Pre-Civil War Free Blacks Owned Slaves. Is that significant

jgoodguy

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Don't we have to use whatever is on the crumbling yellow paper archives?
 

jgoodguy

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Let's discuss modern political stuff in chat, please.
 

Andersonh1

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How much did their descendants own in 1860 or lets say 1850? And, it does not surprise me in the least, that "white professionals" or otherwise would seek out the best to fill their needs. Did not Mary Lincoln do the same?
As far as I know, the free black population of Savannah continued to thrive, right up to secession.

I have no wish to diminish you @Anderson1 , but from your link:

African-American men had many opportunities in the fields they were allowed to enter in. Despite success in such fields, they were still limited in their job opportunities. They were restricted to only blue collar jobs. They were not given the opportunity to grow and venture into more professional careers. For African-American women, the situation was even worse.
I think we're talking social rather than legal barriers here, sort of the "glass ceiling" idea. Regardless, the relevance to the topic is that yes, some among the free black population of the South acquired wealth and bought slaves of their own. They took part in the system as it existed. I think there's a lot about this situation that demonstrates the complicated nature of history and human relationships that is worth studying.
 

dedej

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I’m really confused over this thread. My take is that it’s not OK to refer to light skinned African-Americans like Colin Kaepernick or Russell Wilson or Cory Booker as black anymore, but to use the term mulattos instead? Is that correct?
I understand.

"Mulatto" is not an acceptable word anymore for Mixed-Race / Biracial individuals. It is what is called a "historical" racial classification. I only use it here because they used the term back then to identify themselves as -- and it was a Census Racial classification.

Mulatto is a historical racial classification of people who are born of one white parent and one black parent, as well as mixed-race people in general.

Colin is light-skin -- but he is bi-racial. I am not sure he self-identifies as "Black" -- I think he self-identifies as "Biracial."

Russell Wilson isn't what we call light-skin - he does have two Black Parents - and self-identifies as "Black."

Corey Booker is light-skin -- but he was two Black parents -- therefore he is Black and he self-identifies as such.

Light-Skin does not equal/mean that one has a White parent. But, one may have had White ancestors.

@O' Be Joyful suggested -- it's best to let someone choose for themselves.

Example, one of my best friends is biracial -- and she does not see herself as -- nor self-identifies as Black. She identifies as Biracial.
 

jgoodguy

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As far as I know, the free black population of Savannah continued to thrive, right up to secession.
It is my understanding that free blacks commercial rights alone with many other rights were curtailed sharply in the run-up to secession one reason the 1830 census has problems.
 

Andersonh1

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It is my understanding that free blacks commercial rights alone with many other rights were curtailed sharply in the run-up to secession one reason the 1830 census has problems.
We would have to go state by state to see what the restrictions were, but certainly the Nat Turner murders had a chilling effect on black freedoms all across the southern states, and even Haiti was still being referenced decades later.
 

rittmeister

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It shouldn't -- but it's not a bad thing to know and let someone know.

It's about honoring your ancestors, lineage and ethnicity. It also being able to define yourself personally. It's a wonderful thing.
if it doesn't matter it falls into the same realm as being red haired - everybody can still talk about their ancestry if they want to - that includes everybody getting the same chances at the start of course
 

rittmeister

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We would have to go state by state to see what the restrictions were, but certainly the Nat Turner murders had a chilling effect on black freedoms all across the southern states, and even Haiti was still being referenced decades later.
... as being enslaved had a chilling effect on ... nat (may be?)
 

jgoodguy

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We would have to go state by state to see what the restrictions were, but certainly the Nat Turner murders had a chilling effect on black freedoms all across the southern states, and even Haiti was still being referenced decades later.
1857 link
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (1777-1864) delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the court's majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position. The Chief Justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the Chief Justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
That means that free blacks have no rights to property and no rights to legal recourse if a white man shows up to take everything they have and perhaps sell them into slavery.
 

5fish

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After all, IIRC southern Italians were once considered "too dark", whoops...I went a little modern there didn't I?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/02/swarthy-germans/48324/

What about Swarthy Germans as my ancestors were Swarthy Germans... are Dark Complexion some have called them Black Germans or Black Dutch...

Ben Franklin wanted to make Pennsylvania great again... He wanted a paste, white people...

Luis Rumbaut adds some valuable perspective to the immigration debate by citing some of Ben Franklin's thoughts on the horrors of the US being overrun by German immigrants:

Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

Snip... another of Ben Franklin's anti-german whines he sounds like a lot of today's Americans anti-Latin whines...

