Between Slavery and Freedom (23 page)

Source:
Pennsylvania Gazette
, March 5, 1751

Whereas it often happens, that free Negroes and Mulattoes keep very disorderly Houses, and entice the Slaves in this Colony to spend much Time and Money in Gaming, Drinking, &c. which they cannot possibly do without robbing their Masters and others . . . Be it therefore Enacted . . . That upon Complaint being made to any Town Council in this Colony, of any free Negro, or Mulatto, who shall keep a disorderly House, or entertain any Slave or Slaves, at unreasonable Hours, or in an extravagant Manner . . . such Town Council be . . . empowered to examine into the Matter, and if they find such free Negro or Mulatto guilty . . . they may . . . break up from House-Keeping such free Negro or Mulatto . . . and bind them as Servants for a Term of Time . . . and . . . commit them to the Work-House until suitable Places can be had for them.

Source:
Providence Gazette
, September 1–8, 1770

Free People of Color in the South Carolina Press (1760–1771)

By 1710, blacks outnumbered whites in South Carolina. Most were slaves, but not all were. White South Carolinians regarded free blacks as a class with intense suspicion, as the first notice clearly shows. Poorer whites feared economic competition, and whites of all classes worried that free people would conspire with the slaves and help foment rebellions. However, despite the many legal restrictions they faced and the hostility they encountered from all segments of the white community, individual men and women of color in South Carolina did have opportunities to make money and accumulate property (including slaves). Most importantly of all, they could marry and establish families. We do not know why the Peronneaus' marriage broke up, but Richard Peronneau did what any colonial-era husband would do: he
declared publicly that he was no longer financially responsible for his wife. A white husband would have done exactly the same thing.

The Presentments of the Grand Jury for the Body of this Province . . .

We present as a grievance, the evil custom of giving negroes their freedom; and the want of a law to oblige every free negro to wear a badge with their names thereon, by which they may be known . . . We present as a grievance, so many idle negro wenches, selling dry goods, cakes, rice, &c. in the markets, which hinder a great many poor people from getting bread . . . We present as a grievance, the number of small licensed tippling houses, who sell spirituous liquors to sailors and negroes . . .

Source:
South Carolina Gazette
, February 1, 1768

In November next I shall want an
overseer
, a single man who . . . can be properly recommended; also a free negro or mulatto woman, who understands [running] a dairy, [the] raising of poultry, and [the] cutting out and making [of] negro cloathes
[
sic
]
, will meet with suitable encouragement.

Source:
South Carolina Gazette,
August 30, 1760

All Persons indebted to Charles Cordes (Free Negro) deceased, are desired to make immediate payment to the Subscriber; and those to whom the said Charles Cordes was indebted, are desired to make known their Demands to
john gough
,
Administrator
.

Source:
South Carolina Gazette,
September 20, 1770

To be
sold
at the Vendue-House in Charles-Town, on
tuesday
, the 23
rd
of October, Instant;
three negroes
, late the Property of A Free Negro Wench, deceased, viz.—A young
fellow
, who is a Carpenter by Trade, and is said to be a good Workman—a likely
lad
, about 16 Years of Age—and a
wench
.

Source:
South Carolina Gazette & Country Journal
, October 9, 1770

Charles-Town, September 27, 1771

richard peronneau
, a free Negro Carpenter . . . forewarns all persons, not to trust his wife, a free wench named Nancy, a mulatto, on his account, as he is determined not to pay any debts of her contracting from the date hereof, as she has eloped from him.

Source:
South Carolina Gazette
, October 3, 1771

Petitioning for Freedom in New Hampshire (1779)

In the autumn of 1779, Nero Brewster and nineteen other slaves in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioned the state legislature. They were careful to explain that they were not condemning their masters but rather the fundamental injustice of slavery. They pledged that if they were freed they would be exemplary citizens and would help in the fight to achieve independence from Britain. Desperate for manpower, New Hampshire did eventually offer bounties to slave owners who manumitted their slaves so that they could serve in the army. In 1783, the new state constitution declared that “all men are born equal and independent.” Not until 1857 did New Hampshire actually pass an abolition law, but by then all of the Granite State's black residents were free, although they seldom enjoyed the “
e
q
uality
of freemen” that Brewster and his friends had hoped to secure for themselves and their descendants.

