by Julie Winch
Ran away from the Subscriber, on Friday the 9th day of July . . . a Mulatto Woman Slave named Violetas, aged about 32 Years, of short Stature. . . . She had with her when she went away a Chintz Gown . . . a Couple of Quilts . . . two Pair of Shoes, and divers other Things—If any Person shall inform where she is, that her Master may have her again, they shall be well rewarded. . . . N.B. It is suspected she is in Company with one Henry Traveller, a free Negro.
Bridgewater, July 12, 1773,
abia keith
Source: Boston Evening Post, July 19, 1773
Free Black People in Colonial Pennsylvania and Rhode Island (1751–1770)
Slavery flourished in the North in the colonial era just as it did in the South, and it flourished in urban centers as well as in the countryside. Much to the annoyance of white people, though, at least some slaves managed to gain their freedom. Local lawmakers responded to complaints about the presence and the activities of free blacks. To begin with, whites insisted that there were simply too many of them. In Philadelphia by 1751, the date of the first law quoted here, there were perhaps 200, compared to several thousand slaves. In the entire colony of Rhode Island by 1770 there were not very many more. However, numbers really did not matter. Whites persisted in regarding free blacks collectively as “an idle, slothful people,” and they demanded action to keep them firmly under control. If they could not re-enslave them—and binding them out came very close to re-enslavement—whites wanted free blacks to be told very firmly what they could and could not do. The Pennsylvania law also tried to restrict the further growth of the free black community by making it prohibitively expensive for an owner to manumit a slave.
As frequent Complaints have been lately made to the Magistrates of the City of Philadelphia, that Negroes, and other Blacks, either Free, or under Pretence of Freedom, have . . . settled in the City . . . and have taken Houses, Rooms, and Cellars, for their Habitations, where great disorders often happen, especially in the Night time; and Servants, Slaves, and other idle and vagrant Persons are entertained [and] corrupted. . . . And whereas ‘tis found by Experience, that free Negroes are an idle, slothful People; and often prove burthensome to the Neighbourhood, and afford ill Examples to other Negroes: Therefore be it enacted . . . That if any Master or Mistress shall . . . set free any Negroe [sic], he or she shall enter into Recognizance . . . with sufficient Sureties, in the Sum of Thirty Pounds, to secure and indemnify the City, Township or County where he resides, from any Charge or Incumbrance they may bring upon the same . . . [and] until such Recognizance be given, such Negroes shall not be deemed free . . . [And] if any free Negroe, fit and able to work, shall neglect so to do, and loiter or misspend his or her Time, or wander from Place to Place, any two Magistrates . . . are hereby impowered and required to bind out to Service such Negroe from Year to Year.
Source: Pennsylvania Gazette, March 5, 1751
Whereas it often happens, that free Negroes and Mulattoes keep very disorderly Houses, and entice the Slaves in this Colony to spend much Time and Money in Gaming, Drinking, &c. which they cannot possibly do without robbing their Masters and others . . . Be it therefore Enacted . . . That upon Complaint being made to any Town Council in this Colony, of any free Negro, or Mulatto, who shall keep a disorderly House, or entertain any Slave or Slaves, at unreasonable Hours, or in an extravagant Manner . . . such Town Council be . . . empowered to examine into the Matter, and if they find such free Negro or Mulatto guilty . . . they may . . . break up from House-Keeping such free Negro or Mulatto . . . and bind them as Servants for a Term of Time . . . and . . . commit them to the Work-House until suitable Places can be had for them.
Source: Providence Gazette, September 1–8, 1770
Free People of Color in the South Carolina Press (1760–1771)
By 1710, blacks outnumbered whites in South Carolina. Most were slaves, but not all were. White South Carolinians regarded free blacks as a class with intense suspicion, as the first notice clearly shows. Poorer whites feared economic competition, and whites of all classes worried that free people would conspire with the slaves and help foment rebellions. However, despite the many legal restrictions they faced and the hostility they encountered from all segments of the white community, individual men and women of color in South Carolina did have opportunities to make money and accumulate property (including slaves). Most importantly of all, they could marry and establish families. We do not know why the Peronneaus’ marriage broke up, but Richard Peronneau did what any colonial-era husband would do: he declared publicly that he was no longer financially responsible for his wife. A white husband would have done exactly the same thing.
The Presentments of the Grand Jury for the Body of this Province . . .
We present as a grievance, the evil custom of giving negroes their freedom; and the want of a law to oblige every free negro to wear a badge with their names thereon, by which they may be known . . . We present as a grievance, so many idle negro wenches, selling dry goods, cakes, rice, &c. in the markets, which hinder a great many poor people from getting bread . . . We present as a grievance, the number of small licensed tippling houses, who sell spirituous liquors to sailors and negroes . . .
Source: South Carolina Gazette, February 1, 1768
In November next I shall want an overseer, a single man who . . . can be properly recommended; also a free negro or mulatto woman, who understands [running] a dairy, [the] raising of poultry, and [the] cutting out and making [of] negro cloathes [sic], will meet with suitable encouragement.
