From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 8
Antebellum Free Blacks
Freedom’s Boundaries
 Black Laws
 Missouri Compromise part of larger debate
within individual states about civil status of free
blacks
 Many states passed laws barring in-migration of
free blacks
 Fear that free blacks would threaten slavery; desire to
limit black population
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Freedom’s Boundaries
 Migration West
 Alexis de Tocqueville – paradox of racial
intolerance in states where slavery never existed
 Despite laws and cultural hostility, free black
population grew dramatically in the Midwest
 Blacks continued to head west in search of
economic opportunity
 Disfranchisement
 Free blacks’ political rights declined everywhere
 Pennsylvania revised constitution to disfranchise
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Freedom’s Boundaries
 By end of Antebellum period, only New England
states gave black men unrestricted right of
suffrage
 Demographics
 Black population continued to grow, but relative
to the entire U.S. population the percentage of
free blacks began to decline
 Increasingly rigid manumission laws
 Significant increase in European immigrants
4
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In a Culture of Racism
 Minstrel Shows
 Blackface white actor performed caricatured
images, dialect speech, and song
 Promoted stereotypical images like “Jim Crow”
 Ethnology
 Professed methods and theories that stressed
innate and immutable racial traits
 Craniology – blacks have smaller skull size, thus lower
intelligence
 Polygenesis – races emerged from different human
origins and are therefore different human species
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In a Culture of Racism
 Bigotry and Prejudice
 Word nigger began to be used as a term of racial
disparagement
 Collective acts of animosity directed at free
blacks became common
 Mob Violence
 Free blacks scapegoated for diminished
economic prospects of white workers
 Riots, murders, and destruction of churches, schools,
and orphanages occurred in Midwest and Northeast
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In a Culture of Racism
 South vs. North
 Blacks mistreated in North and West to delight of
southern slaveholders who enjoyed playing up
northern hostility
 In the North, however, blacks could agitate and
organize for their rights; could enter professions and
jobs barred from them in the South
 Southern freedom tenuous
 Slip could send back to slavery
 Controls over free blacks continued to increase
 Prohibition on in-migration; re-enslavement laws
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Economic and Social Life
 Trades and Professions
 Restrictions on employment; but free blacks
were required to work
 Skilled and unskilled blacks found employment
in areas experiencing labor shortages
 Lower South had largest proportion of free black
and skilled positions
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Economic and Social Life
 Property Ownership
 Regional differences in property ownership
 Property “owned” by southern blacks included
enslaved family members
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African American barber
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Economic and Social Life
 Urban Life in the North
 Northern Antebellum blacks more likely than
whites to live in cities
 Boston
 Smallest free black community of northern
seaport cities
 Residential segregation created geographical
concentration of the black community
 Certain positions, like porter, held higher prestige
 Upper class and middle class were strong in tradition
of protest thought
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Economic and Social Life
 New York
 More affluent than black Bostonians
 Clearly demarcated economic and cultural
differences among blacks
 Many opportunities for interracial mixing among
lower classes
 Philadelphia
 Distinct three-tiered class structure among free
blacks
 Active in temperance crusade
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Economic and Social Life
 Mutual Aid Organizations
 Free blacks formed organizations to bind
themselves together socially and culturally
 Outlawed in many southern states
 Cultural Contributions
 Free black poets, playwrights, historians,
newspaper editors, and artists contributed to
development of African American culture
 George Moses Horton; Daniel Alexander Paine;
Harriet E. Wilson; Robert S. Duncanson
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Education
 Opportunities in the North
 By eve of Civil War, educational opportunities
widely available for black education in North
 Educational opportunities varied widely among
states and communities
 In 1855, Massachusetts legislature prohibited
segregated schools
 Opportunities in the South
 Harder for southern free blacks to get education
 No public schools, even for white children
 Public sentiment against free black education
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Education
 Higher Education
 Northern free blacks began to attend institutions
of higher education during antebellum period
 Some schools that became predominantly black
institutions opened during this time
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Black Convention Movement
 Black Convention Movement
 Black delegates met to “devise ways and means
for the bettering of our condition”
 The Rochester Convention
 Over 100 people gathered and formed the
National Council of Colored People
 Sought to advance equal rights and end slavery
 Fostering Group Consciousness
 Conventions way to promote collective
discussion and action
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Black Convention Movement
 Public Image and Behavior
 Debated name that identified them as a people
and a race
 Leaders emphasized group and individual
behavior – stressing temperance, church
attendance, and thrift
 Biblical Imagery
 Used religious imagery in addressing issues
 Drew repeatedly on Exodus
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Black Women
 Women Take Public Action
 Free black women attempt to bring gender
inequality into discussion on racial inequality
 Free black women enlisted in public movements for
black freedom
 Jarena Lee
 Maria Stewart
 One of earliest and most outspoken advocates of
women’s rights and abolition
 Considered the first black feminist
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Portrait of Jarena Lee
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Black Women
 Sojourner Truth
 Best known black women in women’s rights and
abolitionist movements
 Exposed the socially constructed character of
gender
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The Debate on Emigration
 Efforts at Mass Colonization
 Despite schemes to deport free blacks, no more
than 15,000 migrated outside U.S.
 The American Colonization Society (ACS) responsible
for transporting most
 Mass colonization proved unworkable
 Not economically feasible
 Could not agree on single program because of varying
motives of ACS members
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The Debate on Emigration
 Opposition to the ACS
 Opposition grew steadily among black and white
abolitionists, although recurring discussions of
emigration continued at conventions into the
1850s
 Emigration supporters like H. Ford Douglas,
James Theodore Holly, and Martin R. Delany
distanced themselves from the ACS
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Map of Monrovia, Liberia, ca 1830
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The Debate on Emigration
 The National Emigration Convention
 Promoted black-led emigration movement
 Douglas, Holly, and Delany vocal supporters
 Factionalism over whether Canada, Africa, or
Haiti was best place to emigrate to
 Mary Ann Shadd Cary was strongest female
emigrationist voice
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