An 1832 Maryland census, taken specifically to count free African Americans across the state, is among the sources that historians use in researching Maryland’s black history. This census was not part of the U.S. Census; instead, its specific purpose related to the so-called “colonization” movement—encouraging free African Americans to leave America and settle in Liberia, in Africa. It was also a reaction to Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 in Virginia.
Unlike the federal Census, which until 1850 named only heads of households, the 1832 free black census named everyone it counted, in most counties. This level of detail, of course, is extremely valuable to historians and genealogists. In some Maryland counties, the 1832 census also recorded ages, or grouped people by household—additional useful info. (Unfortunately, in a few counties the 1832 census-takers chose to follow federal Census practice and named only the head of household.)
Serious Undercounting
When I started using the 1832 census, I didn’t think very critically about it. When I looked for a person in it, and couldn’t find them, it didn’t worry me unduly. All censuses miss people, and minority populations are undercounted more than the white majority. My sense from working with the mid-nineteenth censuses in western Maryland was that free African Americans were definitely, perhaps significantly, undercounted there.
But recently the people missing from the 1832 census began to worry me more. I wondered whether anyone had compared the 1832 census with the U.S. Census taken just two years earlier, in 1830. (To be clear, the population number in those two years would have been very similar.) It’s very likely that someone has done this, but in an admittedly quick search I couldn’t find any scholarship on the topic. Still, doing the task myself was simple: all I had to do was compare the total number of people.
In 1832, the sheriff (who served as census-taker) counted about 270 free people of color in Washington County, Maryland. Two years earlier, the U.S. Census enumerators had counted 1,082 free people of color. Whoa!
I’m a historian of Washington County, so that’s the information I need: The 1832 census is nowhere near a complete census. It’s just a list of less than a quarter of Washington County’s free black residents.
Using the 1832 Census
Conclusion: while it’s great to have the names listed in the 1832 record, by no means is this a full census. Now, the 1832 record may be much fuller for some of Maryland’s other counties (I have other work to do, so I’m not going to dig into the 1832 numbers for those other places). But if you’re using it for other counties, I suggest you look at how its county numbers compare with the total black population in the 1830 federal Census, to know how to understand the 1832 census for your county.
If you’d like to use the 1832 census for Maryland yourself, it’s been published in book form as Free African-Americans of Maryland, 1832, by Jerry M. Hynson (Westminster, MD, 2007). The book is available in libraries, especially those with local history collections. In Washington County you can find it in the county library system and at kinship, the genealogical research center of the Washington County Historical Society. Some counties’ 1832 data are findable online. The original 1832 census returns are held at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly the Maryland Historical Society); the Maryland State Archives has scans of some of them.
And no information exists in a vacuum, so here’s a link to my blog post on using the U.S. Census and similar records.
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