Freedom and Slavery in America Analytical Essay by Top Papers

In this article, the writer discusses that by the early years of the 19th century, US northern states had outlawed slavery - though not all slaves were free. Nonetheless, blacks were now part of a society in which racial equality was a theoretical - if not practical - fact of life. This paper looks at whether emancipation meant equality and if there was a universal Northern experience. The paper also considers how the experiences of slavery shaped life in late Colonial, Revolutionary, and "early national" Virginia and whether the American Revolution meant the same thing for all Virginians. In particular, the paper looks at census data from the states of New Hampshire and Virginia in the years from 1790 to 1840 to uncover information about the slave population and the slave-holding population in these states.