Lacy K. Ford, Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195118094
- eISBN:
- 9780199870936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118094.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter analyzes North Carolina's decision to disfranchise all free blacks at its 1835 state constitutional convention. The push for disfranchisement of free blacks in North Carolina was led not ...
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This chapter analyzes North Carolina's decision to disfranchise all free blacks at its 1835 state constitutional convention. The push for disfranchisement of free blacks in North Carolina was led not only by white egalitarians seeking ideological consistency but also by some conservatives eager to free their election districts from the influence of free black voters. These conservatives, who generally opposed constitutional reform, couched their public arguments against free black suffrage in terms of drawing a bright line between white citizens and black denizens much as egalitarians did, though conservatives also expressed the more elitist notion that black disfranchisement would free their election districts from the “corruption” and tendency to mobocracy they associated with free black voting.Less
This chapter analyzes North Carolina's decision to disfranchise all free blacks at its 1835 state constitutional convention. The push for disfranchisement of free blacks in North Carolina was led not only by white egalitarians seeking ideological consistency but also by some conservatives eager to free their election districts from the influence of free black voters. These conservatives, who generally opposed constitutional reform, couched their public arguments against free black suffrage in terms of drawing a bright line between white citizens and black denizens much as egalitarians did, though conservatives also expressed the more elitist notion that black disfranchisement would free their election districts from the “corruption” and tendency to mobocracy they associated with free black voting.
Brenda E. Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195118032
- eISBN:
- 9780199853793
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118032.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and around Loudoun County, Virginia—weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and ...
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This book provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and around Loudoun County, Virginia—weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and poor-to-middling whites, into a powerful portrait of southern society from the mid-18th century to the Civil War. Loudoun County's most illustrious families—the Lees, Masons, Carters, Monroes, and Peytons—helped forge southern traditions and attitudes that became characteristic of the entire region while mingling with yeoman farmers of German, Scotch-Irish, and Irish descent, and free black families who lived alongside abolitionist Quakers and thousands of slaves. The book builds the complex picture of their intertwined lives, revealing how their combined histories guaranteed Loudon's role in important state, regional, and national events and controversies. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, for example, were hidden at a local plantation during the War of 1812 The area also was the birthplace of celebrated fugitive slave Daniel Dangerfield, the home of John Janney, chairman of the Virginia secession convention, a center for Underground Railroad activities, and the location of John Brown's infamous 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry. The book breaks new ground in her depiction of slave family life. Following the lead of historian Herbert Gutman, most scholars have accepted the idea that, like whites, slaves embraced the nuclear family, both as a living reality and an ideal. The book destroys this notion, showing that the harsh realities of slavery allowed little possibility of a nuclear family. Far more important were extended kin networks and female headed households.Less
This book provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and around Loudoun County, Virginia—weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and poor-to-middling whites, into a powerful portrait of southern society from the mid-18th century to the Civil War. Loudoun County's most illustrious families—the Lees, Masons, Carters, Monroes, and Peytons—helped forge southern traditions and attitudes that became characteristic of the entire region while mingling with yeoman farmers of German, Scotch-Irish, and Irish descent, and free black families who lived alongside abolitionist Quakers and thousands of slaves. The book builds the complex picture of their intertwined lives, revealing how their combined histories guaranteed Loudon's role in important state, regional, and national events and controversies. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, for example, were hidden at a local plantation during the War of 1812 The area also was the birthplace of celebrated fugitive slave Daniel Dangerfield, the home of John Janney, chairman of the Virginia secession convention, a center for Underground Railroad activities, and the location of John Brown's infamous 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry. The book breaks new ground in her depiction of slave family life. Following the lead of historian Herbert Gutman, most scholars have accepted the idea that, like whites, slaves embraced the nuclear family, both as a living reality and an ideal. The book destroys this notion, showing that the harsh realities of slavery allowed little possibility of a nuclear family. Far more important were extended kin networks and female headed households.
Lacy K. Ford, Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195118094
- eISBN:
- 9780199870936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118094.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines Tennessee's debates on slavery. In the middle South, the Turner crisis raised questions about the future of slavery and the position of free blacks in a slaveholding society. ...
