page_title: History of slavery in Maryland
section_title: Maryland left out of Emancipation Proclamation
hierarchical_section_title: History of slavery in Maryland / Civil War / Maryland left out of Emancipation Proclamation
caption_attribution_description: Summary Map of counties covered (red) and not covered (blue) by the Emancipation Proclamation.
context_page_description: Slavery in Maryland lasted around 200 years, from its beginnings in 1642 when the first Africans were brought as slaves to St. Mary's City, to its end after the Civil War. While Maryland developed similarly to neighboring Virginia, slavery declined here as an institution earlier, and it had the largest free black population by 1860 of any state. The early settlements and population centers of the province tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland planters cultivated tobacco as the chief commodity crop, as the market was strong in Europe. Tobacco was labor-intensive in both cultivation and processing, and planters struggled to manage workers as tobacco prices declined in the late 17th century, even as farms became larger and more efficient. At first, indentured servants from England supplied much of the necessary labor but, as their economy improved at home, fewer made passage to the colonies. Maryland colonists turned to importing indentured and enslaved Africans to satisfy the labor demand.
context_section_description: Emancipation remained by no means a foregone conclusion at the start of the war, though events soon began to move against slaveholding interests in Maryland. On December 16, 1861 a bill was presented to Congress to emancipate enslaved people in Washington, D.C., and in March 1862 Lincoln held talks with Marylanders on the subject of emancipation. Some Marylanders, such as Representative John W. Crisfield, resisted the President, arguing that freedom would be worse for the slaves than slavery. Such arguments became increasingly ineffective as the war progressed.
  On April 10, 1862, Congress declared that the Federal government would compensate slaveholders who freed their slaves. Slaves in the District of Columbia were freed on April 16, 1862 and slaveholders were duly compensated. In July 1862 Congress took a major step towards emancipation by passing the Second Confiscation Act, which permitted the Union army to enlist African-American soldiers, and barred the army from recapturing runaway slaves. In the same month Lincoln offered to buy out Maryland slaveholders, offering $300 for each emancipated slave, but Crisfield (unwisely as it turned out) rejected this offer.
  On September 17, 1862 General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland was turned back by the Union army at the Battle of Antietam, which was tactically inconclusive but strategically important. It took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Five days later, on September 22, encouraged by relative success at Antietam, President Lincoln issued an executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all enslaved people in Southern states to be free. The order went into effect in January 1863, but Maryland, like other border states, was exempted since it had remained loyal to the Union at the outbreak of war.
  Maryland remained a slave state, but the tide was turning. In 1863 and 1864 growing numbers of Maryland slaves simply left their plantations to join the Union Army, accepting the promise of military service in return for freedom. One effect of this was to bring slave auctions to an end, as any slave could avoid sale, and win freedom, by simply offering to join the army. In 1863 Crisfield was defeated in local elections by the abolitionist candidate John Creswell, amid allegations of vote-rigging by the Union army. In Somerset County, Maryland, Creswell outpolled Crisfield by a margin of 6,742 votes to 5,482, with Union soldiers effectively deciding the vote in favor of Creswell. The Civil War was not yet over, but slavery in Maryland had at last run its course. The abolitionists had almost won.
caption: Areas covered by the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation are shown in red. Slave holding areas not covered, including Maryland, are shown in blue.
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