Navigating the Waters: The Newman Watermen from the Mid-Eighteenth to Mid- Nineteenth Centuries

The Newman family represents four generations of free African American watermen in the Chesapeake and National Capital regions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Highlighting Benjamin Newman (c. 1750 - c. 1815) and Bazil Newman (1779 - 1852) provides a lens through which to examine African American maritime labor, family, and community along the Potomac River in a political and social environment in which the strained line between freedom and bondage was tenuous. By tracing the lives of Benjamin and Bazil Newman chronologically and drawing on a wide range of sources, including court records, tax documents, ledgers, journals, and newspaper advertisements, this study illuminates realities of unfreedom in the Mid-Atlantic world prior to the Civil War. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the Newman watermen both challenged and adapted to the constraints of their world to assert autonomy in the face of racialized labor systems and escalating racial tensions.