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About Archer Alexander
Archer Alexander (circa 1810 – circa 1879) was a man of African descent who obtained freedom by escaping slavery in 1863.
Archer Alexander was born into slavery in the early 1800s in Virginia. When he was a young man, Alexander’s enslavers forced him to Missouri when they migrated to the St. Charles area. There he married Louisa, and had at least two children. During the Civil War, as Missouri remained a slave-owning state loyal to the Union, Alexander fled to the unionist stronghold of St. Louis where he met William Greenleaf Eliot, co-founder of Washington University. Eliot helped Alexander secure legal protection from the Provost Marshal and provided him employment working the grounds of the Eliots’ home.
After the Civil War, Eliot and Alexander stayed in contact, and in the 1870s Eliot suggested he serve as the artistic inspiration for the Freedman's Memorial being planned for Washington D.C.
For decades, the only known information about Archer Alexander and his family was a brief biography Eliot published in 1885 called The Story of Archer Alexander. In the 21st century more historical work has emerged offering a clearer and more well-rounded history of Alexander’s life, including extensive genealogical work by Alexander’s descendants.
In 2014, Washington University created a named professorship honoring Archer Alexander. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp became the inaugural faculty member to hold the Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.
(Photograph of Archer Alexander, circa 1870. From the William Greenleaf Eliot Personal Papers, Series 7. Washington WashU Libraries, Department of Special Collections).
Primary sources online
- Archer Alexander Series, The William Greenleaf Eliot Papers, (Missouri Historical Society)5 documents available online from the finding aid by selecting the "Archer Alexander Series."
- Missouri's Union Provost Marshal Papers Index: 1861-1866 (Missouri State Archives)A searchable index of Civil War era records from Missouri, include those documents about Archer Alexander, Louisa Alexander, and the persons who enslaved them
- Provost Marshal: concerning the arrest of Archer Alexander, 03-27-1863 (Missouri State Archives)"Papers concerning the arrest of Archer Alexander, a runaway slave, belonging to Richard Pitman. Archer was an informant to Provost Marshal concerning arms secreted in Capt. Campbell's ice house." digitized from microfilm roll F1595 (note pdf is large file, allow time to download)
- Provost Marshal: Statements regarding various slaves, 08-19-1863 (Missouri State Archives)"Statements regarding various slaves; runaway slave girl (Alice Lewis), formerly known as Delila, Jude, Judy, Dude, or Lina; another was Archer, owned by Hickman Pitman of St. Charles Co.; other materials referencing freedom suit and employment. digitized from microfilm roll F1654 (note large PDF, see pages 1185-1187)
The Story of Archer Alexander (book)
Written by William G. Eliot this slim book was published in 1885, after Archer Alexander's death. Eliot relied mainly on his memory of events, and in multiple cases changed names and locations to offer a softened view of white citizens who held people in slavery, many of whom remained citizens of upright standing in the community when the book was published.
- The Story of Archer Alexander by William Greenleaf Eliot. Boston: Cupples, Upham and Company, 1885Biography of Archer Alexander by Washington University in St. Louis co-founder, William Greenleaf Eliot.
- Letter signed W.T. Sherman, to Mr. Eliot [William G. Eliot], December 27, 1885Complementing Eliot on publication of "Eliot's little book, The Story of Archer Alexander."
Freedmen's Memorial
- Notebook 8. Journal of William Greenleaf Eliot, November 1871- July 1875See page 94 for materials on the erecting of the Freedmen's Monument
- Notebook 9. Journal of William Greenleaf Eliot, September 1875-December 1876Page 11-12 discusses a meeting of the Western Sanitary Commission to attend the Freedmen's Memorial
- Freedom's Memorial in marble (Kemper Art Musuem)Measuring 44 1/2 x 27 1/4 x 21 1/8" this smaller sculpture was created by Thomas Ball for William G. Eliot. It is located at the Kemper Art Museum, but is not on regular display.
Aditional primary sources
Primary sources in original format. Contact each listed archive for more information regarding access:
- William Greenleaf Personal Papers (WUA00068)
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Relevant files include:
Series 2, box 1, 1869, 8 Nov. W.G.E. to Mr. Yeatman
[Sent by Eliot from Florence, Italy while on his travels in Europe which lasted from the summer of 1869 through April 1870. This letter outlines Eliot’s visits to art studios, including Ball’s, where he sees the early version of the Lincoln/Free Slave sculpture. Eliot also comments on the overall project of the monument, showing his dislike of its current situation. Concludes with commentary on Italy and Italians.]
