‘Nearly erased’ Black patriots of the Revolution now enshrined at State House

A nearly forgotten part of Maryland’s Revolutionary War history is now permanently enshrined on the grounds of the Maryland State House.

A new monument, called “Black Patriots, The Pursuit of Transcendent Liberty,” commemorates the roughly 150 Black Marylanders — some free, some enslaved— who fought against the British during the Revolutionary War.

“I am keenly present to the fact that I would not be standing here before you were it not for these brave individuals, whose actions and whose sacrifices, and generations of brave individuals who stood for something greater,” Branly Cadet, the sculptor, said during an unveiling ceremony.

“They stood for greater freedom, for greater justice, for greater harmony. They stood for the possibility of a greater nation,” Cadet said.

The bronze-and-granite memorial features Thomas Carney, a free Black Marylander, who was born on the Eastern Shore in 1752 or 1754 and enlisted in 1777. He served in the state’s 5th Regiment Army and later the 7th Regiment. He fought in battles including the Battle of Germantown and the Siege of Ninety-six in South Carolina, where legend credits him with carrying a wounded Maj. Gen. Perry Benson off the battlefield and saving his life, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D), said Cadet’s work will ensure that, “Cpl. Thomas Carney and more than 150 Black patriots from Maryland who were nearly erased from history … made them impossible to forget, because history’s silence was never theirs.”

The memorial also honors Black women who served in the war, many of them as cooks, nurses, seamstresses, and washerwomen. Cadet’s work, Miller said, ensures “a more complete story of our nation’s founding.”

In all, more than 5,000 Black soldiers served across the 13 colonies.

Among them was Prince Ames, who served in the Massachusetts militia. Ames is the fifth great-grandfather of Gov Wes Moore (D), the first Black governor in Maryland history.

“For nearly six years, he fought for a country and a cause that did not include him,” Moore said. “But he believed that perhaps one day, just maybe, it would include his children, maybe even his children’s children.”

Officials hoped for a July unveiling. The timing was to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Instead, the ceremony Sunday was held on the 162 anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Maryland.

In 1851, an amendment to the state constitution prohibited passage of laws ending the enslavement of people. And because Maryland had not joined Southern states in rebellion, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not apply.

It is the first large-scale memorial added to the grounds of the State House in a century, according to Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City.)

The piece joins others including the reconstructed memorial to Justice Thurgood Marshall in Lawyers Mall and the bronze statues of Harriet Tubman and Federick Douglass in the Old House chamber inside the State House. Marshall also has a portrait which hangs outside the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee room and offices.

“This is the first and only monument to Black Revolutionary War soldiers at any state house in our nation,” said House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel).

The monument was first proposed by Steven X. Lee, an adjunct history professor at Stevenson University. Lee is also the author of “The Story of Mr. Thomas Carney” and founding director of the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Baltimore County.

The Board of Public Works last year approved more than $400,000 for the project. Cadet was paid nearly $312,000 for the project that sits on the southeast lawn of the State House, overlooking the historic city.

The monument occupies a space that once showcased a statue to a Maryland-born Supreme Court Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision in 1857 that declared Black people enslaved in the country were property rather than human beings.

The Taney statue, erected in 1872, was removed in in 2017 in the predawn hours, as Maryland joined other states that were grappling with the country’s slavery and racist institutions and the monuments that honor its defenders.

Cadet, 60, is a California-based artist trained in both figurative and portrait sculpture. He was selected two years ago after a nationwide search.

Cadet’s other works include a statue of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in New York’s Harlem. Powell was the first African-American elected to Congress in the Northeast.

Cadet also sculpted a statue of Octavius V. Catto, a teacher and Civil Rights activist, that is located in Philadelphia.

He also worked on a memorial to the victims of lynching in Montgomery, Alabama, and statues honoring Sandy Koufax and Jackie Robinson, who played for the Los Angeles and Brooklyn Dodgers respectively.