From the Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Commitee

Mercer County and expulsion of the Freedpeople  

Our history helps us remember significant events in our lives and reflect on how events in the past affect us and make things the way they are today. As we look at our history, we can see the positive things we have accomplished and where we may have failed. Mercer County has much of its own history.   

In the 1830s, a Virginia politician and plantation owner, John Randolph, manumitted nearly 400 of his slaves. He bought 3,200 acres in Mercer County, Ohio, for these manumitted Freedpeople, so they could settle there and begin new lives. In 1846, as the Randolph Freedpeople traveled to settle their new land, they were first met by an armed mob of men near New Bremen and told to return back down the canal. Mercer County settlers also told the Freedpeople that they were not to enter. The people of Mercer County had promulgated resolutions expelling them from their own land. The people of Mercer County decreed it God’s law that the races be separated: 

“… the Supreme Ruler has immutable laws for the government of the world and marked his lines and boundaries, and made undeniable distinction everywhere perceivable, between the different races of men, therefore 

Resolved, that we will not live among negroes, and as we have settled here first, we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattos in this county, to the full extent of our means, the bayonet not excepted.” 

And so the Mercer County leaders decided that under no circumstances would they live with negroes and mulattoes. They were told to leave and settle elsewhere. Eventually Bishop Joseph Dwenger, a Missionary of the Precious Blood, bought land for them to settle in Piqua, Ohio. 

There is now a traveling display remembering this moment in history: “Freed Will: The Randolph Freedpeople from Slavery to Settlement,” a traveling display by the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center. We have an opportunity to bring this display to St. Charles Center in Carthagena. This could be an excellent way of remembering this poignant chapter of our local history 

Gabino Zavala, JPIC Director