Series 2, Box 2, 1876. 24 May. W.G.E. to Thomas Ball Esq. [Brief letter of introduction, sent with Eliot’s son for his European travels. Also comments on the installed sculpture by Ball.]
Series 4, bound copies of "The Story of Archer Alexander" 1885.
Series 7, photographs.
- bound volume of small publications owned by William G Eliot
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Call Number: LD5792.65.E4 I5 (Sec Gen)Includes:
The Western Sanitary Commission / J. G. Forman ([St. Louis? 1864?]);
Emancipation in Missouri / by Rev. W. G. Eliot (St. Louis : Printed by M'Kee & Fishback, 1863);
Western Sanitary Commission, St. Louis, Mo. / W. G. Eliot (Cambridge : Welch, Bigelow, 1864);
- Union Provost Marshals’ File of Papers Relating to Individual Citizens (Missouri State Archives)Relevant files include:
Alexander, Archer -- "Fugitive slave request for freedom under Confiscation Act" 04-15-1863 (reel F1218)
Pitman, Hickman -- "list of witnesses against Pitman and Naylor; Archer and another Negro" 03-04-1863 (reel F1384)
Pitman, R. H. -- "...was arrested because when he attempted to arrest his servant [Archer] on the street..." 03-07-1863 (reel F1384)
Bates, Barton -- "...Pitman, St. Charles Co., considered a rebel" 04-16-1863 (reel F1218)
Contemporary project and articles (popular and scholarly)
- Exceptionally Normal: The Story of Archer Alexander and my Genealogical Journey, by James AlexanderGenealogical story map project that pulls together many resources about Archer Alexander and includes maps. (2019)
- "The Black man at Lincoln’s feet: Archer Alexander and the problem of emancipation," by Kirk Savagearticle, Princeton University Press (July 13, 2020)
- Archer Alexander Blog, by Dorris Keeven-FrankeIncludes a series of posts following the route Alexander took from Kentucky to Missouri in 1829, as well as contemporary reflections on the Freedmen Memorials inspired by his likeness and other research into the Alexander family's history (2017-2020)
- Archer AlexanderArticle about Archer Alexander by Dorris Keeven-Franke, on the My Stories of St. Charles blog (2019)
- “Of Friendship and Freedom” by Liam Ottenarticle in The Source, a WashU online publication (May 6, 2016). Reflection on Archer Alexander’s life.
- Spotlight Essay: Thomas Ball, Freedom’s Memorial 1875, by Katherine B. HarnishKemper Art Museum (2015)
- “The Story of Archer Alexander and William Greenleaf Eliot” by Holden Thorpblog post by WashU Provost Thorp (October 31, 2014). Including remarks given during the installation of Lauri Maffly-Kipp as the "Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis."
- “The Life of Archer Alexander: A Story of Freedom” by Miranda Rectenwaldarticle in The Confluence (Fall / Winter 2014)
Further reading
The Rattling of the Chains by Call Number: E185.97.A35 A3 2015 (vol 1 and vol 2)ISBN: 9781503528383Publication Date: 2015-01-23This is a thoroughly enjoyable and lucidly written book. The author provides an accurately reconstructed history of his family from an African slave trader named Jasinto in the eighteenth century to the year 2013. Also a series of lessons on doing genealogical research is supplied in the appendixes. It is a riveting and a must read for those who study the African American experience and the history of slavery in America.
Beginning a Great Work : Washington University in St. Louis, 1853-2003 by Call Number: E185.97.A35 A3 2015Publication Date: 2003A history of Washington University in St. Louis.
