Henry Williams (b. circa 1806 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-3356
Accomplice to slave flight, Baltimore City, Maryland, 1843

Biography:

Baltimore police arrested Henry Williams, age thrity-seven, on March 2, 1843, for enticing a slave to run away.  While details of the case have yet to be recovered, Williams's implication suggests perhaps that free blacks and enslaved blacks, especially in Baltimore City, formed one community -- status did not necessarily divide them.  Not simply free, but free-born, Williams had no direct experience with slavery, yet he apparently kept the company of those in chains.  Growing up on Maryland's Eastern Shore (Somerset County) during a time of substantial transformation there, as the number of enslaved blacks declined, with the ranks of free blacks rose, also likely informed his perspectives on the Baltimore situation.  He apparently migrated to the city sometime during his early-twenties.

¹ SOMERSET COUNTY COURT (Certificates of Freedom) Henry, 1827, MSA SC 1744-1, MdHR 7244.
 

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