FREEDOM
THE RAMPTOWN COMMUNITY
What Was Ramptown?
Ramptown was a settlement occupied in the 1800s by African Americans who escaped slavery
and settled near the towns of Cassopolis and Vandalia in Cass County, Michigan.
Cass County proved to be a haven for both free and formerly enslaved individuals as early as the
1830s. They provided needed labor to Quaker landlords and others to clear ields and produce
agricultural goods. This labor arrangement often tied people to the land and encouraged them to
build cabins on properties owned by Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends.
Sometime after the abandonment of these sites in the late 1800s, the community became
referred to as Ramptown.
The community probably acquired its name from the ramps—a type of wild onion, Allium
tricoccum, with a distinctive lavor with which the settlers were familiar. This plant lourished in
the area and became a readily adopted food source. The settlement included a church and a
school that were used from about 1840 to 1890. It is estimated that at its peak, Ramptown
consisted of perhaps 100 people residing in at least 20 cabins at any one time. No documents
survive that de initively locate Ramptown on the landscape, though it was likely situated on land
owned by Quakers and free blacks.
Ramps, or wild onions
Courtesy Kenneth Sarkozy
Where Was It Located?
Information about Ramptown is absent from plat maps of the
period. Those maps show the houses and properties of Quakers
like James Bonine, Stephen Bogue, William Jones, and Ishmael
Lee, but not the small cabins of ex-slaves, who in most cases did
not own the land on which they resided. Some African
Americans appear in census records, but they cannot be
de initively associated with Ramptown. Nevertheless, the
inhabitants left traces of their lives through oral traditions that
have been passed down from generation to generation and
through the material remains that litter the ields where they
once lived and worked. Research suggests that Ramptown likely
consisted of cabins dispersed between the towns of Cassopolis
and Vandalia. The archaeological record in this area is a
potentially rich source of information about the history of Cass
County and the Ramptown community.
The search for evidence of Ramptown took place on properties
owned by Quakers near M-60 west of Vandalia where people of
African descent found refuge in cabins they constructed along
the edges of plowed ϐields where they made their livelihood.
Penn Twp., Cass County, in Map of the Counties of Cass, Van Buren and Berrien Michigan Philadelphia:
Geil, Harley & Siverd, 1860, p.12, reprinted 1983.
http://www.migenweb.org/cass/Doc1860scans/Vandaliaa011.jpg, adapted by Kenneth Sarkozy.