Between Slavery and Freedom
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John Brown Russwurm: Winston James, The Struggles of John Brown Russwurm: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer, 1799–1851 (New York: New York University Press, 2010).
Maria W. Stewart: Marilyn Richardson, Maria W. Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
David Walker: Peter P. Hinks, To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
Many of the same forces that shaped the lives of free black men shaped the lives of free black women, but their gender meant that they had to contend with the “double bond” of being black and female in a society that privileged whiteness and masculinity. In addition to the biographies of individual women listed above, readers should look at Susan Lebsock’s The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784–1860 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984) and Wilma King’s The Essence of Liberty: Free Black Women During the Slave Era (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006).
The best sources for trying to understand how free people of color saw their situation in America are obviously their own writings. Two semi-autobiographical novels that give us glimpses into the lives of two very different people are Frank J. Webb’s The Garies and Their Friends (1857) and Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859). Both are available in modern paperback editions. A number of women and men left journals and memoirs. See, for example, Brenda Stevenson, ed., The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), William R. Hogan and Edwin Adams Davis, eds., William Johnson’s Natchez: The Antebellum Diary of a Free Negro (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), and Loren Schweninger, ed., From Tennessee Slave to St. Louis Entrepreneur: The Autobiography of James Thomas (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1984). Dorothy B. Porter’s Early Negro Writing, 1760–1837 (1971; reprint Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1995) gathers together dozens of otherwise hard-to-find pamphlets and speeches by free women and men of color. In Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African American Protest Literature, 1790–1860 (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), Richard S. Newman, Patrick Rael, and Phillip Lapsansky have expanded upon Porter’s work. Two very useful online databases that contain hundreds of documents by and about free black people are the Early American Imprints series, available as part of the Archive of Americana collection at www.readex.com and Documenting the American South at http://docsouth.unc.edu. The sheer size of the document database gathered by C. Peter Ripley and his team at the Black Abolitionist Papers Project should not deter anyone from exploring it. One of the guiding principles of the Project has always been access. The entire BAP Archive is searchable for free through http://research.udmercy.edu. African-American and abolitionist newspapers reveal what truly mattered to free people of color in the antebellum era. Accessible Archives (www.accessible.com) contains transcriptions of a number of important newspapers, including Freedom’s Journal, the Colored American, and Frederick Douglass’s North Star. Two collections of convention minutes, Howard H. Bell, ed., Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830–1864 (New York: Arno Press, 1969), and the two-volume Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979 and 1985), edited by Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker, reflect the issues and concerns of African Americans at the national and local levels. On the outcry over the agenda of the American Colonization Society see the speeches and petitions in William Lloyd Garrison’s Thoughts on African Colonization. Originally published in 1832, it is available through http://books.google.com. Given the rapid pace at which primary materials are being put online, anyone interested in delving more deeply into different aspects of free black life should have no shortage of resources, most of them just a mouse click away.
