AFRICAN AGENCY WITHIN AND SURROUNDING CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, 1850 TO 1865

Abstract

This dissertation investigates African liberation agency in Chester County, Pennsylvania, from 1850 to 1865 and its impact within the county and surrounding area. The findings may help to better understand African agency in rural areas that are not always highlighted because of historical analysis mostly focusing on city populations when discussing African agency during the years 1850 to 1865. More specifically, the focus of this dissertation concerns the significant historical events within and near Chester County during that time period. These historical events include African liberation agency related to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Christiana Resistance, Parker sisters’ kidnappings, founding of Hinsonville and its response to African enslavement, creation of Ashmun Institute, Civil War, and Thirteenth Amendment. Analyzing these historical events has immense implications to the role other rural African communities had in terms of liberation agency. This work serves as a scholarly source to help in the study of African communities in areas of Chester County, Pennsylvania, during the nineteenth century that have not been thoroughly researched. This study is conducted with the use of primary and secondary sources such as letters, newspapers, photographs, and literature related to the subject area. As a lifetime resident of Chester County, there has been continuous curiosity and questions towards understanding the extent of African agency in the area. The European and European America agency of Chester County has been thoroughly examined, but there still lacks critical examination of African agency even though the area has had residents of African descent for several hundred years. Furthermore, there is even less critical examination pertaining to African agency in Chester County from an Afrocentric analysis. Much of the scholarship produced on African agency in Chester County is a Eurocentric analysis that does not position African people as subjects but rather as objects in understanding phenomena. This dissertation uses an Afrocentric analysis that seeks to expand on existing literature as well as develop new knowledge that is unlike any previous work related to the subject. With this dissertation, the intent is to initiate new research on African agency in Chester County based upon the theories, methodologies, and traditions of Africology and African American Studies. This dissertation is committed to the purpose of African liberation and the production of knowledge that achieves victorious consciousness which is a key component of African agency.