Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Rachel Baker
MSA SC 5496-51710
Petitioned for Freedom, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, 1802

Biography:

Rachel Baker was a slave in the early 19th century. In May, 1800 Rachel and her extended family challenged their bondage by John Philemon Paca and submitted a freedom petition to the Queen Anne's County Court. The case was eventually heard in 1802 and was the third of four related freedom petitions concerning a decades long illegal enslavement surrounding Wye Island. Her attorneys were William Carmichael and Richard T. Earle. 

A 1681 Maryland law stipulated that "all Children borne of such ffreeborne women, soe manymitted & ffree as aforesaid shall bee ffree as the women soe married"; this legal discrepancy between mulattos borne of free mothers with slave fathers and mulattos borne of free fathers and slave mothers established a precedence that freedom passes through the maternal line no matter how many generations removed.1 Baker claimed her mother, known was "Indian Mary" or "Indian Moll," was free. Baker's petition used this precedent to invalidate the bondage of herself, her sister, and most of her known children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren owned by Paca.

Rachel Baker and others v. John Paca

Indian Mary was a servant for Philemon Lloyd Chew's plantation on Wye Island. Philemon Lloyd Chew died childless in 1770 and bequeathed the property to his sisters, which included the first wife of future Maryland governor William Paca.2 Many of Indian Mary's descendants were likely inherited by the dependent John Paca following the 1799 death of his father. William Paca bequeathed a plantation and money to his daughter Henrietta Maria Addison, specifically named slaves to several nieces, and the remainder to his executor, John, probably granting him most of the 92 slaves recorded in his father's 1790 federal census record.3 One of the slaves granted to his niece Betsy Paca shares a name with Baker's co-petitioner, Betty.4 In 1800 John Paca owned 118 slaves in Queen Anne's County.5

Baker and her attorneys likely entered into evidence a transcript of Tom Carver v. Samuel Lloyd Chew, a freedom petition suit filed by her grandson in 1794. In this testimony, the widow Elizabeth Chew stated that a slave named Margaret was pregnant when her deceased husband (also named Samuel) acquired Margaret from Wye Island.6 She further stated that Tom was Margaret's son and claimed "Margaret was a free woman, free as any body."7 She verified this with Samuel Chew's sister, and thus Samuel Lloyd's aunt, Mary Hepburn of Upper Marlborough. Hepburn told her that "Margaret certainly is a free woman and no slave [because] her mother [Rachel] was the daughter of an Indian woman a native of this country" and brought up in the family of Philemon Lloyd Chew on Wye Island.8 

The jury found in favor of Rachel Baker and her fourteen co-petitioners. They were freed and awarded $39.48 and one third cents.9 Because freedom only passed on the maternal line, no spouses of these slaves would have been affected by the ruling. For a family tree of the eighteen slaves who claimed descent from Indian Mary click the "Images" link in Baker's introductory page. 

Sources:

1. Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, September 1681.  "An Act Concerning Negroes & Other Slaves." Archives of Maryland Online, Vol. 7, p. 203, http://aomol.net/000001/000007/html/am7--203.html

2. PREROGATIVE COURT (Wills) 1769-1780, WD 2 p. 473, 01/11/02/002 [MSA S538-53]

3. Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census, Queen Anne's County, 1790 p. 26
    ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills) 1797-1813, J.G. no. 2, p. 101-2, 01/04/06/021 [MSA C153-6]

4. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills) 1797-1813, J.G. no. 2, p. 101-2, 01/04/06/021 [MSA C153-6]

5. Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census, Queen Anne's County, 1800 p. 26

6. COURT OF APPEALS (Judgments, Eastern Shore) S380-28 No. 19 Richard Jones vs. Robert Moody Jun. 1813, p. 22, 01/63/09/013  [MSA SC 4239-1-5]

7. Ibid., p. 35

8. Ibid., p. 35-36

9. Ibid., p. 52

Researched and written by Alex Champion, 2013
 

Return to Rachel Baker's Introductory Page


 
 
 


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