Between Slavery and Freedom (12 page)

The situation that free blacks in the southern half of the Louisiana Territory had experienced after the transition from Spanish and French control was replicated in Florida when it became part of the United States in 1819. Free men and women of color in Spanish Florida feared they would lose the privileges they had had under Spanish law and be scarcely any better off than the slaves. They were somewhat more fortunate, given that white racial attitudes, harsh though they were, permitted some members of the free colored community a little more latitude. After the transition to American rule, Mobile, which had been in Spanish Florida, became part of Alabama,
but free people there retained certain rights and privileges. The same was true in Pensacola, even when Florida lawmakers hacked away at the rights of free people in general across the state. To be free in either Mobile or Pensacola did not make free blacks citizens in the same way that whites were, but it did mean that life was somewhat better than it was for free people elsewhere in the Lower South.

If the South proved treacherous terrain for free people to navigate, the Midwest did not prove much more hospitable. In the early years of the new century the Old Northwest was transformed from one large territory into separate territories, which eventually became states. Although the Northwest Ordinance explicitly banned slaveholding in any state formed out of the territory between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the absence of slaves did not translate into a warm welcome for free blacks anywhere in the region. In 1803, Ohio entered the Union as a “free” state. It did so with a body of laws in place that barred African Americans from voting, holding public office, or serving in the state militia. The following year the legislature informed free blacks that if they wanted to live in Ohio they must post a $500 bond for every member of their household, including infants and children. The situation in neighboring Indiana was no better, while in Illinois some white residents thought they should be able to keep the slaves they already owned, regardless of what the ordinance said. Even though Illinois became a “free” state, the racial climate was distinctly hostile and its laws with regard to black people were very repressive. As difficult as life was for free black people throughout the Midwest, some braved those difficulties. When all was said and done, they had often endured just as much discriminatory treatment back East.

The territorial growth of the United States since the 1790s onwards had affected the population of the entire nation in economic and political terms, but whether or not a particular state joined the Union as “free” or “slave” obviously had a tremendous impact on black Americans. As the extent of slave territory increased, so did the demand for slaves. In the summer of 1807, Congress prohibited the importation of any more slaves into the United States after January 1, 1808. The opponents of slavery, black and white, were overjoyed. They believed this was the first step toward total emancipation. On New Year's Day 1808 free people of color from Boston to Baltimore celebrated and held services of thanksgiving in their various churches. The January First observances continued for a number of years until the realization dawned that the end of the overseas trade had given way to a brisk domestic slave trade. Slavery was not in its death throes, and slaveholders in the Upper South had endorsed the federal ban on
importations because it drove up prices for their own slaves when they shipped them off for sale in New Orleans and the other major slave markets. It also encouraged unscrupulous individuals to claim as fugitives black men and women who were legally free. Every move that strengthened slavery jeopardized the liberty of every member of the free community of color. Outside the ranks of the most zealous opponents of slavery, most whites either did not understand or simply did not care. However, the implications of the spread of slavery were about to stir up a nationwide debate.

In 1817, Missouri first applied for statehood. It was the most northerly part of the Missouri Territory to seek to join the Union, and it did so after a period of uncertainty about the question of black freedom. The federal government had initially put the entire Missouri Territory under the jurisdiction of the Council of the Indiana Territory. Slavery was illegal in the Indiana Territory, and French-speaking slaveholders in the Missouri Territory at first feared that they would have to emancipate their slaves,
but their fears were unfounded. Although the Missouri Territory did not have as many free blacks as the Orleans Territory, and they had traditionally not had as many rights, whites did not want to see their numbers increase. They also enacted harsh new law codes which spelled out to the region's free people of color that they were there under sufferance. In 1820, when the question of statehood for Missouri eventually came before Congress, an acrimonious debate ensued. If Missouri joined the Union as a slave state it would upset the balance between “slave” and “free” states. Eventually the different factions hammered out an agreement. Missouri joined the Union as a slave state, while Maine separated from Massachusetts to become a free state, thus maintaining the balance. The so-called Missouri Compromise also stipulated that slavery could not exist in any state organized north of 36
o
30' North (the southern boundary of Missouri), while any state created south of that line could choose freedom or slavery.

In the welter of rhetoric from white politicians no one gave much thought to the plight of free people of color in Missouri, but no sooner had Congress voted to admit the state than Missourians drafted a constitution that gave the legislature the power to exclude all free people of color from other states. Congressmen from several northern states protested that that provision violated the “equal protection” clause of the United States Constitution. Missouri had to agree never to deny entry to anyone who was a citizen of another state—but of course it was a moot point whether any state recognized black people as citizens. Missouri formally achieved statehood, and free people of color found that for all the talk about “equal protection” and “rights and immunities” they were not wanted in Missouri, any more
than they were in any other state. They might insist that they had rights, in common with other Americans, but everywhere they looked their rights were being “compromised” out of existence.

Beyond Congressional compromises and restrictive law codes, beyond census figures and lines on the map that separated “free” and “slave” states, we are left with the fundamental question of what liberty actually meant for black men and women. Very obviously it meant different things depending on location and status. The outlook of an individual who was freeborn and lived in a major Northern city was very different indeed from that of the newly-emancipated slave or the person who had, as Frederick Douglass described it, “stolen” him- or herself and was passing as free and hoping to avoid recapture. Clearly, one individual's experience of freedom was not that of another individual. Even people of the same age and gender, living in the same setting, experienced liberty differently. If we cannot know everyone's life story, we can at least discover from the wealth of data available to us—everything from court cases and birth, death, and marriage records to very personal firsthand accounts—something of what it meant to be a free person of color in the United States in the generation after independence.

