Kayla Bassford

Mrs. Parrott

APUSH

20 November, 2020

Mini Q: How Free were Free Blacks in the North

When Europeans began traveling over to the US in the early 17th century, chattel slavery

was not used as much as indentured servitude. This was where Europeans in exchange for travel

to the US, they have to sign a contract with a settler saying they’ll work for them for three to

seven years. Yet Bacon’s Rebellion happened in 1676 and they did away with indentured

servitude and moved toward chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was prominent in south US up until

the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 with the end of the Civil War. In the North they had

started to pass acts to free slaves in the early 1800s, which started the tension between the North

and South up until the Civil War. These slaves in the North, to a small extent, were as free as

they seemed to be because of the lack of rights and social status whites privileged them.

Vermont was the first northern state to free all of their slaves in 1777 and give them some

rights. The freed slaves in Vermont had rights but it was still very little. According to document

A, in 1860, Vermont may have allowed their freed blacks to vote but they weren’t allowed to

participate in male jury duty. While voting is a big plus to giving them some equality as white

men, the distinction of not allowing them to get jury duty still separates them. This document’s

purpose shows how even though they were given a right, they weren’t viewed as equals by

others because they didn’t allow them to have the same amount of rights that white men had.

This goes with all northern states, not just Vermont. Massachusetts was the only state that had
allowed freed blacks in jury duty but that wasn’t until 1860. This hindering of rights to free

blacks didn’t give them the freedom they had earned.

As well as not earning the same amount of rights, blacks didn’t have the same social

status as whites. Blacks even after they were given their freedom, were still viewed as inferior. In

document B, Charles Mackay states how freed blacks could perform duties and pay taxes but

weren’t allowed to mingle, dine, or attend courts with whites. Whites never saw them as equals

before or after being a slave. The point of view of this document being from a traveler recording

what he is seeing, shows how blacks who were freed are not free in the eyes of others. As well as

not being able to participate in leisure activities with whites, in document C, it also states how

blacks weren’t able to get hired for jobs. Whites, thinking themselves superior once again, can’t

associate themselves with blacks, so they can’t hire them for a job they are qualified for. So if a

freed black in the north can’t acquire a job to pay for substantial needs, then why be free. At least

while being a slave, you got housing and food, but being free, it’s not a guarantee. The purpose

of the document just proves how blacks don’t have the same equality as whites. This white

supremacy stays long after the civil war in the North and South even though it abolished slavery.

A famous law that enforces racial segregation, proving that blacks were never truly free, were

the Jim Crow laws. Yet this was in the South post-civil war, it was basically what was happening

in the North pre-Civil War. Blacks couldn't associate themselves with whites, leading to the

equality and freedom of blacks never truly there.

In conclusion, freed blacks in the North before the civil war were not necessarily free.

They had restricted rights and an inferior social status, so compared to whites, they were never

really free. You can label these men free, but a restricted freedom is not true freedom.