Q&A with William G. Thomas III, author of ‘A Question of Freedom’

In the United States, enslaved people and their families used court systems to fight for their freedom. Here's a look at some notable examples.

Many Americans may be surprised to learn that enslaved people in the United States used the court system to fight for their freedom. University of Nebraska historian William G. Thomas III highlights such lawsuits against Jesuits in Maryland in “A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery From the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War.” He discussed the book with Monitor correspondent Randy Dotinga.

Q: You write that Maryland, which remained in the Union during the Civil War, was a major slave state. What should we know about its history? 

Maryland had the third largest enslaved population in the nation – more than 100,000 – in 1790. Only Virginia and South Carolina had more enslaved people. Slavery defined every aspect of Maryland’s society in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It was deeply established on the state’s Western Shore, where tobacco was the cash crop. 

Q: How did the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic religious order, become involved in slavery? 

They began to buy, sell, and hold slaves in South America. When they came to Maryland to start missions in the 17th century, they quickly became slaveholders. Other churches came to be slaveholders too, but the Jesuits were among the largest slaveholders in Maryland during this period. 

Like many others, the Jesuits were unable to reckon with the moral problem of slavery. They fought these lawsuits bitterly and to the end.

Q: How difficult was it for enslaved people to challenge their owners in court?

It was an extraordinary act of courage, faith, and principle. This legal struggle for freedom shows us that slavery was fought and contested as a matter of law from the nation’s founding, and even before the nation’s founding. 

The common experience of these slaves was family: They had established, loved, nurtured, and built families across several generations in the 18th century despite enslavement – and within enslavement. They were determined to keep their families together, stay rooted in this part of Maryland, and resist the destruction of their families that the slave trade and slavery itself posed on a daily basis.

Q: Does this cast a different light on the efforts made by enslaved people?

Yes. Enslaved families were the driving force in their quest for freedom. The lawsuits were brought by people like Charles Mahoney, a fifth-generation descendant of a free Black woman. He did the legwork to bring his freedom petition before the courts: He found witnesses and sat in on every deposition that was taken in his case. He was freed by a jury trial, but that [decision] was reversed. Ultimately, he negotiated for his freedom with the Jesuits after the final trial and then went to Washington to work and build up enough wealth to purchase his daughter’s freedom. 

This is a man whose quest extended well over 20 years. More than any other Marylander of his day, he brought before the public the question of freedom and the moral problem of slavery.

Q: Why is it important to understand the stories of these families and their lawsuits? 

This story shows us that freedom was contended for. It wasn’t inexorable. It wasn’t inevitable. It was achieved. 

Q: What do their descendants say? 

They are the living testimony to the significance of the story. There’s no question that they want greater honesty in American society, from all of us, about the history of American slavery.