Slavery, Racism, and Charles Willson Peale

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was one of the pioneering artists of the early days of the United States. His portraits of George Washington are familiar to fans of American history. His museum, the first in the United States, combined his love of history, science, and fine art.

Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum, 1822
Collection of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Looking beyond the surface of his illustrious career, Peale's story reveals the complexity of race relations during the late 1700s and early 1800s. A slaveowner for decades, Peale has been praised for voting in favor of abolition, with one brief biography from 1955 going so far as to claim that Peale "hated slavery and freed those few he had inherited as soon as they could support themselves" (Oliver Jensen, "The Peales," American Heritage, April 1955). In truth, Peale never inherited slaves, he purchased them or accepted them as payment for his paintings. While he did eventually free his slaves, his writings suggest he was not concerned about the harm that slavery did to the enslaved; instead, he was concerned that slavery harmed the slave owners.

Nathan Waters, Annapolis Saddler

For the past couple of years, I've been working on a historical novel set in colonial Maryland. As part of my effort to better understand what life was like in that time and place, I've been researching the lives of specific people to see what I can learn about the world in which they lived.

Although my research is focused primarily on Frederick County, the Maryland frontier of the 1700s, a deed from Frederick County led me to research Nathan Waters, a saddler in Annapolis.

Hidden History - Elizabeth Lamy

Historians have, and still do today, overlook the stories and accomplishments of women. While doing research into my family history, I have come across documents relating to numerous colonial-era women whose stories have not been told, but should be.

Elizabeth Lamy appears in only a handful of records, but when you piece them together, she begins to emerge as a fascinating figure, an unconventional woman for her time. Digging into her story gives more dimension to the stories of better-known people she interacted with, and challenges some of our notions about the time period.

Hidden History - Convicts Deported to Maryland

Convicts Deported to Maryland from England in the Colonial Maryland Land Records

In this post, I'll be looking at convicted felons deported from England to Maryland. During the 1700s, along with the illustrious figures of history, England also sent some of their worst individuals to America. Depending on the crime, men and women were convicted to either seven or fourteen years of hard labor in the colonies.

Land records, especially from the colonial era, are an overlooked treasure trove for genealogists and historians. Sifting through the records is time-consuming and tedious, but well worth the effort.

While researching my own family history in Maryland's land records, skimming through the thousands of pages available online, I've come across quite a few items of interest which can be found only by viewing each page.

Every book of land records includes an index, but the index refers only to actual land deeds and includes only the names of the primary buyer and seller. During the colonial era, the Maryland land record books included a wide variety of other types of records: the sale of slaves, the marks of stray animals, supersedeas and judgment cases, even the occasional bill of lading. None of those records were included in the index.

Since I was taking the time to skim every page, I decided to keep track of these hidden treasures. I'll be posting them here to aid other researchers in their work.

Hidden History - Bills of Lading and Bottomree

Bills of Lading and Bottomree in the Colonial Maryland Land Records

Land records, especially from the colonial era, are an overlooked treasure trove for genealogists and historians. Sifting through the records is time-consuming and tedious, but well worth the effort.

While researching my own family history in Maryland's land records, skimming through the thousands of pages available online, I've come across quite a few items of interest which can be found only by viewing each page.

Every book of land records includes an index, but the index refers only to actual land deeds and includes only the names of the primary buyer and seller. During the colonial era, the Maryland land record books included a wide variety of other types of records: the sale of slaves, the marks of stray animals, supersedeas and judgment cases, even the occasional bill of lading. None of those records were included in the index.

Since I was taking the time to skim every page, I decided to keep track of these hidden treasures. I'll be posting them here to aid other researchers in their work.

Arriving in America

One of the great things about studying history is that there is always something new to discover, simply by asking a different question. As I work on a fictionalized account of historical events, I find myself asking very specific questions that I would not have asked otherwise. For example, it's generally known that German immigrants in the 1740s would most likely arrive at Philadelphia, but what was that experience really like? If you put yourself in their position, what were the logistical details of arrival?

I had casually assumed that everyone disembarked as soon as the ship docked, and that the ship would dock as soon as it arrived. The truth is far more complex.

"Philadephia in the Olden Time," print by F. J. Wade, circa 1875
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

 

Researching 18th Century German Immigration

Genealogists are some of the biggest history buffs on the planet. An initial online search for information about the German family I'm researching, who arrived in America sometime around 1742, pulls up a ton of research posted by genealogists, as well as a couple of self-published novels about German immigrant ancestors. Unfortunately, there is no single authoritative source about the family in question -- even within one or two generations, there are differing accounts of where they came from and when they arrived. I've had to make educated guesses to reconcile conflicting information and come up with what seems to be the most likely origin story.

Since Germany did not exist as a cohesive nation until 1871, it's not entirely accurate to call them German immigrants. Most of the colonial-era immigrants from the future Germany are referred to as Palatines, a reference to the region controlled by the Elector Palatinate, but this too is inaccurate. Looking just at immigrants coming from the Rhine River valley, there were numerous other territories from which they originated. Württemberg, for example, was a large region on the Rhine which was occupied by French troops during the winter of 1741-42 (one can easily imagine that people living in Württemberg may have been very motivated to emigrate to the new world after the French army finished ransacking their towns). However, for a variety of reasons, "Palatine" has become the generic term for immigrants from this region during this era, regardless of their actual point of origin.

Detail of map of Germania published for Benjamin Hederichs in 1742.
From Geographicus Rare Antique Maps