Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Joe Carroll (b. circa 1807 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-050611
Part of large slave flight from Poolesville area, Montgomery County, Maryland, 1831

Biography:

In September 1831, Joe Carroll fled his enslavement along with five other slaves: Collin Brooks, Tobias Martin, Clem Proctor, and the brothers Sandy Swine and George Swine. The slaveholder William Vinson, whose farm stood in the Medleys District of Montgomery County, placed an advertisement in the Daily National Intelligencer for the fugitives' capture. He described Carroll as "about 24 years old, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches in height, a square, stout built fellow, complexion not so dark as Collin's."1 Vinson added that all six wore clothing "usual to plantation hands this season." These escapes directly followed the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia in August 1831.3
 

1.     "150 Dollars Reward." Daily National Intelligencer 14 September 1831: 3.

2.     Albert Bushnell Hart. Slavery and Abolition: 1831 to 1841 (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906) 218.
  

Researched and written by Rachel Frazier, 2010.

Return to Joe Carroll's Introductory Page

© Copyright  Maryland State Archives