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This chapter examines Tennessee's debates on slavery. In the middle South, the Turner crisis raised questions about the future of slavery and the position of free blacks in a slaveholding society. These issues were debated not in the aftermath of a divisive state constitutional convention, as was the case in Virginia, but as Tennessee and North Carolina moved haltingly but inexorably toward state constitutional conventions of their own. These constitutional reform movements were driven by the pressure from white egalitarians eager to democratize state politics as thoroughly as possible despite entrenched conservative opposition. Thus, in the middle South, the debates over slavery and free blacks occurred within the cauldron of a white egalitarian crusade for constitutional revision.Less
This chapter examines Tennessee's debates on slavery. In the middle South, the Turner crisis raised questions about the future of slavery and the position of free blacks in a slaveholding society. These issues were debated not in the aftermath of a divisive state constitutional convention, as was the case in Virginia, but as Tennessee and North Carolina moved haltingly but inexorably toward state constitutional conventions of their own. These constitutional reform movements were driven by the pressure from white egalitarians eager to democratize state politics as thoroughly as possible despite entrenched conservative opposition. Thus, in the middle South, the debates over slavery and free blacks occurred within the cauldron of a white egalitarian crusade for constitutional revision.
Viola Franziska Müller
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813056036
- eISBN:
- 9780813053806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
As antebellum Virginia became the main point of departure for the domestic slave trade and enslaved people increasingly ran the risk of being sold and deported to the Deep South, the free black ...
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As antebellum Virginia became the main point of departure for the domestic slave trade and enslaved people increasingly ran the risk of being sold and deported to the Deep South, the free black population of Richmond, Virginia, was substantially augmented by an influx of fugitive slaves from the surrounding countryside who attempted to escape slavery by illegally passing themselves off as free. At the same time, the city became an important industrial site, stimulating an incessant demand for factory workers (both men and women) and domestic servants in the households of the growing white merchant class, thereby significantly expanding employment opportunities for black residents. These developments provided opportunities for slave refugees to hide amongst the free black population, pass for free, and find work in the booming labor markets of the city. Following up on the previous chapter, this chapter zooms in on a specific case study and focuses on the residential and economic integration of slave refugees in the Antebellum South, the interdependence of free blacks and fugitive slaves, and the intermingling of the lower classes within the bustling urban environment of Virginia’s capital city. Drawing from police registers, runaway slave ads, and court documents—all of which reveal illuminating details about the lives of runaway slaves and their interactions with the free black population—it reveals how fugitive slaves navigated an informal freedom in ways similar to the migration experiences of today’s illegal immigrants.Less
As antebellum Virginia became the main point of departure for the domestic slave trade and enslaved people increasingly ran the risk of being sold and deported to the Deep South, the free black population of Richmond, Virginia, was substantially augmented by an influx of fugitive slaves from the surrounding countryside who attempted to escape slavery by illegally passing themselves off as free. At the same time, the city became an important industrial site, stimulating an incessant demand for factory workers (both men and women) and domestic servants in the households of the growing white merchant class, thereby significantly expanding employment opportunities for black residents. These developments provided opportunities for slave refugees to hide amongst the free black population, pass for free, and find work in the booming labor markets of the city. Following up on the previous chapter, this chapter zooms in on a specific case study and focuses on the residential and economic integration of slave refugees in the Antebellum South, the interdependence of free blacks and fugitive slaves, and the intermingling of the lower classes within the bustling urban environment of Virginia’s capital city. Drawing from police registers, runaway slave ads, and court documents—all of which reveal illuminating details about the lives of runaway slaves and their interactions with the free black population—it reveals how fugitive slaves navigated an informal freedom in ways similar to the migration experiences of today’s illegal immigrants.
Kimberly S. Hanger
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112436
- eISBN:
- 9780199854271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112436.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter explores the world inhabited by free black women or libre women in colonial New Orleans. These women found themselves living within a plantation slave society in which racial ...
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This chapter explores the world inhabited by free black women or libre women in colonial New Orleans. These women found themselves living within a plantation slave society in which racial discrimination and a hierarchy ordered by race, class, and gender interacted to subordinate them as women and as non-whites. These women seemed to have more freedom to choose their fate than did slave and even white women, who, if they acted as prescribed by society, rarely could own and operate business, enter into legal contracts without the consent of their fathers or husbands, serve as heads of household, and marry or cohabit with someone of “unequal” status. All New Orleans women cared less about the conduct of libre women because they had no honor; with less to lose, free black women had more flexibility to maneuver within the system.Less
This chapter explores the world inhabited by free black women or libre women in colonial New Orleans. These women found themselves living within a plantation slave society in which racial discrimination and a hierarchy ordered by race, class, and gender interacted to subordinate them as women and as non-whites. These women seemed to have more freedom to choose their fate than did slave and even white women, who, if they acted as prescribed by society, rarely could own and operate business, enter into legal contracts without the consent of their fathers or husbands, serve as heads of household, and marry or cohabit with someone of “unequal” status. All New Orleans women cared less about the conduct of libre women because they had no honor; with less to lose, free black women had more flexibility to maneuver within the system.
