*The birth of Nathaniel Jackson is celebrated on this date, c 1798. He was a white-American rancher and abolitionist. He was born in Georgia; his exact birth date is unknown; the date 1798 was used in two censuses, so it is the best guess based on the documentation. He was the son of Joseph Jackson […]
learn more*The birth of Jonathan Walker is celebrated on this date, c 1799. He was a white-American reformer and abolitionist. Jonathan Walker was born in Harwich, Massachusetts. During his youth, he learned to sail and became captain of a fishing vessel. In early 1837, he went to Florida and became a railroad contractor. The condition of […]
learn moreThe birth of Dred Scott in 1799 is celebrated on this date.
He was a Black abolitionist whose zeal for Black equality and humanity led him to sue America for his freedom. His unsuccessful legal recording was in the famous lawsuit Dred Scott v. Sandford which bears his name.
learn more*Nancy Prince was born on this date in 1799. She was a Black abolitionist and writer. Nancy Gardner Prince was born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her father, Thomas Gardner, was a wailer. Little is known about Prince’s family life. Her father, a seaman, died when she was an infant, leaving her in the care of […]
learn moreOn this date in 1799, John Russwurm was born. He was an Black abolitionist and Liberian government official.
Born in Jamaica, John Brown Russwurm was the son of an unknown slave mother and a white merchant. At the age of eight, John Brown (as he was known) was sent to Quebec for formal schooling. In 1812, his father married Susan Blanchard who insisted John acknowledge his parentage name.
His father then brought young John to Portland, ME. He attended Hebron Academy and Bowdoin College, where he was one of the first Black university graduates in 1826.
This date marks the birth of John Brown in 1800. He was white American abolitionist whose attempt to end slavery by force greatly increased anxiety between North and South in the period before the American Civil War.
learn more*Joseph Goodrich was born on this date in 1800. He was a white-American pioneer, abolitionist, businessman, and politician. Born in Hancock, Massachusetts, Goodrich moved to Stephentown, New York, in 1812 to live with an uncle. There, he was involved with farming and was a member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. In 1819, Goodrich moved to […]
learn more*Stephen Myers’s birth is celebrated on this date, c. 1800. He was a Black abolitionist and journalist. Stephen Myers was born a slave in Hoosick, New York. He was supposedly released in 1818 by his owner, General Warren. However, Warren’s identity remains ambiguous; there are no records of Myers’ manumission in the Albany County records. […]
learn more*The term Freedmen or Freedwomen from 1800 is briefly described on this date. By definition, they are formerly enslaved persons who have been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed either by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners) or emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group). A fugitive slave is a person who escaped slavery. During the Middle Passage and […]
learn moreOn this date in 1800, Nat Turner, a Black American slave and the leader of a Black slave revolt, was born.
He was born on a plantation in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner was a popular religious leader among his fellow slaves and became convinced that he had been chosen by God to lead his people to freedom. On August 21, 1831, he and five other slaves killed their master and his family and, joined by about 60 blacks from neighboring plantations, started a general revolt.
learn more*The birth of Gullah Jack is celebrated on this date in c 1800. He was an African conjurer and abolitionist. Little was known about his background, except that he was from Angola and was shipped from Zanzibar to America under Zephaniah Kingsley’s direction. He was sent first to Florida, to the Kingsley Plantation. Also known as Counter Jack and […]
learn more*Charles Trowbridge was born on this date in 1835. He was a White American soldier, abolitionist, and politician.
Charles Tyler Trowbridge was from Morristown, New Jersey in an area known as Trowbridge Mountain. He was third of seven children born to Elijah Freeman Trowbridge and Temperance Ludlow Muchmore. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1854. In 1857 he married Emeline Haviland Jackson at Freehold, New Jersey. They had one child, Ida Emeline Trowbridge who died in 1858.
learn more*Abraham Schadd was born on this date in 1801. He was a Black Abolitionist, Businessman, and Community Organizer He was one of Delaware’s most significant Black leaders of the 19th century. Abraham Doras Schadd was born in Mill Creek Hundred and the father of 13 children. He earned a successful living as a shoemaker, a trade he learned from his father. He acquired property in Wilmington.
learn more*This date in 1801 is celebrated as the birth date of Samuel Sharpe. Also known as Sam Sharpe, he was an enslaved Black Jamaican preacher and abolitionist. Samuel Sharpe was born into slavery in the parish of St James, Jamaica. He was raised on a plantation owned by Samuel and Jane Sharpe. The 1817 slave records […]
learn more*The birth of Hezekiah Grice is celebrated on this date in c 1801. Hezekiah Grice was a Black abolitionist, machinist, and businessman. Grice was born in rural Calvert County, Maryland. Despite Maryland’s status as a slave state, Grice received some formal education and became a machinist. Grice migrated to Baltimore, where he became a mathematician […]
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