Benjamin Thomas (b. ? -
d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-5934
Fled from slavery, Queen Anne's County, 1848
Biography:
Benjamin Thomas, a slave of William Golt in Queen Anne's County, attempted to flee with his wife Ann Thomas, a slave of Theodore Lockerman in Talbot County, and their two small children John (18 months) and Josephine (9 months) on October 15, 1848. Also captured in the attempt were Henry Murray, a slave of Maria Rodgers in Talbot County, Dick Simmons and Nelly Simmons, both slaves of Margaret Goldsborough in Talbot County. Despite being enslaved, Thomas had hired himself out in Baltimore City to Charles Hirsch, received his own wages, and was “permitted…to go at large” in Talbot where he had been hired out by his master.
One day Thomas asked Hirsch to grant him and his family a pass to visit Philadelphia, assuming he would comply as Hirsch had previously written him a pass to Philadelphia. Thomas went to retrieve his family in Easton along with “several other colored persons” who sought to accompany the family. Becoming suspicious, Hirsch informed the group to meet him at the corner of Camden and Charles Street and arranged Baltimore authorities to meet there as well. This intersection is significant because it was footsteps away from one of the largest slave pens in Baltimore, owned by Jonathan Wilson, who often dealt slaves to Hope Slatter and Joseph Donovan to be sold South.
Perhaps skeptical of the location, Thomas never showed. He instead went to the Pratt St. Depot and to the office of James E. Work, a carpenter to whom he had also hired himself out, to ask him to grant the pass. Authorities soon discovered the group in Work’s office. The fugitives were arrested on October 17, 1848 for attempting to escape and brought into custody at the Baltimore City Jail as runaways. Initially Benjamin Thomas, his wife Ann, and Henry Murray were each charged with violating an 1847 state law which made it a felony to escape from one's owner with the intent to "deprive the master or mistress of his or her services." The law also gave authority to the county sheriff to sell the captured runaway, pay the "necessary expenses for arrest," and issue the remaining balance to the owner.
Theodore Lockerman, Ann's owner, appealed her indictment and petitioned Governor Phillip Francis Thomas to grant a nolle prosequi, a term loosely translated from Latin to mean "do not prosecute," so that he could bypass the expense of arrest and instead sell Ann and her two children out of the state himself. Gov. Thomas agreed and on October 24, 1848 granted a nolle prosequi only on the condition Lockerman sell her "beyond the limits of the State of Maryland." Judge Philemon B. Hopper of Queen Anne’s County petitioned the Governor for the same order in the case of Benjamin Thomas. Gov. Thomas issued a nolle prosequi to Benjamin on October 27, 1848 under the same provisions as Ann. Maria Rogers followed suit, securing a nolle prosequi for Henry Murray on the grounds he would be sold out of state.
There is evidence based on slave ship manifests from Ralph Clayton’s Cash for Blood that both Benjamin Thomas, whose alias was John Wilson according to the Talbot County Criminal Record, and Ann were indeed shipped out of state on November 18, 1848 from Flanigan’s Wharf in Baltimore aboard the barque Elizabeth bound to New Orleans.
Return to Benjamin Thomas' Introductory Page
|
Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
|