the face of emancipation...emancipation memorial emancipation group (boston) lincoln monument...

The Face of Emancipationand the Legacies of Archer Alexander

Eric Wilson, Rockbridge Historical Society

Or, The Faces of Emancipation:Local Legacies, Memorial Variations


Or, How We See When We See Monuments:Biographies, Histories, Community Contexts


Inspirations, Support, Community Commitments

RHS Local Black Histories

RockbridgeHistory.org

'What’s in a Name? That which we call …’People, Priorities, Proprieties

Archer Alexander

Alexander Property

Archer, Archey, or Archy

Mr. Alexander

The Alexander Family

The Alexander Families

Muhammad Ali’s Third-Great Grandfather

“Archer Was My Third-Great Grandfather”

Abraham Lincoln

President Lincoln

Abe Lincoln

Mr. Lincoln

The Great Emancipator

Honest Abe and Father Abraham

The Founder of the Republican Party

(1860s Rockbridge 2021 U.S. Capitol)

Emancipation Memorial(s): Sculptor Thomas BallOriginal, in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC, 1876 Replica, off Boston Common, 1879

Names Variously Attributed:People, Principles, Priorities

Freedom’s Memorial (DC Plaque)

Freedmen’s Memorial

Freedmen’s Monument

Freedman’s Monument

Emancipation Memorial

Emancipation Group (Boston)

Lincoln Monument

Lincoln’s Emancipation Memorial

“Emancipation Statue Removal Act”

Proposed H.R. Bill 7466 – Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 2020

Stalled in Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest, Public Lands (NPS Land, not DC)

Lincoln Park US Capitol White House and Ford’s Theater

Archer Alexander: 1876 Monument, DC d. 1880, St. Louis

Archer Alexander Moves West, 3-Family Caravan: Lexington Missouri, 1829 Enslaved, b. 1806, Virginia Self-Emancipated, 1863, Missouri Memorialized, 1876, D.C.

Lexington, VA & Rockbridge Estates: Cherry Grove RHSAlexanders, McClures, McCluers, McDowells: Property Exchanges, Shared and Mixed

Descendant Lines, 18th -21st Centuries

Keith (Alexander) Winstead, July 2019, at Rock Castle (L)Estate of Samuel LeGrand Campbell (Early W&L President)

with Tom Alexander (R) at Historic Cherry Grove Fairfield Estate of Gov. James McDowell, Alexanders

ArcherAlexander.blogDorris Keeven-Franke, St. Louis

ArcherAlexander.blog

Some Key Dates & Names: see ArcherAlexander.blog

Archer Alexander b. 1806 to enslaved parents Aleck & Chloe

Aleck owned, Archibald Alexander South River, Rockbridge Co

John Alexander inherits Aleck, Archer as human propertyAleck sold South ca. 1822.

Archer would never see his father again.

Mother Chloe died 6 months after Archer taken west in 1829.



Archer’s father Aleck sold South, said to have been:

“too uppity, and had somehow acquired the skill of being able to read, and talked about being free.”

Archer would never see his father again.

Mother Chloe died 6 months after

Archer taken west in 1829.


Washington College Markets 20 Slaves for Hire, 1826Several Alexanders served as early Washington College Trustees

Some Key Dates & Names: ArcherAlexander.blog

James Harvey Alexander inherits Archer, 1828

1829, first year of Andrew Jackson’s Presidency:

The growing settlement of the American middle West; America’s internal slave trade; and transformations of what variously came to count as ‘Jacksonian Democracy.’



1829 also brought $$ Problems for James Alexander

Like many in the Valley & in Virginia in those first post-colonial generations, the Alexanders and their kin looked West for new opportunity.

James and Nancy (McCluer) Alexander’s family formed a caravan with other McCluer, McClure, and Campbell family members: a two-month westward trek to Missouri through the Alleghenies, Louisville, Ohio River (‘Freedom’s River’).



55 Virginians, 25 of them enslaved, variously mixed and related, of various ages, would undertake the trek from Aug. 20, 1829, aiming to reach the Mississippi River, and its promise beyond.

Families were joined in the enterprise, but also broken. One enslaved child would be left en route, near Louisville. Several white Alexander children would be returned to Rockbridge County, after the death of their father in 1835.



Transcript of William Campbell’s travel journal is housed at Washington & Lee Special Collections (also available at ArcherAlexander.blog).

William: Son to Samuel LeGrand Campbell: Rector, Liberty Hall Academy ~ Washington Academy (future W&L), 1796-9. Owner, Rock Castle (pictured).

Samuel himself married an Alexander: Sarah, sister to Archibald Alexander, one of the family’s most celebrated members: 4th President, Hampden Sydney College, and founder of Princeton Theological Seminary.



