The Beckett Family and The Re-Signification of Widowhood Post-Emancipation

Abstract

The 1856 Project is a University of Maryland initiative that investigates the ties between slavery and the founding of the Maryland Agricultural College. Just three miles south of campus is the historic Bostwick House in Bladensburg, the town’s oldest surviving building (1746). It is also a house in which hundreds of people were enslaved until the late 1860’s. The last family that held enslaved people were the Stephens with Nichola C. Stephen as the last enslaver. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 many enslaved people in Maryland, ran away to seek their freedom to the District of Columbia. One of the families that likely chose this route, were the Becketts. They were mentioned in the ‘Runaway Servants’ list submitted by Stephens in 1864. This list contained 35 enslaved people's names and at least 6 families. Due to the presence of Beckett’s at the Riversdale Plantation, owned by Charles Benedict Calvert, the founder of the Maryland Agricultural College, this research project aims to tell the story of the Beckett family in Bladensburg. Highlighting the critical role of Black women in shaping post-emancipation life. To conduct this research, census, historical newspapers, genealogy methodologies, archival research, and data bases like Ancestry.com and Family Search were used. The findings revealed that the post-emancipation life of the Becketts was build, and maintained by three widowed Black women Alice, Marcellina and Minerva Beckett. Women who were born enslaved or from enslaved parents yet became matriarch of their households and lived independently until their death. This research portrays the narratives of three Black women who change the perspective upon what widowhood meant by becoming leaders of their family and their community.