Index
abolitionists, white, 17, 29–30, 67, 68, 76–77, 80–81, 86–87, 120–21
Abyssinian Baptist Church (New York City), 122
ACS. See American Colonization Society
actors, black, 68
Adams, John, 22
Adams, Sarah E., 127
“African,” changing concepts of, 56, 57
African Baptist Church (Boston), 53
African Burial Ground (New York City), 11
African Grove Theater (New York City), 68
African Masonic Hall (Boston), 117–18
African Masons. See Prince Hall Masons
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 53, 76
African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church, 53, 76, 102
African School (Baltimore), 107
Alabama, 48
Albany, New York, 97
Aldridge, Ira (actor), 68
Alexandria, Virginia, 55
Allen, Bishop Richard, 36, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 102, 113
AME. See African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
America (runaway slave), 97
American Anti-Slavery Society, 81
American Colonization Society (ACS), 58–60, 61, 71, 78, 88, 109–10, 114
AMEZ. See African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church
An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (Walker), 77, 115–16
Appo, John (caterer), 64
Arizona, 90
Arkansas, 89, 90
Articles of Confederation, 35
artists, black, 68
Attucks, Crispus, 22
Augusta, Georgia, 71
Australia, African Americans in, 89
Baltimore, Maryland, 40, 53, 54, 55, 56, 71, 78, 107
Baltimore African Library Society for Mutual Relief, 107
Banneker, Benjamin, 55, 102–4
Baptists: black, 53; white, 17, 44, 53
Barbados, 8
barbers, black, 65
Bayne, Sally (first black settler in Nebraska), 91
Beens, Scipio (founds school), 111
Bell, George (founds school), 111
Benezet, Anthony, 17
Bethel Church, Philadelphia. See Mother Bethel African Episcopal Church
binding out, of free blacks, 7–8, 13, 75, 98–99, 108–9
Black Pioneers (black Loyalist units), 27
Black Regiment. See First Rhode Island Regiment
bleeders, black, 67
boarding-houses, black-owned, 65, 118, 120
Body of Liberties (Massachusetts law), 14, 19, 95
Bogle, Robert (caterer), 64
Boston, Massachusetts, 16, 22, 23, 40, 42, 53, 54, 56, 65, 66, 73, 77, 79–80, 87, 117, 119, 129
Boston Massacre, 22, 129
Boston, Absalom (shipowner), 69
Boyer, Jean-Pierre (president of Haiti), 71–72
Brewster, Nero (freedom petitioner), 101
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 98
Britain, African Americans in, 66, 68, 88
British Columbia, African Americans in, 90
British Guiana. See Guyana
Brown Fellowship Society (Charleston, South Carolina), 54, 78
Brown, John, 93
Bucks of America (black military unit), 26
Buffalo, New York, 122
Burns, Anthony (runaway slave), 87
Burton, Belfast (emigrant to Haiti), 113
Butler, Eleanor (white slave), 7
Bye, Cornelius (shoemaker), 91
California, 2, 82, 83, 86, 90, 125
Canada, 3, 72, 76, 89, 122
Canterbury, Connecticut, 79
Carey, Mathew (white printer), 55–56
Carleton, General Sir Guy, 28
carpenters, black, 64
carters, black, 63
caterers, black, 64, 118–19
Catholics: black, 2, 41, 53, 126; white, 17, 53
Catron, John (white jurist), 124–25
census, federal, 39, 40, 62, 85, 93–94
Charles (slave), 7
&nbs
p; Charleston, South Carolina, 9, 22, 53, 54, 64, 65, 74, 78, 87–88, 100, 111–12, 115, 116–17, 119, 128
chimney sweeps, black, 63
Christiana, Pennsylvania, 87
churches, black, 52–53, 55, 67
Cincinnati, Ohio, 66, 72, 73, 76
Claiborne, William C. C. (governor of Louisiana), 47, 105–6
Clamorgan, Apoline, 70
Clamorgan, Cyprian (writer), 65, 129–30
Clamorgan, Harriet, 65, 74
Clamorgan, Henry, 65, 74
Clamorgan, Jacques (French slave owner), 129
Clamorgan, Julia, 65
Clamorgan, Louis, 65
class differences, among free blacks, 71, 75, 123, 129–30
Clay, Henry, 58
Cleveland, Ohio, 79
Clinton, General Sir Henry, 27
coartación (right to self-purchase), 2, 18, 23
Code Noir, 4, 5, 6
Coker, Rev. Daniel, 56
Colored American (newspaper), 78
Compromise of 1850, 86
The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People (Delany), 126
Congregationalists, black, 53
Congress, United States, 50, 56, 83, 86, 91, 92
Connecticut, 14, 15, 32, 42
Constitution, United States, 35, 50, 74–75, 105
Continental Army, 24–26
Continental Congress, 24, 25, 26, 34, 35
Continental Navy, 27
convention movement, black national, 76, 92
Cordes, Charles (free man), 100
Corlies, Titus. See Tye, Colonel
Costin, William (founds school), 111
Crandall, Prudence, 79
Crump, Jemima (frontier settler), 91
Crump, Jeremiah (frontier settler), 91
Cuffe, Paul, 57–60, 69
Cushing, William (chief justice of Massachusetts), 30
day labor, blacks and, 69
Declaration of Independence, 34, 55, 102–3, 105, 108
Delany, Martin Robison, 89, 92, 126–27
Delaware, 26, 33, 36, 44, 102
dentists, black, 67, 120
Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister (Coker), 56
disfranchisement, 42, 75, 106. See also voting rights
District of Columbia, 73, 86. See also Washington, D.C.
