Free Blacks and Slavery

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that despite the fact that by about 1800, every state north of Delaware abolished slavery; the south grew far more partial to their slavery-run economy. The author points out that although the free black population rose from eight percent to thirteen percent of the African-American population, most of the free blacks lived in the northern states where they had much success setting up black schools, churches and communities but still experienced many limitations such as not being permitted a U.S. Passport, work for the government, claims on public lands or sitting next to white people in church. The paper relates that, after the Civil War, newly freed African-Americans started to act on their freedom, which meant the ability to move around hence the reuniting of families, the chance to open schools and churches and the opportunity to interact in politics.

From the Paper:

"The first Africans to land on American soil arrived in Virginia in 1619. In Europe, the Portuguese and the Dutch had already been dealing in the African slave trade, traveling back and forth across the Atlantic for over half a century. Shortly afterward the French and the British took over this trade industry. America was growing and was in need of cheap labor for economic, geographic, social and agricultural reasons, especially in the southern states. In the south, the climate and soil was very conducive to farming and the plantation owners needed a great number of men to work the land consequently making it the majority importer of slaves."

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