Source: South Carolina Gazette, August 30, 1760
All Persons indebted to Charles Cordes (Free Negro) deceased, are desired to make immediate payment to the Subscriber; and those to whom the said Charles Cordes was indebted, are desired to make known their Demands to john gough, Administrator.
Source: South Carolina Gazette, September 20, 1770
To be sold at the Vendue-House in Charles-Town, on tuesday, the 23rd of October, Instant; three negroes, late the Property of A Free Negro Wench, deceased, viz.—A young fellow, who is a Carpenter by Trade, and is said to be a good Workman—a likely lad, about 16 Years of Age—and a wench.
Source: South Carolina Gazette & Country Journal, October 9, 1770
Charles-Town, September 27, 1771
richard peronneau, a free Negro Carpenter . . . forewarns all persons, not to trust his wife, a free wench named Nancy, a mulatto, on his account, as he is determined not to pay any debts of her contracting from the date hereof, as she has eloped from him.
Source: South Carolina Gazette, October 3, 1771
Petitioning for Freedom in New Hampshire (1779)
In the autumn of 1779, Nero Brewster and nineteen other slaves in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioned the state legislature. They were careful to explain that they were not condemning their masters but rather the fundamental injustice of slavery. They pledged that if they were freed they would be exemplary citizens and would help in the fight to achieve independence from Britain. Desperate for manpower, New Hampshire did eventually offer bounties to slave owners who manumitted their slaves so that they could serve in the army. In 1783, the new state constitution declared that “all men are born equal and independent.” Not until 1857 did New Hampshire actually pass an abolition law, but by then all of the Granite State’s black residents were free, although they seldom enjoyed the “equality of freemen” that Brewster and his friends had hoped to secure for themselves and their descendants.
We know we ought to be free agents! [W]e feel the dignity of human nature! [W]e feel the passions and desires of men, tho’ checked by the rod of slavery! [W]e feel a just equality! [W]e know that the God of Nature made us free! . . . Should the Humanity and Benevolence of this Honorable Assembly restore us to that State of Liberty of which we have been so long deprived . . . those who are our present Masters will not be Sufferers by our Liberation, as we have most of us spent our whole Strength, and the Prime of our Lives in their Service; And as Freedom inspires a
noble Confidence, and gives the Mind an Emulation to vie in the noblest efforts of Enterprise, and as Justice and Humanity are the results of your Deliberations; we fondly hope that the Eye of Pity and the Heart of Justice may Commiserate our Situation and put us upon the Equality of Freemen and give us an Opportunity of evincing to the World our Love of Freedom by exerting ourselves in her Cause, in opposing the Efforts of Tyranny and Oppression over the Country in which we ourselves have been so long injuriously enslaved.
Therefore, your humble slaves most devoutly pray, for the sake of injured liberty, for the sake of justice, humanity, and the rights of mankind; for the honor of religion, and by all that is dear, that your honors would graciously interpose on our behalf . . . [so that] we may regain our liberty . . . and that the name of slave may no more be heard in a land gloriously contending for the sweets of freedom.
Portsmouth, Nov. 12, 1779
Source: New Hampshire Gazette, July 15, 1780
Richard Allen Buys his Freedom (1780)
On January 25, 1780, in Delaware, a young enslaved man identified simply as “Richard” negotiated to buy his freedom from white farmer Stokeley Sturgis. “Richard” is better known to history as Richard Allen (1760–1831), the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. In his autobiography Allen remembered Sturgis as “a kind, affectionate and tender-hearted master” who had trusted him and allowed him to leave the farm to look for work. Allen took work wherever he could find it, earned the price of his freedom, and paid Sturgis in full two years ahead of time.
I Stokeley Sturgis of Kent County in the Delaware State for the Consideration of the Sum of Sixty Pounds (Old Rates) . . . to be paid at five yearly payments of Twelve pounds [per] year at or upon the Second Day of February in every year the first payment to be made on the Second Day of February which shall be in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred & Eighty One. Otherwise the yearly Sum of Four hundred Dollars Continental Currency to be paid yearly for the Term of five years as aforesaid by Richard Negro . . . the Choice in Which Currency the payments are to be made always to be at the Option of the Negro and if the said Negro Chuses to pay it in Continental Currency . . . he must Work Two Days Wages free in Harvest Time for the said Stokeley Sturgis . . . [and] upon the just payment thereof I Do hereby . . . Release and for Ever Discharge and set at full Liberty the said Negro Man named Richard . . . and further I Do hereby fully Trust and Impower him to Hire[,] Deal and Transact for himself with any person Whatsoever from the Second Day of February next.
Source: Pennsylvania Abolition Society Manuscripts, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Benjamin Banneker’s Challenge to Thomas Jefferson (1791)
In 1791, a free black farmer in Maryland, Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), wrote an extraordinary letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to ask how the author of the Declaration of Independence could defend slavery. Banneker was never enslaved. His grandmother was a white indentured servant and he derived his freedom from her, but he was painfully aware of the condition of the majority of black people. Banneker also took Jefferson to task for maintaining that blacks lacked the mental capacity of whites. He had had only a limited education. His grandmother had taught him to read and write, and he had briefly attended a Quaker school near his family’s farm. However, he had demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics early in life, and with the loan of books and a telescope from a white acquaintance he had mastered astronomy. When he wrote Jefferson, he had just returned home after helping to survey the site of the nation’s new capital and he was about to publish the first of his almanacs. Based on astronomical observations and complex mathematical calculations, the almanac, a manuscript copy of which he sent to Jefferson along with his letter, constituted in itself a refutation of black intellectual inferiority.
I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments . . .
I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, and in that color which is natural to them of the deepest dye; and . . . I am not under that state of . . . inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings, which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored.
Sir, suffer me to recall to your mind, that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted . . . to reduce you to a state of servitude . . . This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery . . . but, Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges . . . you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.
I suppose that your knowledge of the situation of my brethren, is too extensive to need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which they may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and as Job proposed to his friends, “put your soul in their souls’ stead;” thus shall your hearts be enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards them; and thus shall you need neither the direction of myself or others, in what manner to proceed herein.
Source: Copy of a Letter from Benjamin Banneker, to the Secretary of State, with his Answer (Philadelphia: Daniel Lawrence, 1792), 3–4, 6–9.
African Americans Petition Congress (1799)
In December 1799, Absalom Jones and seventy-three other free black Philadelphians petitioned Congress (then meeting in Philadelphia) on behalf of the entire black community of the United States. For free people they asked for laws to prevent kidnapping and forced re-enslavement. For the slaves they asked for a federal gradual abolition law. Members of Congress were outraged. With the Haitian revolution fresh in their minds, they feared that if they accepted and discussed the petition it would encourage blacks to become even bolder and demand equality with whites. Black men might even imagine that they should be able to vote and run for office. Only one member, Massachusetts representative George Thacher, argued in favor of the petitioners, saying that they had used “decent” and “respectful” language and they had as much right as other Americans to ask Congress to consider what they had to say.
To the President, Senate, and House of Representatives.
The Petition of the People of Colour, free men, within the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia, humbly sheweth,
That, thankful to God, our Creator, and to the Government under which we live, for the . . . enjoyment of our natural right to liberty, and the protection of our persons and property, from the oppression and violence which so great a number of like colour and national descent are subject to, we feel ourselves bound . . . to lead honest and peaceable lives . . . yet while we feel impressed with grateful sensations for the Providential favor we ourselves enjoy, we cannot be insensible of the condition of our afflicted brethren, suffering . . . in different parts of these states; but deeply sympathizing with them, are incited by a sense of social duty, and humbly conceive ourselves authorized to address and petition you on their behalf . . . We do not ask for an immediate emancipation of all . . . yet, humbly desire you may exert every means in your power to undo the heavy burdens, and prepare the way for the oppressed to go free, that every yoke may be broken . . . [W]e beseech, that as we are men, we may be admitted to partake of the liberties and unalienable rights . . . held forth [in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution]; firmly
believing that the extending of justice and equity to all classes would be a means of drawing down the blessing of Heaven upon this land, for the peace and prosperity of which, and the real happiness of every member of the community, we fervently pray.
Source: John Parrish, Remarks on the Slavery of the Black People; Addressed to the Citizens of the United States, Particularly to those who are in Legislative or Executive Stations in the General or State Governments; and also to Such Individuals as Hold Them in Bondage (Philadelphia: Kimber, Conrad & Co., 1806), 49–51.
Free People of Color in New Orleans React to the Louisiana Purchase (1804)
Free people of color in and around New Orleans had good reason to fear that the rights they had enjoyed under French and Spanish rule would be cut back after the United States took control of the Louisiana Territory. The members of the elite officer corps of the “colored” militia units were especially worried. They knew that the American authorities regarded armed black men as dangerous and inherently untrustworthy, regardless of their free or slave status. They hastened to assure the new territorial governor, William C. C. Claiborne, that whenever he needed their services he could call upon them and they would be only too happy to prove their loyalty to their new country. The true test of their devotion came a decade later when they helped Andrew Jackson defeat the British in the epic Battle of New Orleans.
To his Excellency, William C. C. Claiborne, Governor General and Intendant of Louisiana.
We, the subscribers, free citizens of Louisiana, beg leave to approach your Excellency with sentiments of respect and esteem, and sincere attachment to the government of the United States.
We are natives of this province, and our dearest interests are connected with its welfare. We therefore feel a lively joy that the sovereignty of the country is at length united with that of the American Republic. We are duly sensible that our personal and political freedom is thereby assured to us forever, and are also impressed with the fullest confidence in the justice and liberality of the government towards every class of citizens which they have taken under their protection.