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The Legend of Black Maria

The Legend of Black Maria published on No Comments on The Legend of Black Maria

Black Maria (pronounced like Mariah or muh-rye-uh) is a bit of old slang for a police van that might be familiar to those who indulge in British period mysteries, though it has been out of use for many years.  Many people over hundreds of years have pondered the origination of the slang and many have landed upon the same old story of Maria Lee.

artist illustration of Maria Lee hauling in three sailors

Maria Lee

Maria Lee was an African American proprietress of a boardinghouse for sailors in colonial Boston, though at least one account places her in the early 1800s. She was described as being very large, strong, and energetic. She became indispensable to the Boston police force of the time for her help handling especially rowdy individuals. An oft repeated anecdote describes Maria Lee single-handedly hauling three boisterous sailors into the police station when they were causing a disturbance at her boardinghouse. For the police at the time, calling for Black Maria meant bringing in back up to take a law-breaker to jail. When police vans came about, originally large boxy horse drawn wagons, they were painted black and christened with the name Black Maria in honor of the lady who first was called to carry in the prisoners.

This story has been repeated in several periodical and newspaper publications as a bit of interesting trivia on the origination of the slang.  One 1937 article added the embellishment that Maria Lee was knifed in the back by a Chinese sailor during a fight and would subsequently be carried to the morgue in the van that bore her name (The Midland Journal).  
Before moving into my own investigations on this particular story of Black Maria, I wanted to give some consideration for the primary dissenting opinion I found, given by Reverend H. Harbaugh in 1859.  Harbaugh rejected the idea that the police Black Maria was named after an African American woman.  Instead he postulated that the name Maria was adopted due to the Hebrew meaning for Mary/Maria, bitterness, and how criminals, conveyed in such a manner, would be set upon by a black cloud of bitterness (Historically Speaking).  I find this theory to be much more far fetched than the idea that the van would have been named after a person.  I am no scholar of slang, but I have encountered little to no slang based on something as scholarly as the Hebrew meaning behind naming conventions.  Slang often erupts from the average Joe, for communicating with the average Joe.  I could be wrong, but I don’t imagine the average Joe police officer of either colonial or 1800s Boston was communicating with his fellows using Hebrew meanings behind common names.

Returning to the story of the colonial boarding house proprietress, I could not find any mention of her any further back than 1849 which talked of same legend that was later repeated (Notes and Queries).  Instead, I looked for plausibility that 1. a free African American woman was running a business in colonial Boston, 2. the police force and subsequent vans would’ve occurred at similar time, and 3. there was any possibility of a Chinese sailor during the same time.

Though Boston has been known for overwhelming abolitionist sentiment, even prior to the revolutionary war, it was a hub in the international slave trade around 1638 when the ship, Desire, imported several Africans for the Boston slave trade.  This early history had an affect on Boston’s population.  A 1754 census recorded over 900 slaves over 16 years old living in the city.  By 1755, black people made up over 8% of the city’s population.  However, not all the black individuals recorded by these two censuses were enslaved.  Zipporah Potter Atkins, a freed woman, was the first African American to own property in Boston when she purchased her own home 1670.  By 1777, Boston was home to several free black citizens and business owners.  Prince Hall, an immigrant from the West Indies, was notable among these free individuals for being a pioneer black mason, founding the African lodge no. 457, and helping a group of enslaved Bostonians petition for their freedom. Zipporah Atkins’ purchase of her house in 1670, the following stories of enslaved individuals seeking freedom in the courts, of which the actions taken by Prince Hall were only a late example, are compelling evidence to suggest, I think, that a free African American woman could have been running a boardinghouse for sailors in colonial Boston.  

Boston also boasted the very first organized ‘night watch’ in 1636, followed by New York in 1658 and Philadelphia in 1700.  This was nothing like what we know the police to be today. A night watch was staffed with civilians, who later may have reported to a primary constable who was paid by the city.  The first covered wagon type of police van came into use in the 1830s according to US Police histories, 1858 according to British police histories.  It seemed to instantly be called Black Maria.  Though, some sources point to a 1841 article in Knickerbocker Magazine as the earliest mention of the name, I was able to find another account of a Black Maria prison coach in an 1838 article in the Extra Globe.  If, as some reports claim, calling Black Maria meant simply hauling someone to prison, is it possible that an idiom referring to a colonial Maria Lee could have remained popular for almost one hundred years before the police van would be christened?  

