Maryland and the Civil War
In April of 1861, fighting between the north and the south began.    The Civil War had started.    A key issue in the war was slavery.    The north or Union states were anti-slavery.    Ten southern states seceded and formed their own government and they were pro-slavery.    States such as Maryland, Delaware,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and Missouri were border States.    The Civil War ended in 1865.    There were bad feelings between people in the North and South.    Many lives had been lost and many homes and farms had been destroyed.
President Lincoln issued the Emancipation  Proclamation on January 1, 1863.     Enslaved persons in the Confederacy were freed as a result.     Maryland's 90,000 enslaved persons were freed in  1864.     Anti-African American feelings were present after the emancipation.     In the late 1860's African Americans were forced out of public facilities.     The Freedom's Bureau provided food,   shelter, medical care,  and protection from whites for former enslaved persons.
The lives of Maryland's African Americans following the Emancipation Proclamation were very different from those in the states further South.     (The first census taken in Maryland in 1790 revealed 103,036 African Americans enslaved and 8,043 living free.)
Many enslaved persons had migrated to Baltimore City because of employment opportunities.    This was a period where African Americans faced many hardships.    Race relations during the post emancipation era were strained.    African Americans were completely unprepared for freedom.    They were freed without jobs,  homes, or plans for the future.    They needed many things very quickly - such as education, jobs,  and housing.    However,  each year African Americans maked gains,  learned and progressed despite obstacles.
Population Growth in Maryland
As industries grew,  people poured into Baltimore.    Maryland's total population in the 1870's was 780,894 people.    About 25 percent of the population was African American.    People from all over the country and immigrants swamped Maryland.    Working class people of all ethnic backgrounds earned low wages,   lived in overcrowded dwellings,  and suffered unhealthy conditions.    Many women took jobs to help make ends meet.
The Maryland and Liberian Connection
The establishment of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa was the logical outcome of humane whites with respect to the abolition of slavery.    The concept began after the first introduction of slavery into the Colony of Maryland. Abolitionists had the state to pledge the colonization as the state policy and appropriate a certain sum of those who volunteered to go to Africa.    Many manumissions were given with the condition that in a reasonable time the person set free should leave Maryland for Africa.     In  1843,  a clergyman of the Episcopal Church of Charles County,  brought a number of enslaved persons owned by him to Baltimore, and presented them for confirmation in St. James' First African Church to the late Bishop Whittingham.    The Bishop administered the rite,  immediately gave them their freedom on condition that they at once leave the county for Africa, which was done.
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