We know we ought to be free agents! [W]e feel the dignity of human nature! [W]e feel the passions and desires of men, tho' checked by the rod of slavery! [W]e feel a just equality! [W]e know that the God of Nature made us free! . . . Should the Humanity and Benevolence of this Honorable Assembly restore us to that State of Liberty of which we have been so long deprived . . . those who are our present Masters will not be Sufferers by our Liberation, as we have most of us spent our whole Strength, and the Prime of our Lives in their Service; And as Freedom inspires a noble Confidence, and gives the Mind an Emulation to vie in the noblest efforts of Enterprise, and as Justice and Humanity are the results of your Deliberations; we fondly hope that the Eye of Pity and the Heart of Justice may Commiserate our Situation and put us upon the Equality of Freemen and give us an Opportunity of evincing to the World our Love of Freedom by exerting ourselves in her Cause, in opposing the Efforts of Tyranny and Oppression over the Country in which we ourselves have been so long injuriously enslaved.

Therefore, your humble slaves most devoutly pray, for the sake of injured liberty, for the sake of justice, humanity, and the rights of mankind; for the honor of religion, and by all that is dear, that your honors would graciously interpose on our behalf . . . [so that] we may regain our liberty . . . and that the name of
slave
may no more be heard in a land gloriously contending for the sweets of freedom.

Portsmouth, Nov. 12, 1779

Source:
New Hampshire Gazette
, July 15, 1780

Richard Allen Buys his Freedom (1780)

On January 25, 1780, in Delaware, a young enslaved man identified simply as “Richard” negotiated to buy his freedom from white farmer Stokeley Sturgis. “Richard” is better known to history as Richard Allen (1760–1831), the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. In his autobiography Allen remembered Sturgis as “a kind, affectionate and tender-hearted master” who had trusted him and allowed him to leave the farm to look for work. Allen took work wherever he could find it, earned the price of his freedom, and paid Sturgis in full two years ahead of time.

I Stokeley Sturgis of Kent County in the Delaware State for the Consideration of the Sum of Sixty Pounds (Old Rates) . . . to be paid at five yearly payments of Twelve pounds [per] year at or upon the Second Day of February in every year the first payment to be made on the Second Day of February which shall be in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred & Eighty One. Otherwise the yearly Sum of Four hundred Dollars Continental Currency to be paid yearly for the Term of five years as aforesaid by Richard Negro . . . the Choice in Which Currency the payments are to be made always to be at the Option of the Negro and if the said Negro Chuses to pay it in Continental Currency . . . he must Work Two Days Wages free in Harvest Time for the said Stokeley Sturgis . . . [and] upon the just payment thereof I Do hereby . . . Release and for Ever Discharge and set at full Liberty the said Negro Man named Richard . . . and further I Do hereby fully Trust and Impower him to Hire[,] Deal and Transact for himself with any person Whatsoever from the Second Day of February next.

Source: Pennsylvania Abolition Society Manuscripts, Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Benjamin Banneker's Challenge to Thomas Jefferson (1791)

In 1791, a free black farmer in Maryland, Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), wrote an extraordinary letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to ask how the author of the Declaration of Independence could defend slavery. Banneker was never enslaved. His grandmother was a white indentured servant and he derived his freedom from her, but he was painfully aware of the condition of the majority of black people. Banneker also took Jefferson to task for maintaining that blacks
lacked the mental capacity of whites. He had had only a limited education. His grandmother had taught him to read and write, and he had briefly attended a Quaker school near his family's farm. However, he had demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics early in life, and with the loan of books and a telescope from a white acquaintance he had mastered astronomy. When he wrote Jefferson, he had just returned home after helping to survey the site of the nation's new capital and he was about to publish the first of his almanacs. Based on astronomical observations and complex mathematical calculations, the almanac, a manuscript copy of which he sent to Jefferson along with his letter, constituted in itself a refutation of black intellectual inferiority.

I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments . . .

I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, and in that color which is natural to them of the deepest dye; and . . . I am not under that state of . . . inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings, which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored.