Michael G. Shiner (c. 1805–1880) was an African-American Navy Yard worker and diarist who chronicled events in Washington D.C. for more than 60 years, first as a slave and later as a free man. His diary is the earliest-known by an African American resident of the District of Columbia.By Broad Potomac's Shore Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation's Capital, editor Kim Roberts, (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2022), p.5. The diary has numerous entries which have provided historians a firsthand account of the War of 1812, the British Invasion of Washington, the burning of the U.S. Capitol and Navy Yard, and the rescue of his family from slavery as well as shipyard working conditions, 1835 Washington Navy Yard labor strike, Snow Riot, racial tensions and other issues and events of nineteenth century, military and civilian life.Steve Vogel, Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation, Random House, May 7, 2013 p. 165
Early life, the diary, and education
Shiner was born into slavery in 1805 and grew up near Piscataway, Maryland, working on a farm called "Poor Man's Industry" owned by slaveholder William Pumphrey Jr. Around 1813, Pumphrey brought young Shiner into the District of Columbia to serve as a "servant" at his Grant Row lodgings.Certificate of Death, Shiner, Michael, number 22895, District of Columbia Archives, Washington D.C.Shiner Diary, 1828, p.32Disposition of Michael Shiner re Pension Edward Foster, 18 April 1878, Record Group 15, Records of Veteran's Affairs, Entry 25, War of 1812, Pension and Bounty Land Application Files, 1812-1900, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.
His first entries begin in this same year, the year of the British invasion of North America. Shiner however wrote these early entries as recollections (as opposed to contemporaneously) when he was an adult. Although often described as "The Diary of Michael Shiner", the first section of the manuscript is a narrative memoir written and arranged chronologically of the important events he witnessed in his youth. Shiner never called his manuscript a diary, instead he simply inscribed the flyleaf "his book". In his book he concentrated primarily on the significant public events in his life; which he witnessed or read about, combined with some limited but important personal incidents and concerns. In his later years, he may have expanded upon some of the early entries in his diary, adding specifics which were unknown to him as a child.Shiner Diary, Introduction
Shiner wrote using phonetic spelling and little punctuation. Because literacy for blacks outside of religious instruction was discouraged at the time, it is not known with certainty how Shiner learned to read and write. Some historians have speculated that he may have learned from a small school at the Navy Yard run by white abolitionists. The 1870 report of Department of Education of the District of Columbia Special Report however confirms Shiner achieved literacy as an adult: The Sabbath School among the colored people in those times differed from the institution as organized among whites as it embraced young and old and most of the time was given not to studying of the Bible but to learning to read. It was the only school which for a time they were allowed to enter. First Presbyterian Church of Washington at the foot of Capitol Hill opened a Sunday school for colored people in 1826 which held regular meetings every Sunday evening for years and in it many men women and children learned their alphabet and to read the bible. Michael Shiner one of the most remarkable colored men of the District who remembers almost everything that occurred at the Navy Yard during his service of some 60 years there is of this number.District of Columbia Department of Education, Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition of Public Schools in the District of Columbia, Submitted to the Senate June 6, 1868 and to the House with Additions June 13, 1870. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1870): 215, 221.
War of 1812
During The War of 1812 Shiner recollected watching the British invasion of Washington DC: "They looked like flames of fire, all red coats and the stocks of their guns painted with red vermilion, and the iron work shined like a Spanish dollar."
Writing in 1878 he recalled, "At the time of the battle of Bladensburg [ Wednesday 24 August] 1814 I was living with my master near where Grant Row now is in on East Capitol Street ... The British army followed our army and burned first the large dwellings at the corner of 5th and Maryland avenue Gen'l Ross 's horse was shot down from that house. They then burned the buildings then on A Street near the Capitol. I was an eye witness to all this. The British stayed, in Washington until Friday night and then left."Shiner Diary, Introduction quoting 18 April 1878 letter of Michael Shiner to Board of Pensions re claim of Edward Foster.
