A Tale of Four Families: The Black History of Early Birmingham Part II: Black but also Native American: The Farmer Family of Wayne County by Leslie Pielack* Four families. A broad heritage that includes enslavement in Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee; Native American tribal ancestors; and pioneer prosperity in early Michigan. Brought together through a special connection in late 19th century, a not widely known but enduring Black history legacy developed in Oakland County. This three-part article series will highlight recent findings about the Taylor, Cason, Farmer, and Harris families, and how they contributed to the story of Birmingham. Seeking the History of People of Color organizations have an uphill battle to try to gather information to tell a more inclusive story, since the materials are unlikely to have been preserved, and When local historical societies and museums were research can be quite difficult. being founded in America in the late 19th century, their focus was dominated by the European This was the situation we faced at the Birmingham museum model. What was seen as historically Museum when we tried to fill in the blanks about important consisted of fine arts and culture, local 19th century Black and Indigenous history in classical antiquities, scientific curiosities, and Oakland County. We knew we had merely scratched famous public figures.1 Museums generally sought the surface in what we had discovered about the unique, the special, and the influential for their George (1823-1901) and Eliza Taylor (1827-1902) displays and collections. The result is that most local (see A Tale of Four Families: The Black History of history collections have preserved artifacts that tell Birmingham, “Part I: The Taylors”). We desperately the story of the settlement of a community and its wanted to know more not only about the Taylors, male founders’ prosperity. The stories of everyday but other people of color that had settled the area. people, women, minorities, immigrants, and other We guessed that the Taylors, who lived in marginalized groups have historically not been of Birmingham for decades, might be more closely sufficient interest to receive museum resources. connected to similar families who had migrated here. We wondered about their connections to In the past few decades though, museums have other local freedom-seekers and abolitionists and to worked to be more inclusive, to tell stories of the the Underground Railroad in nearby Southfield and bigger picture. More resources are going into telling Farmington in Oakland County. As with our the whole story of a community, not just the previous efforts with the Taylors, we had to accomplishments of the privileged few. Now, when backtrack and discover historical connections Americans visit Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home at through a tedious process of elimination. But Monticello, they will also see the real tragedy of thankfully, we found excellent primary resources, enslavement that is part of that picture. Likewise, publications, and personal history through our visitors can visit the Tenement Museum to immerse contact with the Harris Family. Linking this material themselves in the historical experience of together in a bigger picture led us to the Farmer immigrants in New York City’s Lower East Side. family of Wayne County, who migrated from These are just a few examples of the shift in public Delaware in the mid-19th century. A retrospective interest and in the expanded role of the historical look at this family illuminates the key role they museum toward a broader brush that reflects a played in the Black and Indigeous history of early community’s bigger truths.2 But most local history lower Michgian.3 *Significant research contributions were made by Donna Casaceli, George Getschman, John Marshall, and Jacquie Patt, with extensive Harris family research information courtesy of Sheryl Ross Jackson via Ancestry.com. ©2021 The Birmingham Museum. All rights reserved. New Horizons Non-white and bi-racial people were present in significant numbers in the U.S. from earliest colonial It was a different world in Michigan in the middle of settlement, although not often well documented in the 19th century, yet in some ways it was the same official records. This is not only because of economic as we know today: individuals and families and cultural bias, but also because this population responded to economic and cultural pressure to had lower social status, less wealth, and were less relocate for better opportunities. At the time, likely to be landholders. They were rarely able to Michigan had only recently become a state. Large vote or hold public office. They may also have held tracts of land had been wrested away from the occupations that made them more mobile, such as Native American Indigenous people, and the federal laborers, sailors, or itinerant tradesmen. Or, for government was fully engaged in policies that political reasons, they were left out of records— encouraged migration and agriculture in former simply not deemed worthy of being officially wilderness areas. Farms in the east, which had been documented. cultivated for a century or more, were static or even Free People of Color in the Eastern U.S. Free people of color had formed isolated but stable communities in many parts of the eastern U.S. for generations. Intermarrying over time, they sometimes developed unique mixed-race cultural identities.5 These people were often found in former French and Spanish territories, and although having varied features, were often light-skinned individuals with part European ancestry whose mothers were free, or who had been freed by slaveholder fathers.6 Records of free people of color were kept in many slaveholding states in order to distinguish freed from enslaved people of African descent. These registers provide some records that assist Michigan became a state in 1837, and thereafter, researchers in identifying individual histories.7 experienced dynamic growth in agriculture and industry, However, these records do not account for those leading to increased migration from the East. (Mitchell, Tourist’s Pocket Map of Michigan, Philadelphia, 1835) who escaped enslavement or were not actively recorded. Thus, significant numbers of mixed-race declining, whereas the great western unknown of the country (Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and beyond) held rich promise. Religiously and culturally, the close quarters and entrenched prejudice of the East chafed those with a different vision of the good life. Youthful and progressive attitudes of social equity for women and people of color were emerging across a wide spectrum of American society. New ideas and opportunities incited the dreams of whole communities of people in the east, who looked to the west and hoped for better lives for their families and descendants.4 Free Blacks in slaveholding states had to be registered to It was in this environment that free people of color prove their free status. https://essaydocs.org/2-11-free- black-communities-blacks-in-the-south.html also began to seek other places to start new lives. Pielack, A Tale of Four Families: The Black History of Birmingham. “Part II: The Farmer Family of Wayne County” Page | 2 free people continued to live in small and isolated Multi-Racial People in the 19th Century communities, engaged in subsistence farming, and might not be reflected in official records of the time. Native Americans had frequently been enslaved The primary source of historical information for throughout colonial times, especially in territories their histories is family-centric and less accessible to controlled by the French, British, and Spanish.9 After outside researchers. the late 18th century, however, enslavement of Indigenous people was rare. However, successive Additional factors contribute to lack of documents waves of treaties left them without their traditional for these individuals. First, obstacles to land homelands and Indian Removal policies of the 19th ownership by people of color leave few property or century transplanted whole tribes to the far tax records. Furthermore, marginalization kept western frontier. This reduced their numbers and many people from being recognized through other their presence in the east. forms of documentation, such as newspaper accounts. Thus, the predominant transmission of While native people diminished, enslaved Africans increased in number. People of African American descent (both free and those escaping enslavement) formed small communties with Indigenous people and other free people of color.10 Their social status was limited by their mixed heritage as well as lack of education, although free people of color might be employed in skilled trades such as carpentry, masonry, or smithing. Farming, however, was their primary occupation. When opportunities opened up in Michigan and other western territories, these skills were especially desirable, paving the way for migrating people of color to be successful in their new communities.11 Census Inconsistency Indigenous people such as the Delaware Lenni-Lenape By the mid-19th century, the federal census began to were considered ‘foreigners’ and not counted in early classify all people of apparent mixed racial and census records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape#/media/File:Lenap cultural backgrounds simply as “Mulatto,” while e01. classifying those of apparent African American ancestry as “Black” or “Negro.”12 The catchall personal data and relationships was through family “Mulatto” categorization makes no meaningful and church records, oral accounts, and photos. Especially lacking is documentation for those of Indigenous descent, many of whom lived and died without being entered into official records. As disinherited and displaced native peoples, they were not considered American citizens until the 20th century; they were deemed “foreigners,” and had few rights. In early census records, they were grouped as a total number, without distinction of name or gender, as “Indians,” or were omitted In 1850, the U.S. Census instituted a category, 8 “Mulatto” to indicate persons of mixed racial heritage.