Reverend Robert Hickman

Sources: NPS, Black Past, St. Paul Historical

Robert Thomas Hickman, born enslaved in Missouri in 1831, is most noted for the group of slaves including his wife and young son, whom he led to freedom in Minnesota in 1863, and helping to establish the first African American church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Hickman was born and reared near Boone, Missouri. At a young adult Hickman worked near Boone as a rail splitter. He was, however, allowed by his owner to learn to read and write. Hickman also became a slave preacher for the people held in bondage in the area.

In May 1863, Robert Hickman and a group of about 75 Black men and women decided to seek freedom from their enslavers by their own accord after the Emancipation Proclamation did not extend to include them. They wanted to work as free people in the northern states. Traveling on a simple raft up the Mississippi didn’t get them as far as they intended due to lack of tools to help paddle against the waters of the Mississippi.

A Steamboat, called the Northerner, was on its way to Saint Paul, Minnesota and towed the raft to Lowertown Saint Paul. After a mob met the steamboat on the dock and started verbally and physically assaulting the newly arrive free black men and women, the captain decided to direct the steamboat to Fort Snelling.

Fort Snelling was the site of the concentration camp for Dakota women, children and elders in 1862 to 1863. As Hickman and his people set foot onto solid land they witnessed the Dakota people “file mournfully past the very site of their sorrow to board the same steamer that had brought Hickman and his group from Missouri to this wretched spot and now would take the Dakota dependent to whatever fate awaited them”.

Hickman went on to hold services for Black men, women and families calling themselves the “Pilgrims.” In 1866, Hickman led a “baptismal service on the Mississippi River” in Saint Paul and Pilgrim Baptist Church. It was not until 1874 that Hickman, because he was a Black man, was legally ordained in the state of Minnesota and remained the congregation’s minister until 1886. Additionally, in 1869 Hickman would be among one of the first Black men to ever serve on a jury in Minnesota. On February 6, 1900, Hickman died a free man, a licensed minister, and a part of Minnesota history.

Sources: NPS, Black Past, St. Paul Historical