Damian Alan Pargas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813056036
- eISBN:
- 9780813053806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Slave flight in the antebellum South did not always coincide with the political geography of freedom. Indeed, spaces and places within the U.S. South attracted the largest number of fugitive slaves. ...
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Slave flight in the antebellum South did not always coincide with the political geography of freedom. Indeed, spaces and places within the U.S. South attracted the largest number of fugitive slaves. From the forests that bordered plantation districts (where slaves remained hidden and maintained by local slave communities) to southern cities (where slaves attempted to pass for free blacks), a majority of fugitive slaves strove for freedom by disguising themselves within the slaveholding states rather than risk long-distance flight attempts to formally free territories such as the northern U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This chapter examines the experiences of fugitive slaves who fled to southern cities between 1800 and 1860. It touches upon themes such as the motivations for fleeing to urban areas (e.g., slave families dodging forced migration), the networks that facilitated such flight attempts, and the ways in which runaway slaves navigated sites of “informal freedom” after arrival in urban areas. Whereas some scholars have approached this group of runaways mainly as “absentees” or “truants” (temporary runaways), this chapter argues that throughout the South, many fugitive slaves who hid out in towns and cities were in fact permanent refugees from slavery—at least by intent, and often by outcome.Less
Slave flight in the antebellum South did not always coincide with the political geography of freedom. Indeed, spaces and places within the U.S. South attracted the largest number of fugitive slaves. From the forests that bordered plantation districts (where slaves remained hidden and maintained by local slave communities) to southern cities (where slaves attempted to pass for free blacks), a majority of fugitive slaves strove for freedom by disguising themselves within the slaveholding states rather than risk long-distance flight attempts to formally free territories such as the northern U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This chapter examines the experiences of fugitive slaves who fled to southern cities between 1800 and 1860. It touches upon themes such as the motivations for fleeing to urban areas (e.g., slave families dodging forced migration), the networks that facilitated such flight attempts, and the ways in which runaway slaves navigated sites of “informal freedom” after arrival in urban areas. Whereas some scholars have approached this group of runaways mainly as “absentees” or “truants” (temporary runaways), this chapter argues that throughout the South, many fugitive slaves who hid out in towns and cities were in fact permanent refugees from slavery—at least by intent, and often by outcome.
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835050
- eISBN:
- 9781469602592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869093_myers.6
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on Sophia Mauncaut, a resident of Charleston who was accused by authorities of being an illegally freed black woman. With the threat of reenslavement hanging over her head, ...
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This chapter focuses on Sophia Mauncaut, a resident of Charleston who was accused by authorities of being an illegally freed black woman. With the threat of reenslavement hanging over her head, Sophia escaped the auction block by acquiring affidavits from four white Charlestonians, all of whom vouched that she was legally free. Philippe Barreyre, a local merchant, swore that Sophia came to Charleston in 1804 with her mistress, Josephine Catreuille, recently deceased. Joseph Dupont stated that he had known Josephine well and had advised her, when her financial situation was bleak, to sell Sophia. Josephine, however, informed Joseph that Sophia and her children were free people. According to Elias Pohl, Josephine had freed Sophia in Saint-Domingue but filed papers again in Charleston to ensure the woman's freedom.Less
This chapter focuses on Sophia Mauncaut, a resident of Charleston who was accused by authorities of being an illegally freed black woman. With the threat of reenslavement hanging over her head, Sophia escaped the auction block by acquiring affidavits from four white Charlestonians, all of whom vouched that she was legally free. Philippe Barreyre, a local merchant, swore that Sophia came to Charleston in 1804 with her mistress, Josephine Catreuille, recently deceased. Joseph Dupont stated that he had known Josephine well and had advised her, when her financial situation was bleak, to sell Sophia. Josephine, however, informed Joseph that Sophia and her children were free people. According to Elias Pohl, Josephine had freed Sophia in Saint-Domingue but filed papers again in Charleston to ensure the woman's freedom.
Jasmine Nichole Cobb
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479817221
- eISBN:
- 9781479830619
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479817221.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines emergent visual practices developed by elite free Black women within the confines of Black parlors. Focusing on free Black women's friendship albums, a popular form of ...
