail. On the book's cross-country journey, the reader will find that it differs from other works by taking a fresh look at stories we think we know.

Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century landowners in the hinterlands of Baltimore, Maryland, cobbled together workforces from a diverse labor population of black and white apprentices, indentured servants, slaves, and hired workers. This book examines the intertwined lives of the poor whites, slaves, and free blacks who lived and worked in this wheat-producing region along the Mason–Dixon Line. Drawing from court records, the diaries, letters, and ledgers of farmers and small planters, and other archival sources, Max Grivno reconstructs how these poorest of southerners eked out their livings and struggled to maintain their families and their freedom in the often unforgiving rural economy.

The culinary heritage of most regions in the US is often determined by the ethnic cuisine of those who settled there, whether it be the Cajun/Creole food of Louisiana or the Italian-inspired fare of the Northeast. For Maryland, the food that defines the state is less about the ethnicity of the population than the bounty which springs forth from the Chesapeake Bay. The Native Americans, British, Germans, and Poles were all influenced by the variety of fish, oysters, clams, crabs, and terrapins that could be harvested from the largest estuary in North America. In addition to seafood, other dishes associated with the region were developed because of the unique lifestyle created by living along the water. The Smith Island cake, for example, was created as a sturdy dessert that fishermen could take aboard ship during their long days fishing the Chesapeake. Also, the wealthy landowners who first arrived in Maryland, seeking elegant dishes for their lavish dinner parties, concocted ingenious uses for the chickens, squirrels, muskrats, and produce available on the fertile lands along the Bay. The book is not just about the past, however. The recent trend of sustainability and eating local has brought about a grassroots effort to preserve the delicate nature of the Chesapeake Bay. Modern techniques such as oyster farming and fishing invasive species to protect the indigenous flora and fauna will be explored. Of course, recipes will be presented to not only illustrate classic dishes that developed over time, but also modern versions created by some of Maryland’s top chefs.