2023 Black History Month Transcribe-a-Thon

In honor of Black History Month 2023, we are celebrating the lives of eight Black men who worked as farm laborers on land near Sandy Spring, Maryland. These pages bear witness to the integral role Black labor played in ensuring the success the farming enterprises of local white landowners. These pages further demonstrate the complexities of wage labor in the 19th century when pay was often received in equivalently valued goods rather than cash money. These entries span the 1820s through the 1880s and come from ledgers compiled by the white land owner, Joshua Peirce, and later, his son Edward.