Free Negro - Opportunities For Advancement

Opportunities For Advancement

Free blacks could not enter many occupations like medicine and law because they were barred from the necessary education. This was also true of occupations that required firearm possession, elective office, or a liquor license. Many of these careers required large capital investments that most free blacks could not afford, although as time went on, there were notable exceptions to these limitations, as was the case with physicians Sarah Parker Remond and Martin Delany.

The 1830s saw a significant effort by white communities to oppose black education, coinciding with the emergence of public schooling in American society. Public schooling and citizenship were linked together, and because of the ambiguity that surrounded black citizenship status, blacks were effectively excluded from public access to universal education.Paradoxically, the free black community of Baltimore made more significant strides in increasing black access to education than Boston and New Haven.

Free black males enjoyed wider employment opportunities than free black females, who were largely confined to domestic occupations. While free black boys could become apprentices to carpenters, coopers, barbers, and blacksmiths, girls’ options were much more limited, confined to domestic work such as being cooks, cleaning women, seamstresses, and child-nurturers. Despite this, in certain areas, free black women could become prominent members of the free black community, running households and constituting a significant portion of the free black paid labor force. One of the most highly skilled jobs a woman could have was to be a teacher.

Many free African American families in colonial North Carolina and Virginia became landowners and a few of them also became slave owners. In some cases, this was in order to protect members of their own families, whom they purchased from other owners. In other cases, they participated in the full slave economy. For example, a freedman named Cyprian Ricard purchased an estate in Louisiana that included 100 slaves.

Free blacks drew up petitions and joined the army during the American Revolution, motivated by the common hope of freedom. This hope was bolstered by the 1775 proclamation by British official Lord Dunmore, who promised freedom to any slave who fought on the side of the British during the war. Blacks also fought on the American side, hoping to gain benefits of citizenship later on.During the Civil War, free blacks fought on the confederate and union sides. Southern free blacks who fought on the confederate side were hoping to gain a greater degree of toleration and acceptance among their white neighbors. The hope of equality through the military was realized over time, such as with the equalization of pay for black and white soldiers a month before the end of the Civil War.