From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 5
Give Me Liberty
American foot soldiers during the
Yorktown campaign, 1781
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© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Paradox of Slavery and
Freedom
 Freedom in a Slave Society
 Colonial propaganda
 “No taxation without representation”
 Use of racial imagery
 Revolutionary rhetoric of freedom rallied whites
while tightening grip on blacks
 The “American paradox” – calls for freedom for whites
while keeping blacks as property
 Jefferson’s sympathetic words against slavery
stricken from Declaration of Independence
 Unacceptable to delegations from the Lower South
3
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The Paradox of Slavery and
Freedom
 Some colonists began to admit the contradiction
in the identity of oppressed colonist and
slaveholder
 Birth of the Antislavery Movement
 White antislavery rhetoric not lost on slaves
 Boston slaves at forefront of black freedom petition
movement
 Northern blacks participated in street protests
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The Paradox of Slavery and
Freedom
 Crispus Attucks
 Runaway slave killed in the Boston Massacre
 Buried with honors
 Phillis Wheatley
 Famous slave poet; intellect nurtured by master
 While a slave, traveled to England to oversee
publication of her book, meet her patron
 Set free upon return
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The Boston Massacre
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Fighting for American
Independence
 Blacks Against the British
 Colonists struggled with question of arming both
slave and free blacks
 Blacks fought at Lexington, Concord, Battle of
Bunker Hill
 One month after formation of Continental Army,
official policy was to reject services of black soldiers
 The British Appeal
 Dunmore Proclamation – give slaves freedom if
join British army
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Barzillai Lew
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Fighting for American
Independence
 Black unrest intensified
 Dunmore’s “Ethiopian Regiment”
 Virginia Convention denounced British acts, promised
to pardon slaves who returned within 10 days
 Washington’s Response
 Worried about enlistment of blacks in British
army
 Partially reversed earlier policy – allowed free
blacks who previously served to join the ranks
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Fighting for American
Independence
 The Revolution and Slavery
 Revolutionary struggle had unsettling effect on
slavery
 Also became struggle between master and slave
 General Clinton’s Proclamation
 Slaves in service of Patriots to be sold if
captured; slaves who sought refuge with British
protected
 Fugitive slaves often became plunder of war for
both sides
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Fighting for American
Independence
 Individual State Policies
 Rebel’s military policies began to liberalize
 States began to vie against each other in enlisting blacks
 Only Georgia and South Carolina opposed enlistment of black
soldiers
 Black Military Distinction
 5,000 of 20,000 Revolutionary soldiers black
 Only few separate fighting units; most integrated
 Many distinguished black soldiers
 Future Haitian revolutionaries assisted French
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Fighting for American
Independence
 Black Loyalists
 American victory caused dispersal of black
Loyalists
 Many sent to Caribbean; reinvigorated plantations
 Freed blacks went to Nova Scotia and England
 Some left England and settled in Sierra Leone
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Loyalist black migration to Canada
and Sierra Leone
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The Movement to Free the Slaves
 Antislavery Advocates
 Pennsylvania Abolition Society first antislavery
society
 Most Patriot soldier slaves were freed upon
enlistment or promised freedom at end of service
 High profile people began to speak out against
slavery
 Antislavery societies more widespread after
the war
 Collected information on slavery, published reports on
progress of emancipation
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The Movement to Free the Slaves
 Free North, Slave South
 Upper South, slaves freed only by private
manumission
 In the North, states began to adopt laws
abolishing slavery
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The Conservative Reaction
 Shays’s Rebellion
 Farmers’ revolt for economic justice
 Blacks participated on both sides
 The Three-Fifths Compromise
 Slavery central on issues of taxation and
representation at Constitutional Convention
 Many whites did not want to be on equal footing as
blacks
 Delegates agreed to count black men as three-fifths of
all other people
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The Conservative Reaction
 The Slave Trade
 By the time of the Constitutional Convention,
many states already prohibited Atlantic slave
trade
 South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney refused to
accept a Constitution that prohibited the Atlantic
slave trade
 Compromise allowed Lower South to continue
Atlantic slave trade for at least 20 years
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The Conservative Reaction
 Fugitive Slaves
 Almost no opposition to provision that states be
required to surrender fugitive slaves to their
owners
 The Language of the Constitution
 The words slavery and slave do not appear in
Constitution
 Instead, “all other persons” or “such persons”
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