Archer Alexander

Who was Archer Alexander?

Archer Alexander was a former black 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 Virginia plantation of the Ferrell Family in Kincastle, Virginia. Alexander's father was sold by Ferrell to pay off debts while Alexander was still a child. Shortly thereafter, Delaney died and left 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, Missouri, until he needed even more money, when he sold Alexander to a farmer named Richard H. Pitman who lived in the area on the border of St. Charles County, Missouri and Warren County, Missouri. Alexander had married before this a slave woman 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, and was sufficiently respected by him enough that he gave Alexander the job of functioning in an overseer capacity on the farm. During this time, Alexander and Louisa became the parents of several children, some of whom Naylor sent away because of their behavior.