If Maria Lee ran her boarding house in 1820, not colonial times as some sources have suggested, she would have been assisting a more robustly formed police department only a decade before the horse-drawn police wagon was named in honor of her.

Now, lets dispel with the 1937 embellishment of Maria Lee’s death at the hands of a Chinese sailor.  As an extra ‘fact’ added late in the constant retelling of the story, this is already suspect in my mind, though I went searching for information to establish its plausibility anyway.  What I found was that the oldest trade route between China and New England was in place from 1783-1844, from Canton.  1783 is post revolutionary and so not strictly ‘colonial.’  Is this twist to her story possible if Maria Lee lived in the 1820s? I suppose so.

Black Maria of Dug’s Dive

In 1896 the Anaconda Standard ran an alternate, self declared ‘well authenticated,’ account of how the Black Maria police van got its name.  According to the article, some thirty years before, the police vans were still new and unfinished, appearing as rough wooden boxes behind a horse and driver.  Bob Sadler was one such driver in the Eerie Canal area of Buffalo, New York.  He suggested the vans be painted black and named Black Maria in reference to an unruly prisoner he barely managed to secure in the wagon.  The Black Maria of this story is an equally large and strong black woman as the Maria Lee of our previous story.  However, Black Maria was markedly less helpful and civic minded.  Instead, making a name for herself as a denizen of a bar called Dug’s Dive, and as the most difficult passenger Bob Sadler ever had to convey.  

The detail I decided was the most important in establishing the plausibility of this story was Dug’s Dive.  William Douglas, Uncle Dug, was a freed man who moved to Buffalo sometime in the 1830s and established a pub of sorts  in a basement off the Eerie Canal toe-path.  It earned its name due to the tendency of the basement to flood during heavy rains and high waves on the canal.  Other than being a possible stop for the underground railroad, Dug’s Dive also served as refuge for African Americans during the Buffalo riot of 1863 when the city’s Irish population became violent towards the African American community during the military conscription efforts of the Civil War.  I couldn’t find firm open and close dates for Dug’s Dive except for a discussion of how the Erie Canal was deepened and shortened leading to new roads and grading in 1895.  By 1876 there was another Dug’s Dive in Alexandria Louisiana.

So, there was a Dug’s Dive in operation, providing food, drink, and shelter to African Americans on the Eerie Canal more than thirty years before this alternate Black Maria was wrestled into an unpainted police van.  Why did this story come out nearly fifty years after the legend of colonial, or 1820s, Maria Lee in Boston was published and republished?  Could it be that Buffalo wanted to claim some deep police history away from Boston?  And it seems strange to me that this alternate account of the African American woman is so in opposition with that of Maria Lee.  Both were described as large strong women, but the Black Maria of Dug’s Dive was a villain.  Could anti African American sentiment be employed here to make a story that was more comforting to the racism of the day? 

Black Maria, The Twenty Mile Mare

In 1832, J.C. Steven’s black mare, Black Maria, ran a race for the Post Stake.  Another horse named Black Maria was reported competing in the Great Four Mile Heat Race at the Eclipse Course in 1859.  In 1908, the Times Dispatch  of Richmond Virginia ran a story about the mare that won a twenty mile race named Black Maria.  Yet another Black Maria lived from 1923-1932, giving birth to racing horses after her time racing was over.  I find this horse story interesting because the original reference to a mare named Black Maria predates any other mention of that term and coincides with the estimated first appearance of the horse drawn police transport vehicle.  Was the horse named after the police van?

Black Maria Whist

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the three person card game called Black Maria, which is also a nickname for the Queen of Spades.  This game was first described in a 1939 games book and can definitely not claim origination for the name.

The Real Black Maria

We may never know for sure why police vans, first horse drawn and then motorized, were given the name Black Maria.  I prefer to think that a brave, rowdy, and powerful African American lady of prodigious size and strength, named Maria Lee, used to help Boston police who were in over their head with boisterous sailors.  Maria Lee’s story is the earliest reported in all the sources I have access to right now.  It is the most often reported.  Like any story that was transmitted initially as part of an oral tradition, it is lacking in documentation and records that would help us pinpoint Maria Lee as the Maria that gave her name to the police van.  Given what I have found, the story is wholly plausible, except maybe for the Chinese sailor. 

References by way of Timeline

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