Down the Rabbit Hole: Federal Census Articles

When the Legacy of Slavery Program was awarded grants from both the National Park Service Network to Freedom and the Department of Education Office of Post Secondary Education's Underground Railroad Education and Cultural Program one of its core goals was to mine the United States Federal Census from 1830 through 1880 to identify free and enslaved African Americans who lived before and after the American Civil War. This task has involved summer interns, full time staff, and volunteers. Adding the names and demographics of thousands of black Marylanders to a searchable online database has been a boon to scholars, students, authors, and family historians. This resource offers the opportunity for researchers to uncover where and how enslaved blacks resided when they were bound to servitude and where and how they chose to live when free. Did they remain where perhaps generations of their families had lived or did they move elsewhere to begin a new life? To date, Archives professional and volunteer staff members have addressed 14 of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions in this effort. Down The Rabbit Hole specifically engaged volunteers to continue this project under the supervision of full time Legacy of Slavery staff. These articles represent a small sample of the stories they discovered along the way.

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