Free Negro - History

History

While free blacks existed as early as 1619, significant efforts against slavery didn’t begin until the mid eighteenth century. The sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence rallied many black Americans toward the revolutionary cause and their own hopes of emancipation; both enslaved and black men fought in the Revolution on both sides. In the North, slaves ran away from their owners in the confusion of war, while in the south, some slaves declared themselves free and abandoned their slave work to join the British.

In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom; by 1800, all of the northern states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. However, the existence of these free territories did not guarantee rights of citizenship to free black people, nor did it end racism, segregation, or physical violence against the black population. The population of free black people increased from 8% to 13.5% from 1790 to 1810, and most of these lived in the Mid-Atlantic States, New England, and the Upper South.

The rights of free blacks fluctuated and waned with the gradual rise in power among poor white men during the late 1820s and early 1830s.The Negro convention movement began in 1830, with black men holding regular meetings to discuss the future of the black race in America; some women such as Maria Stewart and Sojourner Truth made their voices heard through public lecturing.These efforts were met with resistance, however, as the early nineteenth century brought renewed anti-black sentiment after the spirit of the Revolution began to die down. Southern dominated governments began adopting legislation that favored slaveholders, and slavery was permitted to exist in territories where it was technically illegal. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was strengthened by the compromise of 1850, requiring all Americans to help slaveholders reclaim runaway slaves; Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth both had to have white abolitionist supporters purchase them from their previous owners to avoid deportation into Southern slavery. In 1857, the ruling of Dred Scott v. Sandford effectively denied citizenship to black people of all statuses.

Not until 1861 and the beginning of the Civil War did the struggle against slavery become an active force in American society. Under President Abraham Lincoln, several legislative acts worked in favor of blacks in search of freedom; the First Confiscation Act of 1861 allowed fugitive slaves who escaped to behind enemy lines to remain free, the Second Confiscation Act of 1862 guaranteed both fugitive slaves and their families everlasting freedom, and the Militia Act allowed black men to enroll in military service. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved in Confederate held territory only, and Black men were officially admitted to serve in the Union Army. In 1865, the Union won the Civil War and the thirteenth amendment was ratified, outlawing slavery throughout the entire country.