On achieving freedom, one of the first actions people of color often took was to change their names. For runaways that was a wise move, while those who were legally free wanted to shed fanciful slave names like Pompey and Dido, or diminutives like Bill and Sally in favor of William and Sarah. Men and women who had only ever had a first name acquired that hallmark of freedom, a last name, whether it be a craft name (Carpenter, Baker), a common “Anglo” name (Williams, Allen, Jones), or a name that reflected their new status, Freeman being especially popular. Few took their owner's last name unless that owner had been exceptionally generous or unless they thought it might help them to claim a link to an influential white family.

Whether or not a man or woman stayed in a given locality once they were free depended on a host of different considerations. Some individuals went in search of long-lost family members. Others remained where they were because that was where their friends and relatives lived. People moved to hunt for work or stayed and put down roots because they believed their prospects were brighter in a place they already knew. The wider world was a threatening and lonely place for some ex-slaves, while for others it represented the chance to test the limits of their liberty. Although most free people remained close to the land, towns exerted a strong appeal for those who were inclined to try their luck in a very different environment. Urban life had its downsides, but in the generation after independence it was in cities and towns that a vibrant free black community life began to emerge.

Freedom meant the chance for black Christians to worship as they chose. While many African Americans continued attending churches their masters had compelled them to go to, now that they were free they expected better treatment than having to sit in the “Negro pew” and receive communion after everyone else. Some people stayed in the churches they were familiar with. Others searched for a spiritual experience that they felt had more relevance to their lives. They might find that within a church that welcomed all believers regardless of race, or they might opt to join an African-American church. To some white observers that freedom of choice signaled a profound change. The richness of black organized religion, and all the other aspects of black life that sprang from the churches, was something they found most disturbing. To the African-American women and men who filled the pews on Sundays and gathered on other days throughout the week to study, discuss their situation, and support one another in various endeavors, the churches were vibrant community hubs that “spoke” to their freedom.

A large part of the black church's “creation story” occurred in Philadelphia, the effective capital of the nation until the federal government moved to Washington, D.C. in 1800. The city was also home to a rapidly growing free black community. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, two of the men who had played a pivotal role in the formation of the Free African Society, were devout Methodists, and Allen, already a noted preacher, had come to Philadelphia at the invitation of the white elders at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church to work with the scores of black people who were attending Sunday worship.

Although Allen and Jones began talking about establishing a separate black church in the mid-1780s, they did not initially find much support from either black or white Philadelphians. Within a few years, however, an ugly confrontation over segregated seating at St. George's, the growth in size and independence of Philadelphia's black community, and pledges of help from prominent whites led to a change. The fact that most of their white friends were Episcopalians posed a problem for Allen and Jones. At first both declared that they could not abandon Methodism because they believed in its egalitarian principles, even if some of the whites at St. George's had shown that they apparently did not, but Jones eventually reconsidered and agreed to seek ordination as an Episcopal priest. St. Thomas's African Episcopal Church opened for worship in 1794. That same year Richard Allen established Bethel (later Mother Bethel) as a black congregation within the Methodist denomination. By 1810, black Presbyterians and black Baptists in Philadelphia had organized their own congregations.

Black churches sprang up in other communities throughout the North. New York City, with its fast-growing free population, was home to a number of churches affiliated with various denominations. Congregationalists were especially strong in New England. New Haven's Temple Street Church and Hartford's Talcott Street Church were major centers of African-American religious life. Boston's black residents went in fairly large numbers to the city's Baptist churches, but they often encountered discrimination. Finally, in 1805, with help from some white sympathizers, they established the African Baptist Church. A year later they built their own meeting house, which still stands today.

Tensions over white control of black Protestant congregations arose in many different settings and led to the founding of two new African-American denominations. In 1816, black Methodists from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other communities in the North and Upper South assembled in Baltimore to form the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. Richard Allen became the first bishop. Soon afterward, groups of black Methodists in and around New York City created the American Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) church.

The Catholic Church wrestled with many of the same problems as the Protestant churches. There were substantial numbers of black Catholics in places with strong French and Spanish traditions, notably New Orleans, St. Louis, and Mobile. The influx of
gens de couleur
from Saint Domingue also strengthened the black Catholic presence in Baltimore, Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia. Catholics did not organize separate black congregations, though, and no men who openly identified as black received ordination as priests. Black and white, free and slave, worshiped together, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes not.

Through the black churches, and sometimes independently of them, free black community life grew richer and more varied. More mutual benefit societies emerged along the lines of the Free African Society and the Newport African Union. In the period immediately after independence there were perhaps a dozen in major population centers in the North. By 1820 there were hundreds. All the societies worked in a similar way. A group of women or men who belonged to the same church or worked in the same occupation got together, chose a name for their society, crafted a set of by-laws, and began contributing regularly to a common fund. If a member became sick or was unable to find work, that member could draw on the fund. If a member or a member's spouse or child died, the fund would pay for a decent funeral.