John Chase (b. 1827 - d.
?)
MSA SC 5496-944
Fled from servitude, Caroline County, 1852
Biography:
John Chase was a young African-American man who was apprehended in Harford County in 1854, charged with being a runaway. The committal notice recorded by Sheriff John S. Dallam asserts that Chase is "about 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, and has a dark scar on his cheek".1 It also states that he formerly belonged to Hall Barnaway of Denton, and "had left him about March, 1852." That individual was actually Hall Bonwell, a millwright living in Caroline County as of 1850.2 The Federal Census indicates that Bonwell did not technically possess any male slaves at that time, nor did any free blacks in his household correspond to this individual. However, county records show that John Chase's experience in bondage was as an indenture, whose legal rights were quite similar to those of a slave at that time.3 Indentures, most often orphaned or impoverished children, were still obliged to obey their master who could enforce extended servitude, physical punishment, or sale of their services.
Chase was originally bound out in January, 1836 to a free black man named James Truckson. The boy, who was only eight at the time, was contracted to serve until age twenty one to be taught the "art, trade and mystery of farming."4 Truckson would sell his apprentice to Hall Bonwell in September 1848, for $50. The timing of the sale is curious considering that John Chase would turn, or had already turned twenty one that year. The county indenture record makes no mention of this fact, or of any reason that Chase's servitude may have been extended. Therefore, it is difficult to how and by what means he ultimately ended his service with Bonwell. There is also no official record of any owner retrieving Chase from custody in Harford County. Nor is there a certificate from Bonwell to confirm that the black man was ever conferred free status in Maryland.
Chase may have been able to
somehow prove, perhaps
with help from his former master, that he was indeed a free man whose
previous
indenture had elapsed once he turned 21. It is also possible that he
was
drawn back into some form of forced servitude. However, there is little
to clarify the details of his life after the 1854 arrest. John Chase's
situation is indicative of how being a free African-American in
Maryland
did not preclude an individual from being treated like a slave. Whites,
particularly after the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Law in
1850,
aggressively guarded against the steady flow of blacks seeking freedom
to the north. Simply being an unfamiliar face in the county may have
aroused
the suspicion that got John Chase committed as a "runaway" in
1854.
Researched and Written by David Armenti, 2011.
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to John Chase's Introductory Page
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