Miles Howard

How this work helped shape America

Born enslaved around 1800, Miles Howard was sold as a child to Halifax, North Carolina, where he learned the skilled trade of barbering before gaining his freedom around 1818. Howard transformed his trade into an independent economic life and began acquiring property in Halifax, purchasing real estate by 1825 and eventually owning multiple town lots and other property. His efforts to build a free family were constrained by slavery law: Howard purchased his enslaved wife so the family could remain together and later succeeded in emancipating three of their children. By his death in 1857, Howard had converted skilled service work into substantial property ownership while navigating the legal restrictions imposed on free Black Americans and their families.