Reaction to Emancipation

Letter sent to Hugh Lennox Bond, judge of the Baltimore Criminal Court and a prominent antislavery unionist. Sandy Point, Maryland Novr 6th 1864

Sir
i wish to impose A few moments on your Valuable time By Speaking  to you after this maner; I Have bein Living or Rather Staying on the Bay Shore about Seven miles N. East From annapolis in the midts of a people  Whose Hearts is Black in treason and a more fearless peopel for Boldly  Expressing it Lives not outside of the Hosts that Bare Arms in upholding it.

Since we the people have Proclaimed that Maryland Should Be free the  Most Bitter Hatred has bein Manifested againest the poor Devils that Have  Just Escaped from beneath there Lash there actions Since Tusday Last [Marilyn State constitution abolishing slavery went effect Nov. 1] Indicates to me that there is all Ready Orginized Bands Prowling apon Horse   Back around the Country armed with Revolvers and Horse Whips threatning to  Shoot every Negroe that gives Back the first word after they Lacerate his  flesh with the Whip;i have bein told By Several Pearsons that a man By the  name of Nick Phips on Last Wesnsday the first Sun That Rose apon the [wrech]  in hes fredom after years of Bondage took in the Seller of Tom Boons the  Post Master of St Margrets a negroe Woman stript her and with a Cow Hyde  Lasarated her flesh untill the Blood ozed from every cut and She with in a  Month of giveing Burth to a child She appeared Before Court with the Blood  Still Streaming from her To Cover his guilt he ivents a Charge ;She is thrown in prson and he goes free;the Same parties caught a Man By the name of Foster Eight Miles from annapolis hand cuffed him and Drove him before  them and they on Horse With Such Rapidity that when he got to Severen Ferry  he fell apon the Beach Exausted Covered with foam;and this Man was Born freethis mans offence was [to say] that he nor no wife of his Should be Treated in that maner without avenging it. What i have bein trying to get at is this;Saml Richardson has taken to annapolis four Childern of one of his Slaves;apon the face of the Mothers Ojections in court he has  had them Bound to him after She stating that all the cloth they had on were  By her after Night;there is a woman down heare By the name Yewel She is allso Demanding of the wiman She has turned without a stich of winters  clothing all there childen to be bound to her When she cannot get Bread for  her Self On friday there was upwards of hundred young Neagroes on the  ferry with there old Masters draged away forseble from there parents for the purpose of Haveing them Bound

a number of other cases i could cite that i Will Not Bother you with

In the Name of Humanity is there no Redress for those poor ignorant down troden Wreches. Is this or is it not Involuntarey Slavery; you may juge what for peopels they are for ever cent worth i purchase i have to get in Baltimore they will neather Lend give nor Sell me any thing not even a  ho[r]se to go for a Doctr if my wife to be confined unfortunatly that acurs every Eleven or Twelve Month's I would not stay heare if i could possible get away unkel Sam has got me stuck down heare on three hundred and fifty a year you may Juge how much i save out of that there is five Rooms in the house and each one you can pick up three or four Children I am the only union man within ten miles of my Residence you may guess the feelings of my neighbours towards me Some folks in Baltimoe to see this Letter would hint that it was a fathers interest, manifested in young darkies but it not so every one of them are Jett Black and every knot of wool that groes on there Heads Both ends groes in there Schull therefore there is no anglow Saxon in them .

Yours ,

Thos B. Davis

PS  please tender my kind Regards to Archabald Sterling Esqr and Excuse my famieliarty; tell him i walked Seven miles to annapolis and Back come to Baltimor and voted for him; cost six dollars & could do him no good he will be all Right nex time
T B Davis

Published in The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Upper South , pp. 511-13,  and in  Free at Last , pp. 370-72.