Main Points
- Free Black people were much more constricted than the white population.
- They were required to have a certificate of freedom with them at all times.
- George Pointer helped build the canal and locks at Great Falls, Virginia, which was one of the largest infrastructure projects in the young country.
- The Potomac Canal was briefly successful but was eventually sold to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company.
- Pointer ferried President John Quincy Adams to the inauguration of the C&O Canal.
- Sometime in the 1830s George Pointer and his wife died, possibly from the 1832 cholera epidemic that killed many free Black people living on the banks of the Potomac.
“…my master Told me, that if I would pay him 300$ In a given time that I should be my Own man, which I did out of the Hard earnings I Received from the company…” 1
As a free man, George Pointer could keep his wages and own property, but he couldn’t own a dog or a gun without a special license and he couldn’t attend meetings that were led by Black people. Such racial laws created a cramped corner for their lives, but at least they didn’t have to share their corner with an owner.2
In 1793 when Pointer was freed, 98 percent of free Black people in Maryland were enslaved. Therefore, free Black people had to carry proof that they were legally freed. But there is no evidence that he ever had a certificate of freedom perhaps because it would be expensive for his former owner to obtain. That meant, however, that Pointer would have to rely on white friends and employers to vouch for his freedom. That may be one reason why he continued working for the Potomac Company where he was well known.
Pointer worked at the formidable Great Falls of the Potomac digging the canal and locks to help the cargo boats descend the river safely. It was one of the most adventurous infrastructure projects in the young country. The locks at Great Falls opened in 1802 and commerce grew steadily for a decade. The port of Georgetown also thrived with all of the cargo reaching it from the upper Potomac River Valley.3
The Potomac River flooded regularly, however, damaging the canal and locks. In 1819 the river also damaged George Pointer; his leg broke while he was ferrying heavy stones from Seneca Falls down to the Little Falls.4
Undoubtedly, he walked with a bad limp for the rest of his life. By 1828 the Potomac Company was bankrupt, but the Georgetown merchants still wanted the valuable trade from the upper Potomac. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company assumed the Potomac Company’s assets and began building a better canal. That year on July 4th George Pointer piloted a canal boat carrying President John Quincy Adams to the mouth of the Little Falls for the ceremonial groundbreaking of the new canal company. He was accompanied by his 8-year-old granddaughter, Mary Ann, who many years later remembered meeting the president. 5
The next year George Pointer wrote the board of the C&O Company to ask them to divert the digging of their new canal around his home just north of their Lock Six. His 1829 letter summarized his career with the Potomac Company and their records verified all of his details. Although there is no mention in the board’s minutes of his letter, the next year the decennial census recorded George Pointer and his wife and granddaughter living in the same place with the same neighbors.6
Sometime in the 1830s George Pointer and his wife, Betty died. One possible cause of their deaths was the 1832 cholera epidemic. Periodic epidemics swept across the growing towns of the new country. The port of Georgetown was particularly hard hit and the disease spread up the banks of the Potomac. One doctor said that the “colored population, especially the free blacks” were particularly affected. Since GP was well-known among the Potomac River communities this medical observation may have been his informal obituary.7
Did you know…?
- Some free Black people were captured by unscrupulous men and sold back into slavery.
- The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal used some of the channels of the defunct Potomac Canal in Maryland.
- The building of the Potomac Canal at Great Falls, Virginia was considered one of the most important infrastructure investments in the young United States.
Questions for Students
- Why would President John Quincy Adams want to attend the ceremonial groundbreaking of the C&O canal?
- Why were there so many legal restrictions on free Black people? What was the government afraid of?
- Why did slave owners fear the slave revolution in Haiti? Why did Congress prohibit the international slave trade in 1808?
- Why would owners not want to buy a certificate of freedom for their former slaves. What might be the results of a freed slave, like George Pointer, not having proof of their freedom?
- Why was it important for freedmen to have white friends who could verify their freedom?
- What happens today if you break your leg? How does that compare with the 18th and 19th centuries? What would be the consequences of a broken leg then?
- What are the many ways to die in the 19th century before penicillin and vaccines?
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Endnotes
- George Pointer, “Petition of Captain George Pointer to the President and Directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, September 5th, 1829,” Record Group 79, entry 262, National Archives, Washington, DC.
- Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green, Between Freedom and Equality, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021, p. 23.
- Torrey and Green, 29
- Torrey and Green, 30
- Torrey and Green, 33
- Torrey and Green, 35
- Torrey and Green, 36
Other Sources
- Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the 19 the Century, New Haven: Yale University Press. 1985.
- Dan Guzy, Navigation on the Upper Potomac River and Its Tributaries. Glen Echo, Maryland: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Association, 2008.