Archer Alexander, a freedom seeker enslaved in St. Charles, Missouri, was first captured in February 1863 when sixteen men made their attempt for freedom at Howell’s Ferry on the Missouri River. Running for his life, after overhearing his enslaver Richard Pitman, and other area men, plotting to destroy a vital railroad bridge nearby, he had informed the Union Troops of their plan.
Escaping, he made his way to St. Louis and the home of an abolitionist named William Greenleaf Eliot, where his enslaver attempted to recapture him. As Missouri was under Martial law, following a military commission he was granted freedom, by September 24, 1863, through the provisions of Lincoln’s Second Confiscation Act, for important services to the military forces and disloyalty of his master.
In 1865, when President Lincoln was assassinated, a fund for a memorial to Lincoln was initiated by Charlotte Scott. The Western Sanitary Commission assisted the formerly enslaved with this and then requested the image of the enslaved man be that of Archer Alexander. The Emancipation Memorial was dedicated on April 14, 1876, in Washington, DC’s Lincoln Park. On December 8, 1880, seventy-four-year-old Archer Alexander passed away, and following a funeral at Washington Metropolitan AME Zion Church was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Peters United Church of Christ Cemetery, both in St. Louis Missouri.
Archer Alexander’s burial site is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Archer Alexander is the Great-Great-Great grandfather of Muhammad Ali. Dorris Keeven-Franke is an author and public historian. A professional genealogist and archivist, she shares the story of this enslaved man born in 1806 near Lexington, Rockbridge County, Virginia. Taken to Missouri in 1829, this is the story of a freedom seeker that is truly an American hero.
To contact author Dorris Keeven-Franke, or learn more about a program about Archer Alexander use the contact box below.
ARCHER ALEXANDER 