LAST - Slave to be recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act - Archer Alexander - Boston, MA
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silverquill
N 42° 21.087 W 071° 04.083
19T E 329671 N 4690869
Most people viewing this sculpture focus on Lincoln, but fewer know the story of the slave, Archer Alexander, who is represented here. This copy of the Thomas Ball original, was cast in 1877, and stands in Park Plaza in downtown Boston.
Waymark Code: WM79DB
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 09/22/2009
Views: 14
Archer Alexander was born in 1820 in Virginia, and sold as a slave to pay off a debt. Eventually he was inspired to escape to freedom. He was instrumental in saving a Union detachment by warning them of a sabotaged bridge designed to collapse as the troops crossed. After his escape, he made his way to St. Louis where he was hired by William Greenleaf Eliot during which time he became the last slave known to have been captured as a fugitive before the Emancipation Proclamation. Eliot wrote a moving biography of Alexander,
The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom, March 30, 1863
Archer Alexander served as the model, and is depicted as the slave in this famous sculpture by Thomas Ball.
From the Smithsonian Art Inventory - Emancipation Group
Ball, Thomas, 1819-1911, sculptor.
Royal Foundry, founder.
Modeled 1874. Cast 1877 or 1879
This sculpture is approximately 12 x 8 x 8 ft. with a base of approximately 12 x 10 x 10 ft.
The inscriptions read
THOMAS BALL SC 1874 FERD V. MILLER & SOEHUE, GEGOSSEN, MUSCHEN 1879
(Base of figure group) EMANCIPATION
(Front of base) A RACE SET FREE/AND THE COUNTRY AT PEACE/LINCOLN/ RESTS FROM HIS LABORS
(On back of base) Given to the City of Boston/by Moses Kimball/1879 signed Founder's mark appears.
A portrait of Abraham Lincoln standing by a kneeling male slave, his proper left hand raised as he is about to emancipate the slave. In his proper right hand, which rests on a bronze podium, Lincoln holds an unrolled copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. To the rear of the figures is a whipping post, chains, shackles, and a frayed whip. On each corner of the podium are faces and around the base of the podium are thirteen stars. A bas-relief of George Washington decorates the angled face of the podium and a Union shield decorates the inner face of the podium.
This sculpture is a copy after the original sculpture commissioned by the Freedman's Memorial Society and erected in Washington, D.C. in 1874. The 1877 casting was a gift to the city of Boston from Moses Kimball, the proprietor of the Boston Museum theater.
Control Number IAS 76008840
Additional information on the original sculpture from Smithsonian Art Inventory - Emancipation Monument
The head of the slave was modeled from a photograph of Archer Alexander, the last African American to be recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act.
The monument was erected by the Western Sanitary Commission of St. Louis at a cost of $18,000 which was raised solely by emancipated slaves. The idea for the monument came from Charlotte Scott, a freed slave from Virginia. She thought of the monument after hearing of Lincoln's assassination and was the first to make a contribution toward funding the piece. She contributed the first money she earned in freedom, five dollars, following the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
The sculpture was dedicated on the eleventh anniversary of Lincoln's assassination. The dedication ceremony was attended by President Grant and his cabinet and Frederick Douglass spoke.
IAS files contain a excerpt from F. Lauriston Bullard's "Lincoln in Marble and Bronze," New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1952, pg. 64-72 which describes in detail the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the monument. The sculpture was so popular that a duplicate was ordered for the city of Boston in 1877.