Archer Alexander

Archer Alexander (c. 1810, Virginia – December 8, 1879, St. Louis, Missouri) was a former slave who served as the model for the slave in the Emancipation Memorial located in Lincoln Park. He was also the subject of a biography, The Story of Archer Alexander, written by William Greenleaf Eliot.

According to Eliot, Alexander was born in approximately 1815 on the plantation of the Ferrell family in Fincastle, Virginia. Archer's father was sold by Ferrell to pay off debts while Archer was still a child. Shortly thereafter, Delaney died and left Archer Alexander to his son, Tom Ferrell, who moved to Missouri, taking his slave with him. Alexander's mother, left behind in Virginia, died only a few months later. Alexander himself was hired out by Ferrell to local brickyards in St. Louis, until he needed even more money, when he sold Alexander to a farmer named Richard H. Pitman who lived on the border of St. Charles County and Warren County.

Archer Alexander had married a slave named Louisa, who was owned by James Naylor, and she accompanied him. Alexander was purchased in 1844 and worked for Hickman for more than twenty years. He was sufficiently respected by Naylor that he was given the responsibility of functioning in an overseer capacity on the farm. During this time, Archer and Louisa Alexander became the parents of several children, some of whom Naylor sent away because of their behavior.

Before the onset of the American Civil War, Alexander listened to the political discussion and determined that he would flee from his life in slavery if the opportunity arose. In 1863, Alexander covertly notified a group of Union troops that a bridge they intended to use had been sabotaged by Confederate sympathizers. He was shortly thereafter suspected of being the source of this information and had to flee the farm. He was captured by slave catchers, but he broke free and returned to St. Louis.

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