Texas awards Historical Marker to Staples Colored Cemetery

Staples African-American

Freedmen Colony Association 

Abraham Lincoln signed the initial preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, on Sept. 22, 1862, and it went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. All enslaved people located in the United States “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

The proclamation started a movement of newly released freedmen, leaving the plantations where they have been kept captives for to a new life on their own.

Where would they go? Some of the freedmen who had spent their lives under the harsh rulership of their owners, chose to stay on the plantations and work as sharecroppers and others chose to leave.

Those who choose to leave, began the migration from the south to other parts of the country — freedom. Freedom from the life of partial starvation, due to the limited amount of food rationed to them by their heartless owners.

Freedom from watching their children, husbands and other relatives sold into a life of servitude and not knowing where they were going or if they would ever see them again. Freedom from the day in and day out, back breaking field work, from dawn to dusk, under the riveting eye of a cruel overseer. Freedom to the newly emancipated slaves meant: owning property, raising their children as a family unit, engaging in work that gave them a monetary reward for their labor, attending their own churches and freedom to get an education.

What does all of this have to do with the Staples Colored Cemetery, located at 11011 FM 621 South, in a small community called Staples. In this small community, there were slaves who were bought to the area by their owners and there were other newly freed slaves, who migrated to the area after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. There are records to substantiate the attempt to start a Freedmen Colony in Staples in 1867. The slaves in Texas did not receive word of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, until two years after proclamation went into effect.

These freedmen desired to start their own community — often called Freedmen Colonies. A local descendant of some of the individuals who came to Staples, who were bought to the area their slave owners and others who migrated to the area, has traced her ancestors’ origins to Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, and other areas of the south. Some of these ancestors are buried in the Staples Colored Cemetery.

The cemetery is one of the last reminders of the freedmen who tried to establish a Freedmen community in Staples. Currently, are 168 documented burials in this cemetery on approximately two acres of land. These two acres was once the location of a church called Pleasant Hope Church and a school. The cemetery is the final resting place of many of the African American residents of the Staples Community.

There are four veterans buried in the cemetery, along with grave markers indicating some of the deceased were affiliated with the Masonic Lodge. A majority of the graves are unmarked, most due to deterioration and many of them, never received grave markers.

The cemetery has come a long way from being sold in a Sheriff’s Sale for taxes to being a recipient of a coveted Texas Historical Marker. The history of the cemetery and the contribution of the freedmen who lived in the Staples Community, has been recognized by the Staples citizens, demonstrated by the erection of a fence around the cemetery in 1963.

There will be a Historical Marker dedication and celebration ceremony on June 14 for the unveiling of the Historic Marker to the public. Individuals who contributed their time and efforts to make this hallowed burial ground a protected place of eternal rest for those who resting from their labor, will be recognized and honored. Marilyn Merriweather Johnson, President of the Staples African-American Freedmen Colony Association, who now oversees the cemetery, will be issuing an official invitation for all descendants, community leaders and state officials to attend the Historical Marker Dedication.

The Staples African-American Freedmen Colony Association is inviting anyone who would like to contribute to the upkeep of the cemetery, can do so, by sending funds to SAAFRCA, P.O. Box 3142, San Marcos, TX 78666.