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This chapter examines emergent visual practices developed by elite free Black women within the confines of Black parlors. Focusing on free Black women's friendship albums, a popular form of sentimentalism, the chapter investigates how notable Black abolitionist women cultivated an “optics of respectability” and subversively engaged perceptions of free Black womanhood against the backdrop of slavery's visual culture. It also uses the friendship album as a basis for imagining the parlor and the production of privacy (such as interiority) in the lives of Black women who cultivated new self-perceptions in these spaces to coincide with experiences of freedom. Finally, it considers theories of feminist spectatorship to treat the album as a media artifact and to think about private practices of visual culture among free women in the slave era. By analyzing the visual practices of Black parlors, the chapter highlights the ways that free people of African descent transformed Black visuality amid changes happening around them.Less
This chapter examines emergent visual practices developed by elite free Black women within the confines of Black parlors. Focusing on free Black women's friendship albums, a popular form of sentimentalism, the chapter investigates how notable Black abolitionist women cultivated an “optics of respectability” and subversively engaged perceptions of free Black womanhood against the backdrop of slavery's visual culture. It also uses the friendship album as a basis for imagining the parlor and the production of privacy (such as interiority) in the lives of Black women who cultivated new self-perceptions in these spaces to coincide with experiences of freedom. Finally, it considers theories of feminist spectatorship to treat the album as a media artifact and to think about private practices of visual culture among free women in the slave era. By analyzing the visual practices of Black parlors, the chapter highlights the ways that free people of African descent transformed Black visuality amid changes happening around them.
Roger G. Kennedy
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195140552
- eISBN:
- 9780199848775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195140552.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The battle against race-based slavery and racial discrimination began in New York at the White Plains Convention of 1776, at which the colony's revolutionaries gathered to create their new ...
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The battle against race-based slavery and racial discrimination began in New York at the White Plains Convention of 1776, at which the colony's revolutionaries gathered to create their new government, guided toward abolition by John Jay and Gouverneur Morris. Aaron Burr entered into his first working alliance with the Federalists during the 1790s to free New York's slaves and to protect refugee slaves from recapture by slave-stealing gangs operating on the streets of New York. After proposing abolition in New York in 1775, Jay organized the Manumission Society a decade later and joined Burr in the long fight for emancipation in the state government of New York. As for George Washington, in 1782 he assented to the formation of a “Black Corps” and began the slow progression toward manumission which ultimately led him to free his slaves and to endow them to remain in Virginia. For this implication that a multiracial society was possible, Washington was charged with irresponsibility to his class and section; resident free blacks, like resident Indians, would impede a policy of removal.Less
The battle against race-based slavery and racial discrimination began in New York at the White Plains Convention of 1776, at which the colony's revolutionaries gathered to create their new government, guided toward abolition by John Jay and Gouverneur Morris. Aaron Burr entered into his first working alliance with the Federalists during the 1790s to free New York's slaves and to protect refugee slaves from recapture by slave-stealing gangs operating on the streets of New York. After proposing abolition in New York in 1775, Jay organized the Manumission Society a decade later and joined Burr in the long fight for emancipation in the state government of New York. As for George Washington, in 1782 he assented to the formation of a “Black Corps” and began the slow progression toward manumission which ultimately led him to free his slaves and to endow them to remain in Virginia. For this implication that a multiracial society was possible, Washington was charged with irresponsibility to his class and section; resident free blacks, like resident Indians, would impede a policy of removal.
Jasmine Nichole Cobb
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479817221
- eISBN:
- 9781479830619
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479817221.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines how White viewers retreated to their parlors and used caricature to retool White dominion over the visual in response to street encounters with free Blacks, including Black ...
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This chapter examines how White viewers retreated to their parlors and used caricature to retool White dominion over the visual in response to street encounters with free Blacks, including Black women. Drawing on existential theories of the “look,” it considers Frantz Fanon's personal experience of the White gaze, captured in the phrase “Look! A Negro,” as a practical observation to linger in the moment of White sight and to assess the effect of Blackness on Whiteness. It also discusses Edward Williams Clay's “Life in Philadelphia” cartoon serial, which mocked free Black Philadelphians for their public displays of freedom and showed unflattering caricatures of Black women. Finally, it analyzes White perceptions of the social changes compelled by gradual emancipation laws and how Whites imagined Black freedom in hostile ways in order to manage anxieties about sharing northern spaces with free Blacks. The chapter shows that free Black women tailored their public appearances to directly counter slavery's visual culture, to reclaim rights to covering and to sacredness.Less
This chapter examines how White viewers retreated to their parlors and used caricature to retool White dominion over the visual in response to street encounters with free Blacks, including Black women. Drawing on existential theories of the “look,” it considers Frantz Fanon's personal experience of the White gaze, captured in the phrase “Look! A Negro,” as a practical observation to linger in the moment of White sight and to assess the effect of Blackness on Whiteness. It also discusses Edward Williams Clay's “Life in Philadelphia” cartoon serial, which mocked free Black Philadelphians for their public displays of freedom and showed unflattering caricatures of Black women. Finally, it analyzes White perceptions of the social changes compelled by gradual emancipation laws and how Whites imagined Black freedom in hostile ways in order to manage anxieties about sharing northern spaces with free Blacks. The chapter shows that free Black women tailored their public appearances to directly counter slavery's visual culture, to reclaim rights to covering and to sacredness.
