Alexander Dorsey

Alexander Dorsey said he was free—that he had always been free, born and raised near Leonardstown in Saint Mary’s County. Most likely he was telling the truth: Baltimore city directories, which did not list enslaved individuals, include entries for an Alexander Dorsey, sawyer, for 1842 and 1845. He lived at 42 N. Sharp Street in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor neighborhood.

 But Jacob Beckley was a Justice of the Peace, and Jacob Beckley didn’t believe Alexander Dorsey was free. He said Dorsey was a runaway slave, and he dragged him to jail.

Of course, the warden believed Beckley. He posted an advertisement instructing Dorsey’s imagined owner to come claim his property. Otherwise, the warden advised, Dorsey would be “discharged according to the law”: he would be sold. A month went by, but no one came forward to claim him. Instead, Dorsey became the property of Baltimore slave trader Joseph S. Donovan.

Free or enslaved, falling into the trader’s hands was a horrific stroke of bad luck. Around 40 years of age, Dorsey was more than a bit old for the interregional trade to New Orleans. But then again, age was malleable to men like Joseph Donovan. By the time Alexander Dorsey was forced to board a ship to New Orleans 17 days later, he had been warned: he was no longer 40 years old. As he boarded the ironically-named barque Home, the captain listed him on a manifest of captives: Alexander Dorsey, 5 feet, 8 ½ inches tall, black, and 28 years old.