When he and a young companion began to run, they were stopped by Mrs. Reed, an older white woman, who scolded them: "Where are you running you nigger you? What do you think the British want with such a nigger as you?" Shiner's friend hid in a baking oven, but Shiner continued to watch the events unfold. Mrs. Reed was likely echoing white fear in the District, which heightened just before the Battle of Bladensburg 24 August 1814, "by an insistent rumor that a slave revolt had erupted in District of Columbia and the adjoining counties." The rumor was false yet many in the militia fled back into the city to protect their homes furthering the state of apprehension and dread.Taylor Allan The Internal Enemy Slavery and War In Virginia, 1772 -1832 WW Norton & Co. New York 2013, p.305, 387. As the war continued, Shiner described what he saw and learned in great detail. While there was no slave rebellion, the lure of freedom was real.Franklin, John Hope and Schweninger, Loren Runaway Slaves Rebels on the Plantation Oxford University Press: New York 1999. p.28. In 1813 Rear Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane had promised to emancipate slaves who joined their British forces. Some of the enslaved took advantage of the war to escape servitude and join the British forces.William S. Dudley, editor The Naval War of 1812 A Documentary History Volume II. (Naval Historical Center: Washington DC 1992), 324-325. One of these men was Archibald Clark enslaved to James Pumphrey 1765 -1832. James Pumphrey as a slaveholder held Michael Shiner's future wife Phillis in bondage and was someone young Michael would have encountered often. During the War of 1812 information regarding Archibald Clark's successful escape to the British may have circulated among the Pumphrey brothers enslaved workforce and to the young Michael Shiner. Archibald Clark was literate and wrote his family and his former "master" from England.Taylor, p.384,544 n81.
Marriage and family
In his early twenties, Shiner attended a Sunday school run by the First Presbyterian Church of Washington at the foot of Capitol Hill which had opened for free and enslaved blacks in 1826. He also mentions attending Ebenezer Methodist church services in the 1820s. In his day to day activities, Shiner generally kept his literacy secret, and wrote very little of a personal nature. In his Diary, Shiner chose primarily to describe the public events he witnessed in the District and the navy yard. About 1828 Shiner married a 20-year-old woman named Phillis (her surname is unknown), who had been purchased at the age of nine, by William Pumphrey's brother, James Pumphrey who also worked and lived in Washington D.C.District of Columbia, Deed Books, Liber AP No. 40, 9 October 1817, p.28, "District of Columbia, Washington County, to wit. I James Pumphrey, do hereby certify that I removed from Loudon County, State of Virginia, a Negro girl named Phillis, about nine years old into the District of Columbia for my own use, and not for sale as witnessed by my hand and seal this 9th day of October 1817." The young couple lived together near the naval yard and had six children. Later documentation reflects the Shiner family regularly attended the Ebenezer Methodist Church where they took part in church adult classes for free and enslaved black people. Among those who attended Ebenezer in the 1820s and 1830s with the Shiner's were many employees of the shipyard; both black and white. Black attendees during these years were numerous, and included many community leaders and activists such as: Moses Liverpool, Nicholas Franklin, Thomas Smallwood, Alethia Tanner and Sophia Bell. "The Smallwoods and Shiners were neighbors and almost certainly friends."Shane, Scott, A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland(Macmillan, London, 2023), pp.27-28.
Work at the Navy Yard
From 1800-1830 the Washington Navy Yard was the District's main employer of enslaved African Americans. In 1808, muster lists show they made up one third of the workforce. The number of enslaved workers gradually declined during the next thirty years. William Pumphrey, like many slaveholders, rented his enslaved workers to the Navy Yard. In the "Muster Book of the U.S. Navy in Ordinary at the Navy Yard Washington City", Shiner is recorded as "Ordinary Seaman" with the notation he was first entered on the Ordinary rolls 1 July 1826.
In the early nineteenth century naval shipyard, the Ordinary was where naval ships were held in reserve, or for later need. Ships in Ordinary normally were older vessels awaiting restoration that had minimal crews of semi-retired or disabled sailors who remained on board to make sure that the vessels were kept in usable condition, provided security, kept the bilge pump operating, and ensured the lines were secure. Here enslaved African Americans worked as seamen, cooks, servants or laborers, performing many of the most unpleasant and difficult jobs. The work they did included scraping the hull, moving timber, and helping to suppress fires. Their wages were paid directly to their owners. At the navy yard enslaved workers were given limited medical treatment per the Secretary of the Navy's 1813 letter. This emergency medical care was provided solely to reassure and preserve the slaveholders property.William Jones to Dr. Edward Cutbush, 23 May 1813 RG45 NARA Michael Shiner was treated on at least two occasions 1827 and 1829 for "fever".The Register of Patients Naval Hospitals 1812 - 1934 Vol. 45., National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 52 Records of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Field Records Case Files for Patients at Naval Hospitals & Registers Entry 45. As an enslaved laborer Shiner's movements were on occasion carefully observed and recorded in the navy yard station log i.e. 27 and 28 December 1828.