| Location | Annapolis, Maryland |
|---|---|
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Names Mentioned | – |
| Date | November 18, 1861 |
| Document Title | Governor of Maryland to the Secretary of War, November 18, 1861 |
| Document Description | When a Maryland slaveowner trying to recover his fugitive slave was driven away from a camp of Massachusetts soldiers, he appealed to Thomas H. Hicks, the governor of Maryland, who urged the Secretary of War to enforce the law, protect slave property, and thereby ensure the state's loyalty. |
| Transcription |
register's Office– Cambridge Md. Feby. 22nd. 1867— Sir, Yours of 18th. inst., requesting the number of negro apprentices in this County &c., was duly received— Annexed you will find a statement giving the desired information, with the sex and the number bound in each year— The whole number legally apprenticed is, you will observe, 274 —but I will suggest that a very small part of them are in the service and custody of their Masters— certainly not over one third —Some of them are dead, some of the older ones entered the Army, some have left the state, and very many of them have left their Masters and either live with their parents or hire out to suit themselves, and very few of the Masters will make any effort or go to any expence to recover the service of any such apprentice— Nearly one half (111) of the whole number were bound in the year 1864, just after the adoption of the new Constitution, now I know that a very small percentage of them ever went to their Masters, or were claimed after such binding, as most of the Masters were well aware that there was but little profit in attempting to hold them when they did not want to remain— Respectfully &c— E. W. LeCompte {Enclosure} {Cambridge, Md.} Feby. 22nd, 1867— List of negro apprentices in Dorchester County Maryland, to date— Male Female 1852 3 1 1853 5 1854 6 1855 10 2 1856 4 1857 18 12 1858 26 3 1859 11 4 1860 14 4 1861 8 2 1862 1 1863 1 1864 73 38 1865 6 5 1866 15 2 1867 0 0 201 —73 201 Total 274 |
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[Author (if known)], Documents from the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, [Date (if known)], Enduring Connections: Exploring Delmarva’s Black History, Nabb Research Center, Salisbury University.
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