David Greenleaf and the Bladensburg Freedman’s School

Abstract

Rebecca Greenleaf's children, specifically David Greenleaf, whose life after emancipation was an essential example of the emergence of a self-reliant Black community. David Greenleaf is listed on the inventory conducted upon the death of John Eversfield in 1858, alongside his mother, Rebecca Greenleaf, and siblings, Gassaway and Barbara. This dehumanizing document only lists David's race, gender, and name, alongside his price and the price of other items owned by Eversfield. Greenleaf again appears in the Maryland Slave Statistic, created by Maryland's enslavers to document how many people they enslaved when slavery was abolished in Maryland on November 1, 1864. This document reveals that Greenleaf was 46 when he became a free man. The 1870 federal census shows David Greenleaf living in Bladensburg with his wife and two-year-old daughter, both named Lucy. Despite his lack of formal education, by 1870 Greenleaf was a member of the board of trustees for the Bladensburg Freedman's School, indicating the importance of an education for his family despite it being denied during his time of enslavement.