Between Slavery and Freedom (28 page)

In reply to your question—of the “effect of Prejudice” on myself, I must acknowledge that it has often embittered my feelings, particularly when I recollect that we are the innocent victims of it—for you are well aware that it originates from dislike to the color of the skin, as much as from the degradation of Slavery—I am peculiarly sensitive on this point, and consequently seek to avoid as much as possible . . . mingling with those who exist under its influence. I must own that it has often engendered feelings of discontent and mortification in my breast when I saw that many were preferred before me, who by education—birth—or worldly circumstances were no better than myself—
their
sole claim to notice depending on the superior advantage of being
white
—but I am striving to live above such heart burnings—and will learn to “bear and forbear” believing that a spirit of forbearance under such evils is all that we as a people can well exert . . .

Even our professed friends have not yet rid themselves of it [prejudice]—to some of them it clings like a dark mantle obscuring their many virtues and choking up the avenues to higher and nobler sentiments. I recollect the words of one of the best and least prejudiced men in the Abolition ranks. Ah said he—“I can recall the time when in walking with a Colored brother, the darker the night, the better Abolitionist was I.”

Source: Sarah L. Forten to Angelina Grimké, April 15, 1837, in Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, eds.,
Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld,
Angelina
Grimké Weld, and Sarah Grimké, 1822–1844
(New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1934), vol. 1, pp. 379–81.

Kidnappers (1840–1841)

Long before the passage of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, free blacks knew that whether they lived in the North or the South they had to be on their guard. Empowered by the 1793 federal Fugitive Slave Law, slave owners and their agents roamed communities in every part of the nation hunting for escaped slaves. Professional slave catchers who had only a vague description of the missing slaves
could and did make mistakes and claim as fugitives people who were legally free. And sometimes this was anything but a genuine case of mistaken identity on the part of an overzealous slave catcher or a slave owner who did not recall exactly what his slaves looked like. The following two reports speak for themselves. Flora Way was quick-witted and faced down the two men who accosted her in the street. Fred Roberts presumably acted upon the tip from the North Carolina informant and hastily left town.

Look Out for Kidnappers—I

Mrs. Flora Way, who resides in Mercer street, in this city [New York], and is a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Anthony street, while walking [along] Broadway on Friday, the 27
th
ultimo, between White and Walker streets, was accosted by two individuals supposed to be from Georgia, as they thought Mrs. Way was a fugitive slave from that State. Mrs. Way is from Savannah, and knows all about that horrible system which is grinding the souls and bodies of two and a half million of her brethren into the dust; and she gave them to know that she knew of no master but Christ, and that they had better refrain from molesting her.

Source:
Colored American
(New York), April 4, 1840

Look Out For Kidnappers—II

We have had handed to us a note, post marked Wilmington, N.C., and giving the information that a man by the name of Ricks, somewhere in the interior of this State [New York], has a plan on foot to betray one Fred Roberts, now said to be at work in Buffalo, into the hands of someone who would call himself master, and warning Fred to be upon his guard. We do not know how much truth there may be in this affair, though the letter lays before us, nor how many Ricks there may be in the State, and if many, which of them it may be; but one thing we know, that it is safe to forewarn Fred . . . and advise him that he is safe only in Canada. He may, before he is aware of it, find himself in the hands of a Buffalo constable, and locked up in [a] Buffalo jail.

Source:
Colored American
(New York), May 1, 1841

Class Differences among Antebellum Black Philadelphians (1841)

Joseph Willson (1817–1895) was born in Augusta, Georgia, one of five children of a wealthy Irish banker, John Willson, and Betsy Keating, a former slave. Before
he died in 1822, John Willson wrote a will providing for his family and naming a trusted friend to be their guardian, since in Georgia free people of color were not considered legally competent to manage their own affairs. In the early 1830s, Betsy and her guardian decided that the family must move to the North to escape
Georgia's
increasing harsh restrictions on free blacks. They relocated to Philadelphia, where Joseph Willson trained as a printer before becoming a dentist. Well-read and articulate, he hoped that in his
Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in Philadelphia
he could enlighten whites about class differences within the African-American community. He was frankly irritated at the tendency of whites to lump all free black people together as poor, lazy, and criminally-inclined.