In the caravan: Archer Alexander & future wife Louisa.

In 1822, Louisa is inherited by James Alexander’s wife, Nancy McCluer. On the journey Louisa was nurse to one of the McClure’s white infants, as well as Wesley, her own infant son with Archer.



In Missouri, Archer & Louisa enslaved to different families.

But they remained in written communication. See the extraordinary 1863 letter that she wrote him after his escape, asking to be freed, commenting on local politics .

They reunited after the War.

They are said to have 10 children.


Letter from Louisa Alexander to “My Dear Husband”: Nov. 16, 1863 He is ‘free’ still in hiding, she’s not. She hears news about his nighttime doings…

My [dear] Husband Nov. 20, 1863

I [received your] letter yesterday and lost no time in asking Jim if he would sell me and what he could take for me he flew at me and said I would never get free only at the point of the Bayonet. And there is no use in my ever speaking to him any more about it. I don’t see how I can ever get away except you send soldiers to take me from the house as he is watching me night and day.

Lucinda lives 4 miles beyond this side of Troy. I have her little boy Jimmy with me. I heard from M. Anne about 2 weeks ago she is Washington both well and doing well she has all her Children with her but the oldest one and he is expecting to go to her every day.

If I can get away I will but the people here are all afraid to take me away. He is always abusing Lincoln and calls him an old Rascall. He is the greatest Rebel under heaven. It is a sin to have him loose. He says if he had hold of Lincoln he would chop him up into Mincemeat.

I had good courage all along until now but now I am almost heartbroken. Dear Archy, I have said all that is nessessary now only give my Love to Aunt Mimy[?] and Judy, and I send yourself my best Love.

I am your [affectionate] Wife

Louisa Alexander

Answer this letter as soon as possible

Sam told me you were at Doctor Buckners last Saturday night. They are always telling some lies about you.


Louisa’s grave remains unknown.

Archer dies in 1880, buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery, St. Louis, near Washington University, which was founded by Archer’s fugitive protector and postwar friend & mentor, William Greenleaf Eliot.

Importantly, to us today, Eliot was the postwar administrator who Proposed Archer as the Sculpted Face of the Freedmen’s Memorial.

Importantly, to the newly emancipated Alexander family, the infant left in Louisville would play his own part in the quilt of American history.

In the arc of generational time, Wesley Alexander would become Great-Great Grandfather to these two men, both Louisville natives…


Archer Alexander: 3rd-Great Grandfather of Louisville natives Muhammad Ali & Keith Winstead (pictured at RHS Museum)

Feb. 1863: Archer Alexander warns Krekel’s Deutsch (Union Home Guard)He overhears & foils a pro-Confederate plot to destroy Peruque Bridge (above)

Timbers sawn through, to collapse under the next Union train

Missouri, 1863: Slaves Enlisted as Colored Troops Buena Vista Furnace, Rockbridge, 1863Loyal Unionists Paid for Enlisted Slaves: to be Freed, Post-War Sandi, Bryant, and Jerry …

Disloyal Pro-Confederates: Slave Property not Compensated … free themselves.

War Hero, Fugitive, Soldier, Contrabrand?

Who Emancipates Whom??

William Greenleaf Eliot: Unitarian Minister, Abolitionist, EducatorFounder, Washington University, St. Louis

Beaumont Place (Eliot Home): Refuge for Archer, under 1850 Fugitive Slave Act

Western Sanitary Commission, est. 1861 by Gen. John C. Fremont, Jessie McDowell Benton Fremont (b. Cherry Grove), James Yeatman, W.G. Eliot lead

During War, civilian funded WSC provides hospitals, supplies, soldier & civil servicesAfter War, like federal Freedmen’s Bureau: provides refugee & re-settlement services

Women’s Leadership & Growing Aid Societies

U.S. Sanitary Commission, Ladies’ Aid Volunteers, Louisville, 1865 Elizabeth Blackwell (America’s 1st accredited MD): Led USSC, Women’s Central Relief Assoc.

Charlotte Scott b. Enslaved in Lynchburg, VA Ohio Freedwoman d. Lynchburg, 1892

“Birth Mother” of the Lincoln~Emancipation~Freedmen’s Memorial

What Can Five Dollars Buy?? Monumental History

On the Day of Lincoln’s Death, April 15, 1865, Charlotte (freed and employed by her former owner, Dr. Rucker, now in Marietta, Ohio) gives him her first $5.00 saved wages to seed a memorial to Lincoln. All funds for the memorial are given by freed women & men, including veterans of the U.S. Colored Troops, totaling over $20,000.