domestic service, blacks in, 16, 65, 69
Douglas, Stephen A., 91
Douglass, Frederick, 51, 63, 78, 93
Douglass, Robert Jr. (painter), 68
Douglass, Sarah Mapps (educator), 66–67
Downing family (caterers), 64
draymen, black, 63
Dred Scott vs. Sandford, 91–92, 125, 130
dressmakers, black, 65–66, 100
Dunmore, John Murray, Earl of, 23, 24
Dutch, as slaveholders, 11
Dutch West India Company, 11
Duterte family (caterers), 64
education, black, 16–17, 55, 78–80, 110–11, 114. See also literacy; public schools
Ellison, William (black planter), 61, 62
Emerson, Dr. John (slave owner), 91
Episcopalians: black, 52; white, 52
Esteve family (caterers), 64
Ethiopian Regiment (black Loyalists), 23, 24
exclusion laws, 15, 44, 50, 74, 82, 88, 89, 90, 95–96, 108–9, 112, 124
farmers, black, 6, 12, 16, 79. See also landowners; planters
Federalists, 43, 106
Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, 66
Finley, Reverend Robert, 58, 59
First Rhode Island Regiment, 25, 26, 31
Florida: Spanish territory, 2, 3, 9, 10, 48; U.S. state, 48, 49
food, retailing of, by blacks, 64, 100, 119
Forten, James, 34–35, 56, 59, 64, 81, 108–9, 110, 120
Forten, Sarah Louisa, 81, 120–21
France, African Americans in, 88
Free African Society (Philadelphia), 36, 37, 52, 53, 55, 57
freedom, laws on inheritance of, 7–8, 95–96
Freedom’s Journal (newspaper), 77–78, 113–15
Freeman, Elizabeth, 30
Freemasonry, 54
French: as colonizers, 3–5, 18, 46; as slaveholders, 3–5, 50
French and Indian War, 17–18
French Black Code. See Code Noir
“French Negroes.” See gens de couleur libres
Fugitive Slave Law, federal: (1793), 42, 56, 86, 121; (1850), 86, 87
Gabriel’s Rebellion, 44
Gage, Thomas (governor of Massachusetts), 23
Gardiner, Serena (boarding-house owner), 120
Garrison, William Lloyd, 78, 81, 120
gender roles, 69, 86, 117–18
gens de couleur libres: in Louisiana, 46, 47, 48, 105–6; from Saint Domingue, 41, 46, 53
Georgetown, Virginia, 59
George III (king of England), 21, 34
Georgia, 10, 24, 26, 27, 32, 33, 34, 40, 45, 97, 122, 123
Glasgow, Jesse Ewing (scholar), 88
Gold Rush, black prospectors in: California (1849), 83, 90; Fraser Canyon, British Columbia (1855), 90
Goyens, William (Texas settler), 82
Gray, William, 36
Great Awakening, 17, 33
Grimké, Angelina, 120
guardians, free blacks required to have, 74, 112, 123
Guyana, 72
hairdressers, black, 66
Haiti, 40, 71–72, 88, 113
Haitian Revolution, 40, 41, 104
“half-freedom,” 11
Hall, Prince, 54, 55, 56
Hanscome, James (becomes “white”), 87–88
Harpers Ferry raid, 93
Harris, James (founds school), 111
Harry (runaway), 97
Hartford, Connecticut, 53, 117
Hawai’i, African Americans in, 89
healers, black, 12, 66–67, 113
Hicks, George (founds school), 111
hoteliers, black, 65, 118, 119
Houston, Sam, 82
Illinois, 49, 92
“Illinois Country,” 3, 18, 35
indentured servants, 1, 5, 7, 23, 102
Indiana, 49, 50
“intelligence offices,” 65
“Irish Nell.” See Butler, Eleanor
Jackson, Andrew, 47–48, 58, 105, 118
Jacob (runaway slave), 97
Jamaica, 72
Jamestown, Virginia, 5
Jefferson, Thomas, 34, 55, 102–4
Jennings, Elizabeth, 127–28
Jinnings, Thomas (dentist), 118, 120