The public—or at least the great body, who have not been at the pains to make an examination—have long been accustomed to regard the people of color as one consolidated mass, all huddled together, without any particular or general distinctions, social or otherwise. The sight of one colored man with them, whatever may be his apparent condition, (provided it is any thing but genteel!) is the sight of a community; and the errors and crimes of one, [are] adjudged as the criterion of character of the whole body . . .

Taking the whole body of the colored population in the city of Philadelphia, they present in a gradual, moderate, and limited ratio, almost every grade of character, wealth, and . . . education. They are to be seen in ease, comfort and the enjoyment of all the social blessings of this life, and . . . they are to be found in the lowest depths of human degradation, misery, and want. They are also presented in the intermediate stages—sober, honest, industrious and respectable—claiming neither ‘poverty nor riches,' yet maintaining . . . their families in comparative ease and comfort.

Source: Julie Winch, ed.,
The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson's Sketches of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 82–83.

The Antislavery Cause and Guilt by Association (1843)

Joseph Stanly was a member of a prominent free black slaveholding family in
New Bern
, North Carolina. His father, John Carruthers Stanly, had been born a slave, but as a free man he had no qualms about buying slaves and putting them to work in his barbershop and on the plantations he owned. The elder Stanly's support of the slave system earned him a measure of respect from influential whites in his neighborhood. However, as a young man, Benjamin Stanly, one of John
C. Stanly's sons, and Joseph's twin, rejected slavery. He moved to Philadelphia, went into business as a barber, and became a staunch supporter of abolition. The repercussions for Joseph when he returned home to North Carolina after visiting Benjamin in Philadelphia were nothing short of disastrous, as the following letter explained.

Joseph Stanly, (a colored young man of New Bern, North Carolina) a few months ago, came on to this city [Philadelphia] to see a twin brother . . . whom he had not seen for several years. Previous to leaving, he was assured by those “high in authority,” “that there would not be the least difficulty in returning home; that he might stay in Philadelphia just as long as he saw fit, and return and remain here unmolested.” In fact, many said, “Why, Joseph, why need you have any fears of being disturbed: you certainly know your standing in the community, and what a favorable character your father has borne amongst us for the last forty or fifty years; and do you suppose we could be so unkind as to prevent his son from returning home to those whom we have always respected!” Being thus assured, he left his home . . . arrived in Philadelphia, and spent several months with his brother; after which, he returned back to the land of his birth . . . But scarcely had his feet retouched that soil . . . than he received, from the hands of an officer, the very friendly and humane notice, ‘
that he must leave the town within
24 hour
s, never to enter it again.
'
‘Was I not assured, previous to my departure, that I should return and remain here unmolested?' ‘Yes, sir.' ‘Well, what does this mean?' ‘Why, it means this, that we don't intend to have an abolitionist in
this
'
ere town
.' ‘But, sir, what evidence have you that I am an abolitionist?' Whether you are or not,
your brother is
, and it is reported that
he
spoke at an abolition meeting . . . That is sufficient, and you must leave.'

Source:
Liberator
(Boston), January 6, 1843

A Black Southerner's Experiences in New York (ca. 1845)

James Thomas was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1827. His mother, Sally Thomas, was a slave, and his father, John Catron, was a white lawyer. Catron did nothing for his son, but Sally Thomas ran her own laundry and earned the money to buy James's freedom. In the mid-1840s, Thomas, by then a successful barber, agreed to close his shop for a while and travel to the North as a servant to a wealthy white Southerner. Thomas was unimpressed with the treatment he received in the
“free” North. (Ironically, Thomas's father became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and concurred with the majority in the
Dred Scott
case that blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”)

I soon learned something about New York that did not please me. I remarked that I wanted to go to the museum. I was told not to go, that I wouldn't be admitted unless I was with my boss or had one of his children . . . I said I would like to ride up town in an Omnibus. I was told they wouldn't carry me unless I was with a white person or child. I learned afterwards that if a colored face got inside of an Omnibus, the white passengers would leap out as though a case of small pox or a ghost had entered . . .