WINDSOR MILL, Md. — What's in a name?
If your last name is Dorsey, and you're from this neck of the woods, then your name is tied to Maryland history and American history.
“People ran away from this. And can you blame them? Look at this.”
This heavy piece of wood and metal is a yoke used in the late 1700s to put around a slave's neck. It's probably the most striking and somber piece Linda Dorsey-Walker has in her collection of artifacts from that era.
Linda is a walking museum of Black history. It all started with a quest to know more about her family history.
“I attended college out of state and everyone I encountered said 'Dorsey? What an unusual name.' And I thought, well, how's that an unusual name? In Maryland, just any old person is named Dorsey,” she says.
So, she asked her father, Robert Wilson Dorsey, where it came from. He said there were enclaves of Dorsey slaves in several communities in Central Maryland, including Randallstown, Woodlawn, and Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
“That really, you know, piqued my curiosity,” Linda says. “Where are these people? What, what's our history? What's more of the background? And that's when I realized I need to do some more research into the white Dorsey family that owned these folks.”
The 'white Dorseys' were Edward, John and Joshua Dorsey, originally from France, who came to America from England in the 1600s. Lord Baltimore granted them land here and they acquired land in Virginia, working plantations that held Linda’s descendants.
“I'm proud to be one of the original descendants of the original slave population of Maryland,” she says. “Very proud. Because that means we survived not just the decades, we survived successfully here for hundreds of years.”
Tracing your ancestry is a sensitive topic among African Americans. It brings very strong and uncomfortable feelings. Linda says to push pass that.
“It's important to know so it won't be forgotten,” she says.
You can see Linda’s collection, along with other unique artifacts, this month at Emmarts United Methodist Church in Windsor Mill, 7100 Dogwood Road at Rolling Road, from 12-2 p.m. Sundays.