In 1876, an estimated 25,000 attend the dedication ceremony on the 11th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Death, 3 miles from Ford’s Theater. Frederick Douglass gives the Dedicatory Address, praising the occasion, while balancing praise and criticism of Lincoln. President Grant attends. John Mercer Langston, co-organizer& first Black Congressman from Virginia, describes a parade of over 100,000.

Rise Up Push Back

In 1868, the 14th Amendment brought birthright citizenship and Equal Protection to all Americans, regardless of color. In 1870, the 15th

Amendment in 1870 guaranteed Black and white men the right to vote. But new state laws & constitutions would soon chip away at those new freedoms.

Federal Reconstruction ended just months after unveiling the “Freedom Memorial” in 1876. A brokered deal resolving a deadlocked Presidential election gave Republicans the White House, in exchange for removing federal troops & agents from the South.

Early Themes and Variations: Harriet Hosmer, proposed 1867: Lincoln Monument, with ‘Four Stages of the Negro’

Shackled Slave Field Laborer Contraband Aiding Union United States Soldier

Clark Mills: 1868 Model for Proposed National Lincoln Monument, D.C.

Tiered Structure with Lincoln Signing Emancipation Proclamation at Top

Civilian Politicians (Chase, Beecher) Statue Cycle from Slaves to Citizens Initial Allegory of Freedman Kneeling at Liberty’s Feet is Replaced with Realistic Statue of Frederick Douglass

Re-visioned Studies by Thomas Ball: Different Poses, Features

Note Classical Phrygian Cap/ ‘Liberty Cap’ / French Revolution MarianneUn-tensed Arms; Pose drawn from Classical Antiquity – Rituals for freeing Slaves

So WHY did the facial features and hair change? Did Lincoln’s?W.G. Eliot recommended Archer Alexander: in respect and earned trust.

Signals of Force:

Archer’s Now-Striking Musculature: Newly Flexed Arms, Legs, Neck … Not Lithe, but PoisedSnapped Manacles required more strength than fetters; his head older, slightly more raised.

The Self-Emancipated Figure’s is re-worked here: not Lincoln, or Washington… or the fasces (bound fascist sticks) that oddly counterpoint his broken bonds.

A Tale of Two Douglasses: 1876 Dedicatory Speech. Re-Visioning 1876 Letter to The National Republican

Who does he Suggest? What does He Suggest? Reasons Why?

Who rightly stands? Who is “pre-eminent”?

Emancipating Lincoln? Or Enfranchising Grant (not for Appomattox, but 15th Amendment) The Negro? *A* man? Couchant or Nude? A four-footed Animal?

Or … A Runaway (like Douglass himself)? U.S. Soldier (like his sons)?Or … Archer Alexander … Erect … Specifically Marked … not Archetypally??

Freeman Henry Morris Murray: Founding Member, Niagara MovementPioneering Black Journalist, Art Scholar, Civil Rights Activist in DC

Extraordinary Catalogue, Sensitive Critical Analysis … Where is Archer Alexander???

The Monumental Model

Archer is not just any well-connected Black citizen. Not just any former slave.He is a Model American Citizen who Freed Himself, in Wartime Service.

Archer’s histories, not visible in bronze, yet crucial to the narrative.

Recommended on Memorial Process & Contexts not just Memorial Artifact

“What Frederick Douglass Had to Say About Monuments”

~Jonathan White, Scott Sandage (Smithsonian, June 2020)

“Forgetting Why We Remember:

Memorial Day & Emancipation Days” (Nov. 2011)

“The South’s Fight for White Supremacy” (Sep. 2020)

~David Blight

“Of, By, and For the Freedmen:

On the Aesthetics & History of the Freedmen’s Memorial”

~Alan Guelzo, James Hankins (Oct. 2020)

Title & Subtitle: Re-Visioning Uneven Process, Unfinished Pursuit

Howard U. historian Joseph Reidy (2019) opens with Howard U. Charles Wesley (1940)Discussing Freedmen’s Memorial (1876), Founding of Howard (1867), 13th Amendment (1865)

Preface to Reidy’s Brilliant Argument @ Time, Place, Home

“The Emancipation Group,” Park Square, BostonReplica of Thomas Ball’s DC Original, Installed 1879

Donated by Moses Kimball, Museum & Entertainment Entrepreneur

Boston: Complements or Counterpoints?‘Emancipation Group’ stands SW of Boston Common

Col. Shaw & 54th Regiment Memorial (Glory) NE of Boston Common

Liberty’s Landscapes?

Robert Lowell’s 1964 Poem“For the Union Dead”

“their monumentsticks like a fishbonein the city’s throat…

he is out of bounds now

there are no monumentsto the last war here.”

