The Devil to Pay and No Pitch Hot

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the early nineteenth century, when African Americans were legally relegated to the extreme margins of society and the economy, Baltimore’s ship caulkers were a rare example of free blacks who dominated a skilled trade. The Ship Caulkers’ Houses, located at 612 and 614 S. Wolfe Street in Fell’s Point, are a tangible remnant of the world the caulkers inhabited and protected for the majority of the nineteenth century. The caulkers leveraged control of one trade to create and support a cohesive, stable community, despite their exclusion from participation in (white) civic life. Theirs is a story that is unique to Baltimore, and that has left few traces on the historical landscape of Fell’s Point. The Ship Caulkers' Houses are the last architectural and archaeological record of this important but largely forgotten free black community.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology