"The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

[L Verge]

The most slaves that we can verify that the Surratts had were seven, and we know that one of them was rented. However, that was a significant amount for a family of modest, middle-class means in those days. Like many, however, Mr. Surratt inherited most of his slaves from the foster parents who had raised him.

The economic effect that Mrs. Surratt's slaves had on her way of life can be seen in the fact that the last of the Surratt slaves (who had not escaped to freedom in D.C.) were emancipated on November 1, 1864, under the new state constitution. Within a month, Mrs. Surratt was packing up and leaving her farm life in Surrattsville for city life as a keeper of a boardinghouse.

For the next hundred years, Southern Maryland's economy was largely based on tenant farming and share cropping - a paid form of enslavement in many ways. It took the downfall of the tobacco industry here to break down that system. It also brought the death knell of the last, large-acreage farms held by families in this area. In came the developers (mostly from out of state), and huge subdivisions replaced our tobacco fields. Those few old-timers who kept their acreage turned to corn, wheat, and soy beans.

As for black owners of black slaves, our county had one such person who owned over a hundred acres and a good amount of slaves in an area that is about three miles from the D.C. line. History books somehow forget to mention little details like that.