2020 Removal: https://www.boston.gov/departments/arts-and-culture/emancipation-group

Parallel Moves: VMI Removes Parade Ground Statue of CSA Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Dec. 7, 2020

City of Boston Removes its Replica of ‘The Emancipation Group,’ Dec. 29, 2020

How do we See these Boston Statues Differently?

Subject, Location, Community

Does the Emancipation Group suffer by proximate comparison, visibility, familiarity?

Augustus St. Gaudens more known and revered sculptor than Thomas Ball

Robert Lowell writes defining American Poem about the War Memorial: “For the Union Dead”

Fair/Debatable to say War Memorials out-number, move people more than Freedom Memorials?

Does it Matter that Kimball was a Museum Director, not a Politican, not a Freedman?

Partner & Rival with PT Barnum: does this fuel into the narrative mix, national purpose?

Personal Thoughts

Why Boston Could Go Both Ways / Archer’s should Stand in DC

Not about Rockbridge Contexts. About Archer’s/ Boston/ DC-Specific Contexts

Because Contexts are Critical to Good Citizenship

Boston City Land & Civic Arts Commission vs. Federal Land~National Park Service

1879 Installation: Who Was There? Local Histories? National Histories? Black Histories?

Vietnam-Era Bomb Damage; 1960s & Boston Busing Riots, 1970s: Public Memory

#BLM & #SayTheirNames: Nationwide Protests & Riots, Summer 2020: Public Memory

Protests & Invasion of U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021: Public Memory

The Nation’s Capital vs. Boston Liberty? One? Both?

*Charlotte Scott Matters: Emancipated, Initiated, Invested

*U.S. Colored Troops’ Service & Freedpeoples’ Funds Matter: Volunteering Two Ways

*Frederick Douglass Matters: Dedicatory Speech & Re-Visions, Advocacy & Activism

*A Locally Killed President Matters: Reads Distinctly in Landscape of Nation’s Capital

U.S. Capitol (Built Civil War, Invaded 2021)- Ford’s Theater- Lincoln Park: All Matter

*Archer Alexander’s Known Features… Features of His Rising… His History: All Matter

#Black Lives Matter

Also Made to Matter, 1961 Plaque: ‘The Brave Men of Rockbridge County…who gallantly fought’ Centennial of 1861: 2 years before Rockbridge men were allowed to fight in U.S. Colored Troops

Lincoln Park, DC: June, 2020During nationwide protests against racial injustice, death of George Floyd

Congressional Bill HR 7466 proposed for “Removal of Emancipation Monument”

Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial: Lincoln Park, Washington DC, 1974Educator, Suffragist, Founder, National Council for Negro Women, 1935

When Installed, Freedmen’s Memorial turned East to face these 3: Named & Unnamed.

Who is She – Who are the Children – and How do they Matter?

“Rumors of War”: Kehinde WileyInstalled outside Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2019

Re-Visioning Frederick Moynihan’s Statue of CSA Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Monument Ave, 1907

Children Compose ‘Human Confederate Battle Flag’Postcard of crowd gathered below statue to Gen. R.E. Lee, Memorial Day 1907

United Confederate Veterans Reunion, Unveiling that Statue to Stuart, one block away.

Statue & Memorial to CSA Gen. Robert E. LeeSingle Richmond Graduate with Diploma & Salute

Monument Avenue, 2020

R.E. Lee Statue Re-VisionedNew Angles on Lee: 1951, Richmond’s Tallest Fire Ladder; 2020, Drone Photograph

Memorials Variously Moved, Adapted, Attacked, Added-On, Colored, Elaborated, Re-Visioned

Harold Holzer, November 19, 2017154th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg Cemetery

Deliberate // Discuss // Debate // Decide

As Individuals & As Communities

“Defiling or dislodging statues reflexively – instead of reflectively – eradicates not only the original impulse for commemoration but knowledge of the events themselves.

Is memory really worth obliterating – rather than comprehending and, where necessary, countering?

So … Where do we stand?

How do we see from Where we stand?

Who can we stand With, in Communities?

Where do we Want to stand … Ahead?

Amanda Gorman, First Youth Poet LaureateInauguration Poem for President Biden: Jan. 20, 2021

‘Lyric Memorial’ delivered on the Capitol Steps, Response to National Vision, ‘Insurrection’Exactly One Mile West from Archer Alexander, President Lincoln, Freedmen’s Memorial

Eric Wilson, RHS Executive DirectorDirector for History, VA Association of Museums

[email protected]

RockbridgeHistory.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.rockbridgehistory.org/

the face of emancipation...emancipation memorial emancipation group (boston) lincoln monument...

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