A free Negro or free black is the term used prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States to describe an African American who was not a slave. Almost all African Americans came to the United States as slaves, but as early as 1619, a class of free Negros existed in America. The free Negro population grew from multiple sources: (1) children born of free colored persons, (2) mulatto children born of free colored mothers, (3) mulatto children born of white servants or free women, (4) children of free Negro and Indian parentage, (5) manumitted slaves and (6) slaves who escaped.
Slaveholders manumitted slaves for various reasons. Sometimes an owner died and the heirs did not want slaves, or a slave was freed as reward for his or her good service, or the slave was able to pay in order to be freed.Slaves could also be promised their freedom by serving in the army during the Revolution; the British were the first to recruit and promise slaves their freedom, and then the Americans began to allow blacks to enlist as well. Many slaves took the initiative to free themselves by running away through networks like the Underground Railroad, assisted by former slaves and abolitionist sympathizers.
Read more about Free Negro: History, Regional Differences, Opportunities For Advancement, Women, Notable Free Negroes
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or negro:
“The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)
“If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)