The Film: Interview Transcripts: John Ford

John Ford, historian and school programs director, Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, on Pittsburgh’s black population

Pittsburgh’s black population was growing in the 1820s and 1830s, and by 1850, Pittsburgh had over 1,900 Africans in a community that previously had been called Haiti.  Ultimately, prior to the Civil War, the community became known as Arthursville.  About 1,900 blacks lived in Arthursville, or what we now know as our Lower Hill district.   

The passage of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 caused a large exodus of Africans from the Pittsburgh area, because this law provided easy access for slave catchers to take Africans and sell them back into enslavement. Pittsburgh lost one half of its African population.  Many found it necessary to travel further north into Erie and other places north of Pittsburgh for freedom.  Part of our contemporary population in Erie and Detroit and certainly Canada are the descendants of those escaping Africans.

Martin Delaney and
Charles Avery

communication within the
African-American community

dialogue between the races

proving Vasco da Gama wrong

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