Jinnings, William (store owner), 118, 120
Johnson, Anthony (farmer), 6
Johnson, Archibald (founds school), 111
Johnson, Francis (Frank) (composer), 68
Johnson, Isaac (founds school), 111
Johnson, Mary (farmer), 6
Johnson, Richard (shipowner), 116–17
Jones family, 65
Jones, Reverend Absalom, 36, 52, 55, 56, 59, 104–5
Jones, Jehu (hotelier), 118, 119
Kansas, 91
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 91
Keating, Betsy, 122–23
Keckley, Elizabeth (dressmaker), 65–66
Kentucky, 44, 45, 89, 91
kidnapping, 56, 75, 80, 87, 92, 104–5, 121–22
Kingsley, Anna Jai (planter), 61–62
land owners, black, 63
laundresses, black, 65, 74, 124
lawyers, black, 66, 129
Leidesdorff, William Alexander (merchant), 83, 125–26
Letters from a Man of Colour (Forten), 56
Lew, Barzillai (soldier), 25
Lewis, Fred (founds school), 111
Lexington, Kentucky, 45
Liberator (newspaper), 78, 121
Liberia, 60, 71, 78, 87, 88, 89
Liberty Hall (New York City), 106
licenses, free blacks required to have, 74
Lincoln, Abraham, 93
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literacy, black, 16–17, 55, 77, 78, 110–11
literary societies, black, 78, 80
Louisiana, 40, 47, 48, 88
Louisiana Purchase, 46, 105–6
Louisiana Territory, 3, 18, 46, 47
Louisville, Kentucky, 45
Lower South, 8–10, 26–27, 33–34, 43, 45, 46, 48, 55, 61, 63, 64, 73. See also individual colonies and states
Loyalists, black (in Revolutionary War), 23–24, 27, 28, 37, 57. See also Black Pioneers
Maine, 50
Mansfield, Lord (William Murray) (Lord Chief Justice of England), 19
manumission, restrictions on, 12, 15, 44, 45, 47, 82, 88, 95–96, 98–99
maroons, 9
Maryland, 7, 26, 33, 40, 44, 89, 107
Massachusetts, 14, 15, 19, 20, 26, 30, 31, 36, 41, 64, 79–80, 95, 96; General Court, 23, 32; General Colored Association, 115
Meacham, Reverend John Berry, 78
Methodists: white, 17, 44. See also African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church
Mexican War, 82
Mexico, 82, 83
Midwest, 35, 72, 79, 81, 91
midwives, black, 67
Miller, Maria. See Stewart, Maria W.
milliners, black, 66
ministers, black, 67
Minton, Henry (caterer), 64
Mississippi, 48
Mississippi River, 3, 78
Missouri, 50, 78, 89, 90, 91
Missouri Compromise, 50, 92
Missouri Territory, 47, 50, 59
Mobile, Alabama, 48, 49, 53
Mordecai, Samuel (barber), 74
Morris, Robert (lawyer), 66
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, 52, 76, 110
Mumbet. See Freeman, Elizabeth
musicians, black, 68
mutual benefit societies, 36, 53, 54
names, choosing of by black people, 51
Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People (Jones and Allen), 56
Nashville, Tennessee, 54, 74, 124
National Reformer (newspaper), 78
Native Americans, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 57, 82, 87
Nebraska, 91
Nebraska City, Nebraska, 91
“Negro pew,” 17, 52
Negro Seamen’s Act, 116–17, 128
New Amsterdam, 11
New Bedford, Massachusetts, 63, 116
New Bern, North Carolina, 123, 124
New Castle, Delaware, 54
New England, 13–15, 16, 41. See also individual colonies and states
New Hampshire, 15, 31, 41, 101
New Haven, Connecticut, 53, 79
New Jersey, 12, 32, 43, 97