African Jackson Cemetery | |
![]() Gravestones in the cemetery | |
Location | North of Piqua on Zimmerlin Rd. |
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Coordinates | 40°9′25″N84°14′7″W / 40.15694°N 84.23528°W |
Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
NRHP reference No. | 82001475 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 16, 1982 |
The African Jackson Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the western part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Formed by a colony of more than 300 freedmen from Virginia, who were freed in the will of John Randolph of Roanoke, it has been the resting place for many. Active into the 20th century, it is one of the last extant physical remnants of Rossville, a black settlement founded near the city of Piqua in the late 1840s. The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its connection to the history of free people of color in pre-Civil War Ohio.
Beginning in the 1820s, Virginia planter John Randolph of Roanoke, a US Congressman, wrote a succession of wills in which he planned for the manumission of his more than 600 slaves, together with providing money to relocate the freedmen to the free state of Ohio and buy land for them. He contradicted himself in various documents and failed to provide clear direction regarding which will was to be followed. Following his death in 1833, lawsuits were quickly filed to challenge probate of his estate, and twelve years passed before the litigation was finished and his 600 slaves' futures were resolved. As ultimately resolved by the courts, his will provided for his slaves' emancipation and transportation to a free state, and western Ohio was chosen as their destination. [2] : 1002
Money from Randolph's estate was used to buy 2,000 acres (810 ha) in Mercer County, but the area was home to the freedmen for only a short while. They left due to hostility and discrimination by the whites living in the region. Some 383 freedmen migrated southward to Miami and Shelby counties. [3] They developed the Randolph Slave Settlement, located just north of Piqua at Rossville, as one of many rural black settlements in pre-Civil War Ohio. [2] : 1002 Churches had been established in Rossville as early as 1815, but the new settlers ultimately founded their own church in 1864, a Baptist congregation. [4] Within the following decade, they established their own cemetery (1866) and school (1872). [3] In contrast to the white Baptist cemetery, which was abandoned and thoroughly derelict by 1880, [4] their African Jackson Cemetery was active well into the twentieth century. [5]
By the early 1980s, comparatively little remained of the black settlement at Rossville; [2] : 1002 it had been absorbed by Piqua. The nearby York Rial House has been documented as the home of a prominent member of this black community. [2] : 1016 The cemetery is the chief surviving physical remainder of the community. For this reason, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, [2] : 1002 and the York Rial House was added in 1986. [1]
Roanoke Island is an island in Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was named after the historical Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English colonization.
Shelby County is a county in the western portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 48,230. Its county seat is Sidney. Its name honors Isaac Shelby, first governor of Kentucky.
Piqua is a city in Miami County, Ohio, United States, along the Great Miami River. The population was 20,354 at the 2020 census. Located 27 miles (43 km) north of Dayton, it is part of the Dayton metropolitan area.
John Randolph, commonly known as John Randolph of Roanoke, was an American planter, and a politician from Virginia, serving in the House of Representatives at various times between 1799 and 1833, and the Senate from 1825 to 1827. He was also Minister to Russia under Andrew Jackson in 1830. After serving as President Thomas Jefferson's spokesman in the House, he broke with the president in 1805 as a result of what he saw as the dilution of traditional Jeffersonian principles as well as perceived mistreatment during the impeachment of Samuel Chase, in which Randolph served as chief prosecutor. Following this split, Randolph proclaimed himself the leader of the "Old Republicans" or "Tertium Quids", a wing of the Democratic-Republican Party who wanted to restrict the role of the federal government. Specifically, Randolph promoted the Principles of '98, which said that individual states could judge the constitutionality of central government laws and decrees, and could refuse to enforce laws deemed unconstitutional.
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Tuckahoe, also known as Tuckahoe Plantation, or Historic Tuckahoe is located in Tuckahoe, Virginia on Route 650 near Manakin Sabot, Virginia, overlapping both Goochland and Henrico counties, six miles from the town of the same name. Built in the first half of the 18th century, it is a well-preserved example of a colonial plantation house, and is particularly distinctive as a colonial prodigy house. Thomas Jefferson is also recorded as having spent some of his childhood here. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1969.
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The Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island, also known as the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, or "Freedman's Colony", was founded in 1863 during the Civil War after Union Major General John G. Foster, Commander of the 18th Army Corps, captured the Confederate fortifications on Roanoke Island off North Carolina in 1862. He classified the slaves living there as "contraband", following the precedent of General Benjamin Butler at Fort Monroe in 1861, and did not return them to Confederate slaveholders. In 1863, by the Emancipation Proclamation, all slaves in Union-occupied territories were freed.
The First African Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia is a prominent Black church. Founded in 1841, its members included both slaves and freedmen. It has since had a major influence on the local black community. At one point, it was one of the largest Protestant churches in the United States.
Roanoke Plantation is a historic plantation house located near Saxe, Charlotte County, Virginia. The property includes two cottages and a smokehouse. The first cottage is a simple one-story, three-bay structure with exterior-end brick chimneys. It has a steep gable roof. The second cottage is a two-room, gable-end-front frame structure. It was the home of U.S. Congressman and Senator John Randolph (1773–1833).
Benjamin Franklin Randolph was an American educator, spiritual advisor, newspaper editor who served as a South Carolina state senator during the Reconstruction Era. Randolph was selected to be one of the first African American Electors in the United States at the 1868 Republican National Convention for the Ulysses Grant Republican presidential ticket. Randolph also served as the chair of the state Republican Party Central Committee. He was a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, where he played an important role in establishing the first universal public education system in the state, and in granting for the first time the right to vote to black men and non-property owning European-American men. On October 16, 1868, Randolph was assassinated by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
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Carl B. Westmoreland was an American community organizer, preservationist, and senior historian at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In 1967, he was one of the founding members of the Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation, with money provided by private donations. The purpose of the Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation was partly in response to the "rampant crime, decrepit housing owned by absentee landlords, and no influence within City Hall" and one of the best ways to improve these circumstances was to "help more young people by helping them find a decent place to live and getting them jobs."
The Randolph Freedpeople, also called the Randolph Slaves, were 383 slaves who were manumitted in the will of their master, John Randolph of Roanoke.