Adam Malka
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469636290
- eISBN:
- 9781469636313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636290.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter argues that white Baltimoreans acted on their fears of free black crime all the time, often violently and usually with the municipality’s approval. In the process, it shows that the ...
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This chapter argues that white Baltimoreans acted on their fears of free black crime all the time, often violently and usually with the municipality’s approval. In the process, it shows that the compatibility between professional and popular policing manifested not only in job-busting attacks and home invasions but also in more prosaic moments, such as when an ordinary citizen arrested a black man or protected him from harm. The public authorities were nominally engaged in a broader project of seizing legitimate force for the state alone, but the policing of free black Baltimoreans relied upon informal white power no less than it did upon formal state power. Police officers did not always protect them. Prisons did not always house them. In the age of slavery, Baltimore’s officials preferred to leave the fates of free people of color to ordinary white men. When it came to policing black people, white vigilantes were the police.Less
This chapter argues that white Baltimoreans acted on their fears of free black crime all the time, often violently and usually with the municipality’s approval. In the process, it shows that the compatibility between professional and popular policing manifested not only in job-busting attacks and home invasions but also in more prosaic moments, such as when an ordinary citizen arrested a black man or protected him from harm. The public authorities were nominally engaged in a broader project of seizing legitimate force for the state alone, but the policing of free black Baltimoreans relied upon informal white power no less than it did upon formal state power. Police officers did not always protect them. Prisons did not always house them. In the age of slavery, Baltimore’s officials preferred to leave the fates of free people of color to ordinary white men. When it came to policing black people, white vigilantes were the police.
Brooke N. Newman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780300225556
- eISBN:
- 9780300240979
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300225556.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
Focusing on the 1730s through the 1750s, chapter 2 considers the relationship between notions of hereditary blood status and the legal redefinition of whiteness and British racial identity in ...
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Focusing on the 1730s through the 1750s, chapter 2 considers the relationship between notions of hereditary blood status and the legal redefinition of whiteness and British racial identity in Jamaica. It shows how demographic crises and ongoing conflicts with the Maroons prompted Jamaican colonial authorities to turn to free blacks, Jews, and persons of mixed ancestry for compulsory assistance. While free blacks and men of mixed ancestry were required to offer military service, and Jews were burdened with extraordinary taxation, a select handful of men and women of mixed ancestry aided the colonial regime by assisting in the legal “whitening” of Jamaica.Less
Focusing on the 1730s through the 1750s, chapter 2 considers the relationship between notions of hereditary blood status and the legal redefinition of whiteness and British racial identity in Jamaica. It shows how demographic crises and ongoing conflicts with the Maroons prompted Jamaican colonial authorities to turn to free blacks, Jews, and persons of mixed ancestry for compulsory assistance. While free blacks and men of mixed ancestry were required to offer military service, and Jews were burdened with extraordinary taxation, a select handful of men and women of mixed ancestry aided the colonial regime by assisting in the legal “whitening” of Jamaica.
Watson Jennison
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813044132
- eISBN:
- 9780813046211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044132.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
*By the 1850s the debate over slavery had reached its peak. In the midst of growing sectionalism and political conflict, slavery’s defenders and its opponents engaged in a heated battle over the true ...
