Mark Caesar and William Wheeler
Leaders of the July 7-8, 1845, flight to freedom
Mark Caesar and William Wheeler – On July 7 and 8 in 1845, Mark Caesar and William Wheeler led a group of 75 enslaved men on a march out of Charles County. They left their loved ones, wives, and children to set off, armed, on the open road toward the free State of Pennsylvania. The men knew that they would likely face a battle at some point in the journey. Mark Caesar was a 30-year-old free African American carpenter. William Wheeler was enslaved on the Contee plantation at Port Tobacco.
Armed with clubs, scythes, swords, and a pistol, the group made their way through Prince Georges County and Washington, D.C. and up the Rockville Pike in Montgomery County, Maryland. Along the way, they were joined by slaves from St. Mary’s and Prince George’s Counties.
The Montgomery Volunteers, a pro-slavery militia, organized to stop slave rebellions, surrounded the freedom seekers two miles from Gaithersburg, Maryland. In the battle that followed, some of the freedom seekers escaped the militia, including William Wheeler. The Sheriff’s men captured about 35 of the men, dragging them in chains to the Rockville jail. From there most were sold South to Louisiana.
Mark Caesar was tried in the Charles County courts, found guilty, and sentenced to forty years in prison, to be released when he was 70 years old. He was 35 when he died from tuberculosis at the Maryland Penitentiary on November 11, 1850, fourteen years before emancipation in Maryland.
William Wheeler was captured, jailed at Port Tobacco, tried and found guilty by a jury of white men. Sentenced to death by hanging, he escaped the Charles County jail after four months of imprisonment. A $4,000 reward (in today’s dollars) was offered for his capture, but William Wheeler was never found.
The following is a list of the men “not taken” and of those “taken after being wounded” in the battle at Rockville:
Not Taken
Manuel Beall, belonging to Dr. Fergerson
Carbell, belonging to L. Pasey (or Posey)
One belonging to Col. Miller
Jesse Dodson, belonging to W. Hamilton
______ Lemon, belonging to John Hamilton.
Those Injured
Ferdinand, slave of Wm. Brawner, slightly shot in the left neck
James, slave of Edwin Jones, wounded in the back from a rifle shot
Samuel, slave of Dr. Hodges, slightly wounded in the back and face
David, a slave of John Hamet, shot through the right arm with a musket ball – badly wounded
James, slave of Barnes Estate – wounded in the side, face and neck
Mark, do. in the back of the neck with a pistol ball
James Gray, belonging to Chas. Pye, wounded in the side face
Lewis Key, do. to Col Miller, in the side face
Henry, to Gen. Chapman, slightly shot
— printed on July 12, 1845, in the Baltimore American Republican and Daily Clipper, as reported in the Rockville Reporter.
Did you know?
The fact that these men chose July 4th weekend to break from slavery is significant. July 4th was the slaveholders’ celebration of freedom from domination by another country. It was not a time of celebration for 20 percent of Americans who were not free.
July 4th was a protest holiday for enslaved Americans: The following is a link to a video of the Fourth of July speech by Frederick Douglass. Some of his descendants are reading portions of the speech
https://americainclass.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Douglass-FullText.pdf
Freedmen such as Mark Caesar, as well as enslaved people such as William Wheeler, were integral to the anti-slavery movement known as the Underground Railroad.
Slave resistance in the Americas was persistent and never-ending.
Being “sold south” was used as both threat and punishment for enslaved people who defied enslavers. Maryland law stated that enslaved person convicted of serious crimes could be whipped and sold out of state.
Additional Resources
The Port Tobacco Escape – the Story of Mark Caesar and Bill Wheeler – YouTube
Apthecker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. 2nd ed. International Publishers, 1978.
“The Bloody and Oppressive South.” The Liberator, Friday, 18 July 1845.
Clavin, Matt. “July Fourth used to be a protest holiday for enslaved Americans.” Washington Post, 3 July 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/07/03/enslaved-americans-july-fourth/?_pml=1
LaRoche, Cheryl Jennifer and T. Stephen Whitman. Resistance to Slavery in Maryland: Strategies for Freedom Special History Study. National Park Service, March 2007. http://npshistory.com/publications/srs/md-slavery-resistance.pdf
“Mark Caesar, Accomplice to slave flight, Charles County, Maryland, 1845.” Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series). https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/003300/003364/html/003364bio.html
“Maryland slaves make bold bid for freedom: July 7-8, 1845.” Washington Area Spark, 2 July 2015, https://washingtonareaspark.com/2015/07/02/maryland-slaves-make-bold-bid-for-freedom-july-7-8-1845/
Meyer, Eugene L. “A shameful past,” MoCo360 online newsletter. 29 Mar. 2021, https://moco360.media/2021/03/29/a-shameful-past/
“Public Meeting Fourth District.” Port Tobacco Times & Charles County News, 7 Aug. 1845.
At a “meeting of the owners of slaves held at Port Tobacco”…regulations to prevent enslaved people from “elopement” were proposed: patrols of each district to “disperse all meetings of negroes and punish all negroes found from home by night without a pass…all free negroes be notified…that they be required to quit the county by the 1st of Dec.” All landowners “be requested not to rent any free negroes land or house.”
“William ‘Bill’ Wheeler, Accomplice to slave flight, Charles County, Maryland, 1845.”
Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series) https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/015100/015156/html/015156bio.html
https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/015100/015156/html/015156sources.html
“Yesterday Morning Early.” Maryland Journal, 9 July 1845.
“A Nation’s Story: ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ National Museum of African American History & Culture online https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/nations-story-what-slave-fourth-july – Includes video of young descendants of Frederick Douglass reading excepts from his speech.
