Free People of Color in Antebellum St. Louis

Chouteau's Mill Creek near 13th and Gratiot Streets, where free people of color lived before the Civil War. Missouri Historical Society.

Second-class citizens

Missouri law presumed Black residents were enslaved unless they could prove otherwise. In 1860, between 1,500 and 2,100 free Black people lived in St. Louis, each required to carry a license proving their freedom — a small community whose oppression blurred the line between slavery and freedom.

• Rights denied: free Black residents could not own a firearm, testify in court, or get a formal education.
• Curfew: a city ordinance barred them from being out between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. without a pass, or meeting at night without the mayor's permission. Unapproved gatherings were broken up and each person fined $5.
• Jail: breaking any law could mean imprisonment at Lynch's Slave Pen.
• Mob violence: in April 1836, Francis McIntosh, a mixed-race steamboat cook from Pennsylvania, was accused of killing a police officer. A mob denied him a trial, tied him to a tree and burned him to death at what is now Kiener Plaza. No one was punished.

Bob Wilkinson, barber

Bob Wilkinson (c. 1813–1879), originally from Pennsylvania, came to St. Louis in the mid-1830s and first sold soap and toiletries.

• His shop: in 1848 he opened a barbershop at 38 Vine Street; within two years his property was worth $8,000. His ads promised shaving, "Fashionable Hair Cutting," and "particular attention" to children's haircuts.
• The Southern Hotel: in 1866, a year after the war, he was hired at the city's most luxurious hotel, at 4th and Walnut, which made him very wealthy — the New York Tribune put his fortune at $25,000 in 1871.
• Family: married twice, father of fourteen, he is buried at Calvary Cemetery in North St. Louis — a barber in the city for more than twenty-five years.

"The Colored Aristocracy"

The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis, by Cyprian Clamorgan, 1858. Washington University in St. Louis.

Despite racism and restricted rights, some free Black St. Louisans grew wealthy and respected:

• Barbers Albert White, William Johnson and James Thomas each had personal wealth of $15,000 to $125,000 in the 1850s.
• Antoine Labadie, a cattle dealer, owned a business worth $300,000.
• Pelagie Nash grew rich in real estate — one source said she owned nearly every house on her block.

In 1858, Cyprian Clamorgan, a mixed-race resident, profiled forty-four of the city's most prominent free Black residents in The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis, still an important source for historians.

"Our City, St. Louis, Missouri," by A. Janicke & Co., 1859. Library of Congress.

Part of the NPS series The History of Slavery in St. Louis. Previous: Resisting Slavery. Next: The Civil War and Emancipation in St. Louis.

Sources

Based on "Free People of Color in St. Louis," Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Two portraits of the 1850s, known here only in colorized versions credited to an individual, are left out. The source spells the creek "Choteau's."