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*By the 1850s the debate over slavery had reached its peak. In the midst of growing sectionalism and political conflict, slavery’s defenders and its opponents engaged in a heated battle over the true nature of bondage in the U. S. South and its impact on those enslaved. These debates concerned not only the fate of the slave population in the South, but the place of the free black population as well. Their collective condition figured prominently in the discussions over the institution. Although white northerners were similarly hostile to the notion that blacks were equal to whites, most were less inclined to cast free blacks in such unequivocally negative terms or to deprive them of basic rights. Indeed, free blacks retained privileges of citizenship, including the right to vote, in New York and most of New England throughout the antebellum era. One of the leading figures in the assault on free black rights was Justice Joseph Lumpkin of Georgia, a prominent jurist and the legal architect of the state’s antebellum slave regime. In sixty important cases related to those issues during his 21 years on the bench, Lumpkin stood at the vanguard of a southern movement promoting proslavery ideology in the legal realm.Less
*By the 1850s the debate over slavery had reached its peak. In the midst of growing sectionalism and political conflict, slavery’s defenders and its opponents engaged in a heated battle over the true nature of bondage in the U. S. South and its impact on those enslaved. These debates concerned not only the fate of the slave population in the South, but the place of the free black population as well. Their collective condition figured prominently in the discussions over the institution. Although white northerners were similarly hostile to the notion that blacks were equal to whites, most were less inclined to cast free blacks in such unequivocally negative terms or to deprive them of basic rights. Indeed, free blacks retained privileges of citizenship, including the right to vote, in New York and most of New England throughout the antebellum era. One of the leading figures in the assault on free black rights was Justice Joseph Lumpkin of Georgia, a prominent jurist and the legal architect of the state’s antebellum slave regime. In sixty important cases related to those issues during his 21 years on the bench, Lumpkin stood at the vanguard of a southern movement promoting proslavery ideology in the legal realm.
Paul Frymer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691166056
- eISBN:
- 9781400885350
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166056.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter examines the question of how the nation would eventually respond to the increasing numbers of free blacks as well as the impending end of legalized African slavery. It considers the ...
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This chapter examines the question of how the nation would eventually respond to the increasing numbers of free blacks as well as the impending end of legalized African slavery. It considers the popularity of black colonization and why this effort at a second removal of a large population was defeated. In particular, it looks at the two-year period in the first congressional session during the Lincoln administration, when the idea of black colonization seemingly had its greatest momentum yet suffered its most resounding defeat. The chapter first provides an overview of colonization schemes in the first two years of the Lincoln administration, Abraham Lincoln's foreign policy adventures, and his Emancipation Proclamation before discussing how the ambitions of American majorities for an all-white nation clashed with the realities of making such an event a reality in the context of a relatively weak American state.Less
This chapter examines the question of how the nation would eventually respond to the increasing numbers of free blacks as well as the impending end of legalized African slavery. It considers the popularity of black colonization and why this effort at a second removal of a large population was defeated. In particular, it looks at the two-year period in the first congressional session during the Lincoln administration, when the idea of black colonization seemingly had its greatest momentum yet suffered its most resounding defeat. The chapter first provides an overview of colonization schemes in the first two years of the Lincoln administration, Abraham Lincoln's foreign policy adventures, and his Emancipation Proclamation before discussing how the ambitions of American majorities for an all-white nation clashed with the realities of making such an event a reality in the context of a relatively weak American state.
Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635866
- eISBN:
- 9781469635873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635866.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter shows how, in the decades after the War of 1812, slavery and the slave trade in the city invited domestic and international criticism as the movement to abolish slavery focused its ...
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This chapter shows how, in the decades after the War of 1812, slavery and the slave trade in the city invited domestic and international criticism as the movement to abolish slavery focused its efforts on the District. As abolitionism became a national force in American politics in the 1830s, the national battle over slavery was waged in large part in and about the nation’s capital, and local abolitionists, black and white, actively challenged slavery within the city itself. Washington became the national battleground over slavery not only because it was the seat of government but also because of the city’s political impotence. Because Congress had veto power over any legislation passed by the city’s local council, national leaders could (and did) use Washington as a pawn in their political power struggles. Escalating political and racial tensions erupted in an 1835 race riot that concludes the chapter.Less
This chapter shows how, in the decades after the War of 1812, slavery and the slave trade in the city invited domestic and international criticism as the movement to abolish slavery focused its efforts on the District. As abolitionism became a national force in American politics in the 1830s, the national battle over slavery was waged in large part in and about the nation’s capital, and local abolitionists, black and white, actively challenged slavery within the city itself. Washington became the national battleground over slavery not only because it was the seat of government but also because of the city’s political impotence. Because Congress had veto power over any legislation passed by the city’s local council, national leaders could (and did) use Washington as a pawn in their political power struggles. Escalating political and racial tensions erupted in an 1835 race riot that concludes the chapter.
Elizabeth Beaumont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199940066
- eISBN:
- 9780199369782
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199940066.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
Chapter 4 turns to abolitionists’ development of antislavery constitutionalism and their project for national reconstruction. The chapter argues that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth ...
