Peter Jackson (b. circa 1826 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-8288
Fled from Slavery, Dorchester County, Maryland, 1854
Biography:
Peter Jackson fled Dorchester County, Maryland in the winter of 1854. He escaped in late December from his owner, George Winthrop, a farmer who resided near Cambridge, Maryland. Winthrop possessed just three male slaves, as of 1850, when they were recorded in the census' slave schedule.1 The planter had actually advertised a $200 reward for the capture of the fleeing "negro man, called Peter," in November of that year. This fugitive, described as having "a dark chestnut color" and "very large feet," was most likely Peter Jackson.2 It was not uncommon for determined slaves to attempt to escape several times, with varying levels of success. If Winthrop was referring to the same man, it is unclear how or when he was returned to Cambridge.
Jackson's parents were free blacks, but Peter had been born before their emancipation.3 His friend Samuel Green Jr. was in a similar situation before he decided to flee Dorchester County in August of 1854, with directions supplied by Harriet Tubman. In fact, Green wrote a letter to his father that September imploring him to "tell P. Jackson to come on Joseph Baley com on."4 Unfortunately for the Green family, this letter was one of several documents that were used to implicate the elder man as an accomplice to slave flight in 1857. The prosecution would argue that Jackson's escape, and that of Joe Bailey in 1856, were evidence of Sam Sr's direct involvement.5 Luckily for Peter, Tubman returned soon after Sam Jr.'s flight, in order to retrieve her brothers from nearby Bucktown.
It is unclear exactly how Jackson was able to meet up with the other freedom-seekers. Word of Tubman's presence typically spread through certain elements of the Dorchester black community, so nearby slaves might have the opportunity to join. It is possible that Samuel Green Sr., or Harriet's father Ben Ross, had informed Peter of the good news. Both men, using their free status and in Green's case, literacy, to covertly assist in her rescue attempts. The group was composed of John Chase, Tubman, her brothers Robert, Ben, and Henry as well as Ben's fiancee Jane Kane. Jackson knew to meet them on Christmas Eve at Ben Ross's cabin in Poplar Neck, Caroline County, where they spent the day in a "fodder house" waiting for nightfall. In a retelling the story by biographer Sarah Bradford, Peter Jackson and John Chase were sent to alert "Old Ben" of their arrival.6 Ross fed them and led the fugitives part of the way toward Delware before they left him.
They stopped briefly at Thomas Garrett's Wilmington home, from which he hired a carriage to get them to Allen Agnew in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jackson and the rest were then forwarded to fellow abolitionist William Still, who operated in Philadelphia.7 Peter, like the others in the group, gave Still an alias that emulated a legendary name on the Eastern Shore. Recorded as Staunch Tilghman, Jackson was likely referring to Tench, a wealthy Talbot County landowner with a long family history in the area.8 It was not unusual for fleeing slaves to change their names, but most did not reflect the dominant class which had until recently oppressed them. Still wrote only briefly about Peter Jackson, remarking that Winthrop had worked the man "hard" and gained no respect from him because of it.9
From Philadelphia, Tubman led the group to New York City, then on to Albany and Troy further upstate. Utilizing the support of underground operators at each stop along the way, Jackson probably reached Canada some time in early 1855. He decided to drop the deceptive pseudonym soon after, confident in his freedom in the British territory. Peter Jackson appears in the 1861 Census, living in Harwich, Kent County, which was about 40 miles east of Detroit.10 He had married a fellow African-American, Ader, and there neighbors included many other United States' natives of color. He had remarried by 1871 to Keziah, another American immigrant.11 By 1881 Jackson was being listed as a farmer, as opposed to the many black and white "laborers" who lived in the vicinity.12 Presumably, this designation implied that Peter had finally acquired some land in his new country, an impressive accomplishment for the former slave. However, there is little else to illuminate the details of Peter Jackson's life or death in Canada.
Footnotes -
2. "$200 Reward" Cambridge Chonicle. 23 November 1850.
4. East New Market: Correspondance, 10 September 1854. <http://collinsfactor.com/newspaper/1854sep10.htm>.
5. Blondo, Richard A. Samuel Green: A Black Life in Antebellum Maryland. Unpublished M.A. Thesis. University of Maryland, 1988. MSA SC 2248
6. Sarah H. Bradford. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. Auburn, NY: W.J. Moses, 1869. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libaries: Documenting the
American South.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/bradford/bradford.html, p. 60.
7. Kate Clifford Larson. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman,
Portrait of an American Hero. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2004, pp. 112 - 116.
8. Still, p. 296.
9. Ibid.
10. Ancestry.com. 1861 Census of Canada, Kent County, Harwich, p. 493.
11. Ancestry.com. 1871 Census of Canada, Kent County, Harwich, p. 135.
12. Ancestry.com. 1881 Census of Canada, Kent County, Harwich, p. 116.
Return to Peter Jackson's Introductory Page
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