Throughout the 1800s, a growing fear of slave rebellion inspired owners to become increasingly vicious. By 1860, an estimated eight hundred slaves had escaped bondage in the state. Uprisings and rebellions by enslaved Black people led to backlash, and slavers murdered, shot, whipped, and tortured African Americans. Free Black people were a direct threat and contradiction to white Marylanders’ way of life, and some groups began to advocate for the exile or re-enslavement of free Black people. To be Black in America then was to live in a daily state of degradation, violence, and trauma. For
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