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Chapter 4 turns to abolitionists’ development of antislavery constitutionalism and their project for national reconstruction. The chapter argues that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments are markers of a civic refounding of the U.S. Constitution that promised new membership, principles, and institutional arrangements for the political community. These transformations were first imagined not by Lincoln or leading congressmen, but by a new group of American revolutionaries: abolitionists, white and black. They launched a profound vision of freedom from servitude, equal rights, and full citizenship for black men. By exploring abolitionists’ complex movement to challenge and transform fundamental law, the chapter shows how many different participants helped imagine a new antislavery Constitution and reinvent the Declaration of Independence as a promise of racial equality and integration. These reformers’ ideals, discourses, and pressures shaped the constitutional politics of the era, including Republican Party platforms, Lincoln’s move for emancipation, and creation of the Reconstruction Amendments.Less
Chapter 4 turns to abolitionists’ development of antislavery constitutionalism and their project for national reconstruction. The chapter argues that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments are markers of a civic refounding of the U.S. Constitution that promised new membership, principles, and institutional arrangements for the political community. These transformations were first imagined not by Lincoln or leading congressmen, but by a new group of American revolutionaries: abolitionists, white and black. They launched a profound vision of freedom from servitude, equal rights, and full citizenship for black men. By exploring abolitionists’ complex movement to challenge and transform fundamental law, the chapter shows how many different participants helped imagine a new antislavery Constitution and reinvent the Declaration of Independence as a promise of racial equality and integration. These reformers’ ideals, discourses, and pressures shaped the constitutional politics of the era, including Republican Party platforms, Lincoln’s move for emancipation, and creation of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Rafael Ocasio
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041643
- eISBN:
- 9780813043913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041643.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
“Urban Slaves and Freed Blacks” examines urban Blacks, slave and freed, who were part of a rather large population that worked in a substantial number but limited range of trades and lived in ...
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“Urban Slaves and Freed Blacks” examines urban Blacks, slave and freed, who were part of a rather large population that worked in a substantial number but limited range of trades and lived in marginal neighborhoods throughout Cuban cities. Documentation of Black customs and, in particular, of representative character types, is the focus of the section entitled “Cuban Costumbristas’ Multifaceted Portraits of Black Women.” It presents an analysis of Black women as public figures, often depicted as essential components of a booming Creole Black urban culture. Negative characterization of certain Black female types demonstrates the subversive mechanisms that female slaves or freed Black women had at their disposal to confront the gender-based impositions of mainstream culture. Like Black males, Black women had to live and work in specific urban locales, and their whereabouts as street vendors or as medicine women became favorite themes for Costumbristas. Costumbrista writers followed similar trends observed in popular Cuban visual art, seeking to classify Black women in terms of their supposedly oversexualized behavior, of their acculturation into mainstream Cuban culture, or of the specific jobs they were allowed to engage. One common character is the mulata fina, a figure that acquired literary importance in unpublished abolitionist novels.Less
“Urban Slaves and Freed Blacks” examines urban Blacks, slave and freed, who were part of a rather large population that worked in a substantial number but limited range of trades and lived in marginal neighborhoods throughout Cuban cities. Documentation of Black customs and, in particular, of representative character types, is the focus of the section entitled “Cuban Costumbristas’ Multifaceted Portraits of Black Women.” It presents an analysis of Black women as public figures, often depicted as essential components of a booming Creole Black urban culture. Negative characterization of certain Black female types demonstrates the subversive mechanisms that female slaves or freed Black women had at their disposal to confront the gender-based impositions of mainstream culture. Like Black males, Black women had to live and work in specific urban locales, and their whereabouts as street vendors or as medicine women became favorite themes for Costumbristas. Costumbrista writers followed similar trends observed in popular Cuban visual art, seeking to classify Black women in terms of their supposedly oversexualized behavior, of their acculturation into mainstream Cuban culture, or of the specific jobs they were allowed to engage. One common character is the mulata fina, a figure that acquired literary importance in unpublished abolitionist novels.
Beverly C. Tomek
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814783481
- eISBN:
- 9780814784433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814783481.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter focuses on one of the most famous black leaders of the time, the wealthy Philadelphia sailmaker and community leader James Forten. His story reveals the way in which the state's free ...
