Slavery at Fort Hunter - Dauphin PA - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

Side 1-Slavery at Fort Hunter- From 1786 to the early 1830s, over twenty enslaved people lived and worked at Fort Hunter. Their parents and ancestors had been stolen from Africa. The McAllister family, who created all of Fort Hunter’s earliest surviving buildings, was one of the largest slave owners in Dauphin County. Along with free laborers, Blacks worked on the Fort Hunter plantation-farming, cooking, and running the dairy. Among them were at least two families, the Craigs and the Jenkins. At that time Fort Hunter included a farm, a tavern, a distillery and a mill.
Sall Craig fled from Fort Hunter bondage in 1828 when she was about 60. Although owned by the McAllisters since she was a girl, they had planned to sell her because of financial reversals. The sales advertisement described her as “strong and active of her age…an excellent washer, baker and cook and understands the management of a dairy and soap boiling.” By then small communities of free Blacks had formed in nearby Harrisburg and Halifax. Perhaps they provided aid and refuge to Sall, but nothing more is known of her story.

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This woman ran away from slavery, just like Sall Craig had.
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In 2014, ground penetrating radar identified a total of nine graves, four of which are unmarked at the African American cemetery that was once part of the Fort Hunter property.

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Known enslaved people that once lived at Fort Hunter;
Cato, Charles, Andrew Craig, Eliza Craig, Lucy Craig, Sall Craig, Daniel, George Hoofnagle, Hetty Gray, Isaac, Jack, son of Cato, James, Jem, Judy, Hallie Jenkins, Jack Jenkins, Maria Murry, Mary, Nance, Ned, Tyra.

Side 2-Pennsylvania Slavery-Slavery was entwined with Pennsylvania’s earliest colonial history. Governor William Penn, founder of the colony in 1681, owned eleven enslaved people. A century later, Pennsylvania passed the 1780 Gradual Emancipation law. This allowed for the eventual freedom of the children of the enslaved. A child born in 1780 or later would be free by the age of twenty-eight. Most northern states had passed similar laws by the early 1800s.
Enslaved people worked on farm and in taverns, in craftsmen’s shops and as servants. The majority lived in or around Philadelphia, where slaves were imported. The 1790 census recorded 6,537 free Blacks and 3,737 enslaved Blacks. By 1810 on 795 enslaved people lived in the state, although the total Black population had doubled. Slavery ended in Pennsylvania by the late 1840s.

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1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery

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William Penn, Governor of Pennsylvania

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This lithograph depicts the London Coffee House in Philadelphia, which was a common selling location for merchants and slave traders.
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This powerful woodcut image comes from an 1837 anti-slavery poem titled, “Our Countrymen in Chains.”

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Pennsylvania provided a glimmer of home for slaves escaping via the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman once said, “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”

Side 3-United States Slavery-At the birth of the United States in the 1770s, slavery was firmly embedded in its fabric. Blacks stolen from Africa were shipped to America as part of a lucrative trade system. Most enslaved people lived in the South, but about 10% lived in the North. By 1810 the population of free Blacks in the North had risen greatly because of the spread of abolitionist ideology.
After 1810 the use of the cotton gin made cotton a lucrative Southern crop. This dramatically increased the need for enslaved labor. By the time of the Civil War in the 1860s, slavery had polarized the nation into free and slave states. The struggle over slavery, especially its expansion into more western territories, was the fuel that ignited the Civil War. By its outbreak in 1861, 4,000,000 enslaved people toiled in the United States. The Proclamation of Emancipation, issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, played a key role in ending slavery nationwide.

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Proclamation of Emancipation transcript

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This is an example of what slave quarters would have looked like,
basic with no major luxuries.
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This was what a typical ship looked like that was used in the slave trade during the 18th century.

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Slave distribution according to the 1860 census.

Group that erected the marker: Dauphin County Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: River Road On the grounds of Fort Hunter Park Dauphin , PA USA 17018 URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   09/27/2021 Don.Morfe visited it