Charles Daggs: From Enslavement to Community Leadership in Hammond, Louisiana

Charles Daggs Headstone

Charles Daggs stands as one of the important early African American pioneers in Hammond, Louisiana, a man whose life spanned slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, Reconstruction, and the establishment of one of Hammond's oldest African American institutions.

Daggs was born in the Washington, D.C., area in the early nineteenth century, although his exact birth year remains uncertain. Sources place his birth between approximately 1809 and 1814. A later account of his death reported that he was 99 years, four months, and 18 days old when he died in Hammond on January 26, 1909. That calculation would place his birth around September 1809. However, the 1835 slave manifest reportedly recorded Charles as 21 years old, suggesting a birth around 1814. Because these records conflict, additional primary documentation is needed to establish his exact date of birth.

One of the most significant discoveries in Daggs's history is the record documenting his forced migration as a enslaved man from the Washington, D.C., region to Louisiana. In 1835, Charles  along with his mother, Rachel Daggs, and other members of his family aboard the Tribune, a vessel transporting enslaved people from Alexandria, District of Columbia, to New Orleans. The vessel arrived in New Orleans on October 1, 1835. The surviving account identifies Rachel as approximately 35 years old and lists Charles among her children. The shipment was associated with John Armfield and the individuals identified in the record as Brandon, McKenna, and Wright. He was sold to Louisiana Governor Henry Johnson to finanically support the building of Georgetown University. The Maryland Jesuits sold 300 enslaved individuals including members of the Daggs family. 

Carter LaCoste attended the unveiling.

The documentation connecting Charles to the "Tribune" is particularly significant because it provides a rare and powerful link between an individual who later became a respected community leader who endure the  domestic slave trade.  His story therefore does not begin with freedom; it begins with a forced journey whose surviving documentation allows his family history to be traced across generations and geographic boundaries.

During the Civil War, Charles Daggs's life took another dramatic turn. He served the Union cause in the United States Navy.  His service placed him on the Union side during a conflict that ultimately destroyed the institution of slavery. A 1909 notice published after his death specifically remembered Daggs as a man who had served aboard the Scioto. His transition from an enslaved man to a Union Navy veteran represents one of the most remarkable transformations in his life. The war fundamentally altered the legal and political circumstances of millions of African Americans, and Daggs became part of the generation of formerly enslaved people who helped build new communities after emancipation.

Following the Civil War, Daggs lived and worked in Louisiana. His name appears in the John W. Gurley Papers preserved by LSU Libraries. Documents from 1865 and 1866 identify him as a tenant farmer and preserve correspondence concerning charcoal production, farming, timber, livestock, clothing, rations, commodities, and wages for freedpeople. These records provide an important glimpse into Daggs's life during the difficult transition from slavery to freedom.

In 1867, Charles Daggs organized what became Greater St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Hammond. The church became one of the earliest African American religious institutions in the community and an important center of worship, fellowship, leadership, and community life. The Louisiana State Historic Preservation review recognizes 1867 as the year the church was established by Daggs, a newly freed man.