Lincoln and Citizens' Rights in Civil War Missouri by
During the Civil War, the state of Missouri presented President Abraham Lincoln, United States military commanders, and state officials with an array of complex and difficult problems. Although Missouri did not secede, a large minority of residents owned slaves, sympathized with secession, or favored the Confederacy. Many residents joined a Confederate state militia, became pro-Confederate guerrillas, or helped the cause of the South in some subversive manner. In order to subdue such disloyalty, Lincoln supported Missouri's provisional Unionist government by ordering troops into the state and approving an array of measures that ultimately infringed on the civil liberties of residents. In this thorough investigation of these policies, Dennis K. Boman reveals the difficulties that the president, military officials, and state authorities faced in trying to curb traitorous activity while upholding the spirit of the United States Constitution. Boman explains that despite Lincoln's desire to disentangle himself from Missouri policy matters, he was never able to do so. Lincoln's challenge in Missouri continued even after the United States Army defeated the state's Confederate militia. Attention quickly turned to preventing Confederate guerrillas from attacking Missouri's railway system and from ruthlessly murdering, pillaging, and terrorizing loyal inhabitants. Eventually military officials established tribunals to prosecute captured insurgents. In his role as commander-in-chief, Lincoln oversaw these tribunals and worked with Missouri governor Hamilton R. Gamble in establishing additional policies to repress acts of subversion while simultaneously protecting constitutional rights -- an incredibly difficult balancing act. For example, while supporting the suppression of disloyal newspapers and the arrest of persons suspected of aiding the enemy, Lincoln repealed orders violating property rights when they conflicted with federal law. While mitigating the severity of sentences handed down by military courts, Boman shows, Lincoln advocated requiring voters and officeholders to take loyalty oaths and countenanced the summary execution of guerrillas captured with weapons in the field. One of the first books to explore Lincoln's role in dealing with an extensive guerrilla insurgency, Lincoln and Citizens' Rights in Civil War Missouri illustrates the difficulty of suppressing dissent while upholding the Constitution, a feat as complicated during the Civil War as it is for the War on Terror.
Call Number: E457.2 .B67 2011ISBN: 9780807136935Publication Date: 2011-01-01
On Slavery's Border by
On Slavery's Border is a bottom-up examination of how slavery and slaveholding were influenced by both the geography and the scale of the slaveholding enterprise. Missouri's strategic access to important waterways made it a key site at the periphery of the Atlantic world. By the time of statehood in 1821, people were moving there in large numbers, especially from the upper South, hoping to replicate the slave society they'd left behind. Diane Mutti Burke focuses on the Missouri counties located along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to investigate small-scale slavery at the level of the household and neighborhood. She examines such topics as small slaveholders' child-rearing and fiscal strategies, the economics of slavery, relations between slaves and owners, the challenges faced by slave families, sociability among enslaved and free Missourians within rural neighborhoods, and the disintegration of slavery during the Civil War. Mutti Burke argues that economic and social factors gave Missouri slavery an especially intimate quality. Owners directly oversaw their slaves and lived in close proximity with them, sometimes in the same building. White Missourians believed this made for a milder version of bondage. Some slaves, who expressed fear of being sold further south, seemed to agree. Mutti Burke reveals, however, that while small slaveholding created some advantages for slaves, it also made them more vulnerable to abuse and interference in their personal lives. In a region with easy access to the free states, the perception that slavery was threatened spawned white anxiety, which frequently led to violent reassertions of supremacy.
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Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780820336367Publication Date: 2010-12-01
Setting down the Sacred Past by
As early as the 1780s, African Americans told stories that enabled them to survive and even thrive in the midst of unspeakable assault. Tracing previously unexplored narratives from the late eighteenth century to the 1920s, Laurie Maffly-Kipp brings to light an extraordinary trove of sweeping race histories that African Americans wove together out of racial and religious concerns. ... Through the transformative power of storytelling, these men and women led their people--and indeed, all Americans--into a more profound understanding of their interconnectedness and their prospects for a common future.
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Call Number: E185.625 .M314 2010ISBN: 9780674050792Publication Date: 2010-04-30
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves by Call Number: E468.9 S28 1997ISBN: 069101616XPublication Date: 1997-11-23... explores how that history of slavery and its violent end was told in public space--specifically in the sculptural monuments that increasingly came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. ...
My Fourscore Years by Call Number: NB237.B27 A2 1993 (Art Library)ISBN: 0962063525Publication Date: 1993-11-01
- “The Lincoln Emancipation Statue” by Christopher R. Eliot. The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 29, No. 4. (October 1944), pp.471-475.Quotes from the "Story of Archer Alexander" when Eliot mentions his trip the summer of 1869 to Florence, and from Ball’s autobiography "My Threescore Years and Ten" regarding his work on the sculpture