Franklin warned that Germans were too stupid to learn English, and therefore represented a political threat to America:

"Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they modestly declined to intermeddle in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so outnumber us, that all the advantages we have will not, in My Opinion, be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious."


Snip... another issue Old Ben had was the German Swarthy Complexion... sound like todays anti-Latin whines... Ben would be wearing a MAGA hat for sure...

https://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2008/02/ben-franklin-on.html

The other objection that Ben Franklin had to German immigrants was their "swarthy complexion", which was an affront to the "purely white people" who originally settled America:

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

24. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians, and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is


Snip... the funny part is Ben opened the first German paper money trumps ethnocentric views...

Of course, Franklin's animosity towards Germans may have another explanation: as a young man in Philadelphia Ben Franklin published the first German-language newspaper in America - the Philadelphische Zeitung - which failed after only one year.


 

5fish

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One of the most vexing questions in African-American history is whether free African Americans themselves owned slaves.
I do not know the importance but it does amaze me when an oppressed group of people turnaround an oppress another group of oppressed people. Why did Jews own slaves for they understood oppression was wrong? Why did the Irish the lowest of the low in their homelands except when they came to America and turnaround and try to drive the free blacks out of cities here in America? Why would Free Blacks want to own slaves?

Is it a case of adapting to the culture and society they live in or grew up in? Is it a simple case of greed and getting ahead within a slave society...

Here some numbers... https://www.evblog.virginiahumanities.org/2011/12/slavery-by-the-numbers/

Less than 4: The percentage of the total number of enslaved Africans transported to the New World who were imported to the area that became the United States. (Source)

90: The percentage of the total number of enslaved Africans transported to the New World who were imported to Brazil and the Caribbean. (Source)

33: The percentage of South Carolina’s enslaved labor force early in the 1700s made up of American Indians. (Source)

4 to 1: The ratio of white servants to enslaved Africans in Virginia late in the 1670s. (Source)

4 to 1: The ratio of enslaved Africans to white servants in Virginia early in the 1690s. (Source)

1 in 7: Chance that a New York State resident in 1776 was enslaved. (Source)

25: The approximate percentage of the total number of enslaved Africans transported to the Americas who came after Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807. (Source)

$97,100,000,000,000: Estimated value of the labor performed by black slaves in America between 1619 and 1865, compounded at 6 percent interest through 1993. (Source)

1: Votes by which eighteenth-century lawmakers in the United States rejected outlawing slavery in all future states beyond the original thirteen. (Source)

55: The number of white people killed in Southampton County, Virginia, during Nat Turner’s rebellion in August 1831. (Source)

15: Votes by which Virginia lawmakers rejected outlawing slavery in the commonwealth on January 25, 1832. (Source)

500: Estimated number of anti-slavery petitions sent to the United States Congress between 1835 and 1836. (Source)

7.5: Percentage of all free blacks in the United States in 1830 who owned slaves. (Source)

12: Percentage of all free blacks in Virginia in 1830 who owned slaves. (Source)

1 to 1: Ratio of the average 1850 price in Texas of a healthy male slave to that of 200 acres of prime farmland. (Source)

490,865: Total number of slaves in Virginia in 1860. (Source)

30.7: Percentage of slaves among total Virginia population in 1860. (Source)

52.2: Percentage of slaves among total Albemarle County, Virginia, population in 1860. (Source)

$15: Price an Indiana historical museum charged in 1999 for visitors to spend 90 minutes as a runaway slave. (Source)

2 to 1: Estimated ratio of white to black runaways in an Indiana historical museum’s slavery reenactments in 1999. (Source)
 

Emilemut

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I sent the actual news story to a friend, who said "That will last until one firearm crosses the state line, about a day and a half." She foresaw lawsuits.

I sincerely do not see a state-wide Waco scenario. I do foresee a journey up the appellate ladder all the way to the Nine Robed Gods.
 

MattL

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Is it significant from a historical perspective. Sure. Even the odd one off cases are important to study and they can often be the most interesting.

Many people (not saying anyone here) seem to imply it's significant in decreasing the responsibility of White Americans of the time involved in the racial system of slavery somehow. Obviously that's ridiculous. Every single wronged group of people has people of that same defining factor who were involved and/or helped perpetuate that system. What would be significant if there were no Black people involved with the system in some way. IMHO it's racist to think otherwise, unless you also think it's significant in the same way towards say Nazis and Jewish collaborators, the Soviet Union and it's collaborators. If you don't consistently apply that same standard but somehow it's significant (in that way) when it's just Black people and slavery then by definition that's racism.
 
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