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This chapter focuses on one of the most famous black leaders of the time, the wealthy Philadelphia sailmaker and community leader James Forten. His story reveals the way in which the state's free black population played a number of important roles in the drama that unfolded as the three branches of antislavery interacted. Though appreciative of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society's (PAS) efforts, black leaders such as Forten were never willing to be controlled. His story bolsters the claims of historians that a number of black Americans were interested in emigration when they thought it would offer true leadership opportunity. But once they saw that blacks would not be granted the level of respect they had hoped for, they changed their minds and became suspicious of white-led colonization efforts. This independent spirit was what led most blacks to ultimately reject the American Colonization Society (ACS). Forten's life shows the changes in Pennsylvania's racial climate through the lenses of the black community as well as the hopes and failures of both gradual abolition and colonization. Through Forten we can also catch a glimpse of the renewed hope that came with the growth of immediatism.Less
This chapter focuses on one of the most famous black leaders of the time, the wealthy Philadelphia sailmaker and community leader James Forten. His story reveals the way in which the state's free black population played a number of important roles in the drama that unfolded as the three branches of antislavery interacted. Though appreciative of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society's (PAS) efforts, black leaders such as Forten were never willing to be controlled. His story bolsters the claims of historians that a number of black Americans were interested in emigration when they thought it would offer true leadership opportunity. But once they saw that blacks would not be granted the level of respect they had hoped for, they changed their minds and became suspicious of white-led colonization efforts. This independent spirit was what led most blacks to ultimately reject the American Colonization Society (ACS). Forten's life shows the changes in Pennsylvania's racial climate through the lenses of the black community as well as the hopes and failures of both gradual abolition and colonization. Through Forten we can also catch a glimpse of the renewed hope that came with the growth of immediatism.
Kimberly M. Welch
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469636436
- eISBN:
- 9781469636450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636436.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines lawsuits over property. Free blacks went to court with full knowledge of their rights to property, and they expected the courts to deal with them fairly and protect those ...
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This chapter examines lawsuits over property. Free blacks went to court with full knowledge of their rights to property, and they expected the courts to deal with them fairly and protect those rights, just as they would with white southerners. They sued whites and other people of color in disputes over real and personal property. They also appealed to the courts to protect the dignity of their labor and sued to protect labor contracts or recover back wages. Like many antebellum Americans, free people of color viewed their labor as a form of property; it too represented a path to economic independence. Property ownership, however, sometimes rendered free people of color vulnerable to the greed of unscrupulous individuals. Free blacks’ precarious position in a social order dedicated to white supremacy sometimes meant they were the victims of fraud—or worse. When cheated, they appealed to the courts to intervene. This chapter focuses its attention primarily on the property disputes of free people of color, as the southern legal apparatus did not acknowledge or protect the slaves’ economy, but on occasion even those held as property went to court and sued.Less
This chapter examines lawsuits over property. Free blacks went to court with full knowledge of their rights to property, and they expected the courts to deal with them fairly and protect those rights, just as they would with white southerners. They sued whites and other people of color in disputes over real and personal property. They also appealed to the courts to protect the dignity of their labor and sued to protect labor contracts or recover back wages. Like many antebellum Americans, free people of color viewed their labor as a form of property; it too represented a path to economic independence. Property ownership, however, sometimes rendered free people of color vulnerable to the greed of unscrupulous individuals. Free blacks’ precarious position in a social order dedicated to white supremacy sometimes meant they were the victims of fraud—or worse. When cheated, they appealed to the courts to intervene. This chapter focuses its attention primarily on the property disputes of free people of color, as the southern legal apparatus did not acknowledge or protect the slaves’ economy, but on occasion even those held as property went to court and sued.
Emily West
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813136929
- eISBN:
- 9780813141350
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813136929.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter five continues this emphasis upon personal relationships by offering hypotheses about why apparently single women might request bondage. It explores cases where enslavement petitions ...
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Chapter five continues this emphasis upon personal relationships by offering hypotheses about why apparently single women might request bondage. It explores cases where enslavement petitions submitted on behalf of black women were (or may have been) related to issues of interracial intimate relationships, especially when free women of color petitioned for their own enslavement and also that of their free black children. While some free black women were cajoled into enslavement by white men, others believed their best hope in life was to remain where they were as slaves and were prepared to sacrifice their free status for themselves and that of their children. The chapter also considers more broadly the extent to which issues of expulsion and enslavement highlight ties along the line of gender across black and white lives, among black and white women.Less
Chapter five continues this emphasis upon personal relationships by offering hypotheses about why apparently single women might request bondage. It explores cases where enslavement petitions submitted on behalf of black women were (or may have been) related to issues of interracial intimate relationships, especially when free women of color petitioned for their own enslavement and also that of their free black children. While some free black women were cajoled into enslavement by white men, others believed their best hope in life was to remain where they were as slaves and were prepared to sacrifice their free status for themselves and that of their children. The chapter also considers more broadly the extent to which issues of expulsion and enslavement highlight ties along the line of gender across black and white lives, among black and white women.
