Read complete books and articles on: Free Blacks in Antebellum America

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Free Blacks in Antebellum America

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1.

In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community, and Protest among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 » Read Now
by James Oliver Horton, Lois E. Horton. 340 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Prince Hall, a black veteran of the American Revolution, was insulted and disappointed but probably not surprised when white officials refused his offer of help. He had volunteered a troop of 700 Boston area blacks to help quell a rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays during...
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Prince Hall, a black veteran of the American Revolution, was insulted and disappointed but probably not surprised when white officials refused his offer of help. He had volunteered a troop of 700 Boston area blacks to help quell a rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays during the economic turmoil in the uncertain period following independence. Many African Americans had fought for America's liberty and their own in the Revolution, but their place in the new nation was unresolved. As slavery was abolished in the North, free blacks gained greater opportunities, but still faced a long struggle against limits to their freedom, against discrimination, and against southern slavery. The lives of these men and women are vividly described in In Hope of Liberty, spanning the 200 years and eight generations from the colonial slave trade to the Civil War. In this marvelously peopled history, James and Lois Horton introduce us to a rich cast of characters. There are familiar historical figures such as Crispus Attucks, a leader of the Boston Massacre and one of the first casualties of the American Revolution; Sojourner Truth, former slave and eloquent antislavery and women's rights activist whose own family had been broken by slavery when her son became a wedding present for her owner's daughter; and Prince Whipple, George Washington's aide, easily recognizable in the portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware River. And there are the countless men and women who struggled to lead their daily lives with courage and dignity: Zilpha Elaw, a visionary revivalist who preached before crowds of thousands; David James Peck, the first black to graduate from an American medical school in 1848; Paul Cuffe, a successful seafaring merchant who became an ardent supporter of the black African colonization movement; and Nancy Prince, at eighteen the effective head of a scattered household of four siblings, each boarded in different homes, who at twenty-five was formally presented to the Russian court. In a seamless narrative weaving together all these stories and more, the Hortons describe the complex networks, both formal and informal, that made up free black society, from the black churches, which provided a sense of community and served as a training ground for black leaders and political action, to the countless newspapers which spoke eloquently of their aspirations for blacks and played an active role in the antislavery movement, to the informal networks which allowed far-flung families to maintain contact, and which provided support and aid to needy members of the free black community and to fugitives from the South. Finally, they describe the vital role of the black family, the cornerstone of this variegated and tightly knit community In Hope of Liberty brilliantly illuminates the free black communities of the antebellum North as they struggled to reconcile conflicting cultural identities and to work for social change in an atmosphere of racial injustice. As the black community today still struggles with many of the same problems, this insightful history reminds us how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.
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2.

Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803 » Read Now
by Kimberly S. Hanger. 250 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...those which Americans confront in todays multicultural...fact most free blacks did not choose...Color in the antebellum era of the...disappear when blacks and mulattoes...
3.

Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North » Read Now
by James Horton Oliver, Lois E. Horton. 198 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...free-black life in the antebellum South and...Bostons free blacks. 7 Social...analysis of America from the...seafaring for antebellum blacks in his marvelously...African...
4.

The Negro in Maryland: A Study of the Institution of Slavery (Chap. V "The Free Negro") » Read Now
by Jeffrey R. Brackett. 272 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS...V.--THE FREE NEGRO , 175 THE NEGRO IN MARYLAND...while the free blacks became more...was therefore free by the laws...West River, in...
5.

Jehiel C. Beman: A Leader of the Northern Free Black Community, in The Journal of Negro History » Read Now
by Jennifer Lee James. 25 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...the African-American community, the role of blacks in abolitionism...of these free black communities...of African-Americans to participate in the elective...important for...
6.

The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860 (Chap. 4 "Free Women of Color") » Read Now
by Suzanne Lebsock. 326 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...debasement. What gains free blacks were able to make in the antebellum period--and they...century. In the antebellum decades, the...tobacco factories in...
7.

Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chap. Five "The Struggle to Survive: The Lives of Slave, Free Black, and Poor White Women during the Civil War") » Read Now
by Victoria E. Bynum. 238 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
8.

I Will Wear No Chain!: A Social History of African-American Males (Chap. 2 "The Context of Black Masculine Development during the Antebellum Era") » Read Now
by Christopher B. Booker. 262 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This volume traces the social history of African American men from the days of slavery to the present, focusing on their achievements, their changing image, and their role in American society. The author places the contemporary issue of Black men's disproportionate involvement with criminal justice...
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This volume traces the social history of African American men from the days of slavery to the present, focusing on their achievements, their changing image, and their role in American society. The author places the contemporary issue of Black men's disproportionate involvement with criminal justice within its social and historical context, while analyzing the most significant movements aiming to improve the status of Blacks in our society. The book's main thesis is that an ever-changing, yet ever-present process of criminalization has entrapped Black men throughout history, thus creating a major barrier to their collective development. The topics discussed include the role of Blacks in the Civil War, Booker T. Washington, the Civil Rights movement, and the Million Man March.
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9.

Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation ("Free Black Runaways" begins on p. 189, and "Free Black Owners of Runaways" begins on p. 199) » Read Now
by John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger. 460 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their...
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From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they could. For generations, important aspects about slave life on the plantations of the American South have remained shrouded. Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial violence on the plantation was an aberration. In this precedent setting book, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did in fact frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, this book shows how slaves resisted, when, where, and how they escaped, where they fled to, how long they remained in hiding, and how they survived away from the plantation. Of equal importance, it examines the reactions of the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves. Reflecting a lifetime of thought by our leading authority in African American history, this book provides the key to truly understanding the relationship between slaveholders and the runaways who challenged the system--illuminating as never before the true nature of the South's "most peculiar institution."
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10.

History of Black Americans: From the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War (Chap. 2 "Black Reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: Terror in the Black Community") » Read Now
by Philip S. Foner. 540 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...24. Blacks and Abraham...27. Free at Last...third volume in the projected...History of Black Americans . The second...The role of blacks in the Civil War...history of black...
11.

Reconsidering the "Forced" Exodus of 1829: Free Black Emigration from Cincinnati, Ohio to Wilberforce, Canada, in The Journal of African American History » Read Now
by Clayton E. Cramer. 165 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Typically, antebellum mob action directed toward free blacks was intended...examples in American history of...assaults denied free blacks their civil...to testify in court...
12.

In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chap. 5 "The Free Afro-American in Antebellum Edgefield") » Read Now
by Orville Vernon Burton. 480 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...American in Antebellum Edgefield...Postbellum Afro-American Family Life...Who Died in 1860...Characteristics of Free Black Households...Occupations of Free Blacks, 1850...
13.

Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen Prior to the Civil War » Read Now
by Martha S. Putney. 180 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Figures Preface How Many Were on the Ships The Black Complement Black Ship Officers Those Who Sailed What It All Meant Notes Appendix Bibliography Index