In this exhibit you can explore the different phases of Solitude’s history. We begin during the period when this place was indigenous land, and go on to explore its history as a slave plantation in the nineteenth century.
RACE AT SOLITUDE AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
Now legally free people in the eyes of the law, former slaves began to break away from their former masters and forge their own lives and identities. The Fractions made their way north to Salem and eventually settled in Baltimore (Figure 1). For the first time in the nation's history, former slaves were considered to be people, not property. This transition is symbolized by the subsequent United States Federal Census in 1870, the first to include the millions of recently emancipated African Americans (Figure 2). Coming with the official recognition as citizens of the US, freed African Americans were granted certain rights, voting among them. Figure 3 features Othello Fraction listed on an 1867 Poll of Colored Voters in Montgomery County.
Figure 1- Othello Fraction listed on Baltimore City Directory, 1880.
Without enslaved labor, it became more difficult to operate Solitude as a successful farm following the Civil War. Due to its reliance on the labor of the enslaved, the southern economy as a whole suffered greatly after emancipation, which ushered in a new economic era throughout the South. The period of slavery at Solitude may have ended, but the building's diverse history continued into the 20th century and beyond.
Figure 2- Thomas Fraction listed on 1870 Census, the first to include recently freed enslaved people. National Archives.
Figure 3- Othello listed on Poll of Colored Voters in the 1st District of Montgomery County, 1867. Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.
