Charles Ball was an enslaved African-American from Maryland, best known for his account as a fugitive slave, Slavery in the United States.
14 Facts About Charles Ball
1.
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Charles Ball's memoir is an account of the life of enslaved people and enslavers in the early 19th century.
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Charles Ball was born enslaved in Calvert County around 1781.
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Charles Ball was about four years old when his legal owner died.
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Charles Ball became the headman of the new plantation but suffered from the hatred of his owner's wife.
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Charles Ball served in the US Navy during the War of 1812.
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In 1813, Charles Ball had enlisted in Commodore Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Bay Flotilla and fought at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24,1814.
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Charles Ball married a second time, Lucy, and was able to buy a small farm with money he had earned and saved.
9.
Charles Ball escaped again to learn that Lucy and the children had been kidnapped into slavery, and a white man had taken his farm.
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Charles Ball relocated to Pennsylvania, where he wrote his 1837 memoir with the help of the white lawyer Isaac Fisher.
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Charles Ball was forcefully separated from his wife and his children without even being allowed to say goodbye to them.
12.
Charles Ball's life was saved only by the coincidental arrival of a white witness of the crime.
13.
Charles Ball observes that the enslaved people there are poorly fed, the children go naked, and the adults are in rags.
14.
Flotillaman Charles Ball is one of three sailors depicted on the Battle of Bladensburg Monument, at Bladensburg, Maryland.