Historic Black Settlements of Ohio

Download or read book Historic Black Settlements of Ohio written by David Meyers and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years leading up to the Civil War, Ohio had more African American settlements than any other state. Owing to a common border with several slave states, it became a destination for people of color seeking to separate themselves from slavery. Despite these communities having populations that sometimes numbered in the hundreds, little is known about most of them, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, nearly all had lost their ethnic identities as the original settlers died off and their descendants moved away. Save for scattered cemeteries and an occasional house or church, they have all but been erased from Ohio's landscape. Father-daughter coauthors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker piece together the stories of more than forty of these black settlements.