The African Jackson Cemetery is a historic

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

in the western part of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. Formed by a colony of more than 300

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...

from Virginia, who were freed in the will of

John Randolph of Roanoke John Randolph (June 2, 1773May 24, 1833), commonly known as John Randolph of Roanoke,''Roanoke'' refers to Roanoke Plantation in Charlotte County, Virginia, not to the city of the same name. was an American planter, and a politician from Virg ...

, it has been the resting place for many. Active into the 20th century, it is one of the last extant physical remnants of Rossville, a black settlement founded near the city of Piqua in the late 1840s. The cemetery is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

because of its connection to the history of

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...

in pre-Civil War Ohio.

History

Beginning in the 1820s, Virginia planter

, a US Congressman, wrote a succession of wills in which he planned for the

manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

of his more than 600 slaves, together with providing money to relocate the freedmen to the free state of Ohio and buy land for them. He contradicted himself in various documents and failed to provide clear direction regarding which will was to be followed. Following his death in 1833, lawsuits were quickly filed to challenge

probate Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the sta ...

of his estate, and twelve years passed before the litigation was finished and his 600 slaves' futures were resolved. As ultimately resolved by the courts, his will provided for his slaves' emancipation and transportation to a free state, and western Ohio was chosen as their destination.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2.

St. Clair Shores St. Clair Shores is a suburban city bordering Lake St. Clair in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms a part of the Metro Detroit area, and is located about northeast of downtown Detroit. Its population was 59,715 at the 2010 ce ...

: Somerset, 1999. Money from Randolph's estate was used to buy in Mercer County, but the area was home to the freedmen for only a short while. They left due to hostility and discrimination by the whites living in the region. Some 383 freedmen migrated southward to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

and Shelby counties.Randolph Settlement/Jackson Cemetery (African)
,

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2008. Accessed 2013-12-20. They developed the Randolph Slave Settlement, located just north of Piqua at Rossville, as one of many rural black settlements in pre-Civil War Ohio. Churches had been established in Rossville as early as 1815, but the new settlers ultimately founded their own church in 1864, a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

congregation.
The History of Miami County, Ohio
'.

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

: Beers, 1880, 397. Within the following decade, they established their own cemetery (1866) and school (1872). In contrast to the white Baptist cemetery, which was abandoned and thoroughly derelict by 1880, their African Jackson Cemetery was active well into the twentieth century.Rayner, John A.
The First Century of Piqua, Ohio
'. Piqua: Magee Brothers, 1916, 192. By the early 1980s, comparatively little remained of the black settlement at Rossville; it had been absorbed by Piqua. The nearby

York Rial House York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a m ...

has been documented as the home of a prominent member of this black community. The cemetery is the chief surviving physical remainder of the community. For this reason, it was listed on the

in 1982, and the York Rial House was added in 1986.

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Buildings and structures in Miami County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Miami County, Ohio African-American cemeteries in Ohio Cemeteries established in the 19th century