1783: Free and Enslaved Blacks
For Black people the city offered both hope and despair. A growing number of free Black persons moved to take advantage of the jobs offered at the port and in the mills. However, their population grew alongside Black enslaved laborers in Baltimore setting up a constant reminder of the racial hierarchies to which even free Black people remained subject. Millward (2015) noted,
Black families, whether enslaved or free, lived in a world of contradictions. Free blacks witnessed the realities of enslavement daily, and enslaved men and women often worked alongside free blacks and were aware that they were being paid for their labor. Freedom produced contrasting experiences, depending on one’s social location. (p. 5)
Federal Hill Harbor View
Like much of the commerce in early American port cities, the booming trade and growing port economy relied upon the labor of enslaved persons. In Baltimore, Pratt Street and its neighboring avenues housed slave traders who sold enslaved people from their store fronts. Shackled groups of enslaved persons were driven down Pratt Street to the docks at Fells Point for transportation to New Orleans where they would face public auction and sale to the highest bidder. Pratt Street was also the location of large brick buildings known as slave jails. These slave jails were used by traveling slave holders to prevent their slaves from escaping overnight (Shane, 1999). While wheat and textiles invited economic boom, the city’s success grew on the backs of the enslaved Africans brought to Baltimore to be housed, transported, and sold.
Influenced by abolition and the legal changes surrounding slavery, the City of Baltimore prohibited “the importation of slaves” in 1783. While slowing the number of Atlantic slave ships that visited the city, demand for wheat and other products passing through the port kept slavery tied to the economic health of the city and the state (Berlin, Grivno, & Brewer, 2007, p. 28).