What did it mean to be free in antebellum America?

Ahmad L. Whitaker

U S History to 1877 - HIST 009 - 04

Albert Thompson

April 12, 2021

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What is slavery? Slavery and enslavement are defined as both the state and the condition

of being a slave—one who is forbidden to quit their service for another person while treated as

property. Slavery can be traced back to the first civilizations, Sumer in Mesopotamia is a great

example, dating back as far as 3500 BC. It is even mentioned in the Mesopotamian Code of

Hammurabi in 1860 BCE, where it refers to it as an established institution. Slavery would first

appear in the Jamestown Colony in 1619, and that was the start of slavery in the colonies/

America. America would go through all types of things before it approached the antebellum

period in the South. The Antebellum South was a historical period in the United States' history

from 1783 until the start of the American Civil War (1861). The antebellum South was defined

by the rise of abolition and the United States' increasing sectionalism between abolitionists and

supporters of slavery.

To be a freed person in Antebellum America was not only a dream, but it was also almost

impossible to hold onto. As history shows us, though some blacks were able to free themselves

from the jaws of slavery and white terror, the United States had systems to basically pull the

freemen and free women back in. Freed blacks in the antebellum period were more than

outspoken about the injustice of slavery too . But to make the assumption that they had some

type of voice in how well they were treated is something an alien would say. However, they

could still express themselves and their concerns to some capacity, even if punishment would be

on the other side. Not to mention abolition being on the rise, warranting more people of color to

speak up, free or enslaved. But of course, this was determined by whether they lived in the North

or the South. In the South, a free man would continue to live under the shadow of slavery. The

amount of restrictions placed on them would make them unable to travel or assemble as freely as

those in the North did.

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There was a multitude of things that would happen to freedmen and most times get them

killed in the South. As I said earlier, freed people in the South did not get the decencies the freed

in the North had. Freedmen were targeted in the South because of a well-known and well-paying

skill. Another thing that would contribute to the targeting of freedmen was their involvement in

the lives of people who were currently slaves. History tells us so many stories where a freedman

is murdered because he was trying to free his family or his wife or anything of the sort. It is

stated in Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the life of a slave girl," Harriet fell in love with a freeman.

She had fallen in love with a young carpenter that she had known for years. They would go on to

try and get married, but the slaver of Harriet Jacobs would threaten the freedmen with death if he

stepped foot on his property. Also, the freedmen wanted to buy Harriet, but the slaver was not

trying to make that happen either. The slaver was jealous and did not want their love to happen.

The text tells us that it was law that even though the husband was free, if he married a slave, he

still had no power as to how she was, and the child would still be born into slavery. Harriet

would instruct her husband to travel to a free state, "where his tongue will not be tied," and he

would do so. This was not the end that most freemen saw, as slave masters would find a way to

have the freeman killed or sold back into slavery. There were so many systems in place to put

freed people back into slavery even before slavery became an institution focused on the

enslavement of colored persons.

As we know, when it came to being free, the experience differed based on where you

were located, ie. North or South. In every part of history, the difference in treatment towards

Black people in the North is the polar opposite to how they were treated in the South. To start,

buying or getting your freedom was almost impossible. We see in Harriet's writing that her

grandmother was in pursuit of freedom. The grandmother was free at one point, but her family
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was caught and sold back into slavery. Her slavers treasured her, and she would grow up as a

house slave. The grandmother had a trade in baking and would go on to want her freedom. The

slave owners knew this and supported her and promised her and her children that they would be

free upon their deaths. With all this, the grandmother would trust the mistress with a whopping

$300 which is the equivalent of $9,393.36 today, simply because the mistress begged for it as a

loan and promised to pay it back. The mistress never paid it back, but by law, slaves could not

have possessions, and in the will of the mistress, she gave her entire family to her sister. Slaves

would work so hard and do so much to meet a fate like this, trusting the word or writing of their

slave master. In the end, the slaver would never hold true to their word, and legally they did not

have to. This is what I meant when I said there were multiple systems in place to make sure

people stayed in the institution of slavery.

Freed people in the North were assumed to be better off, and they were, but not as much

as school teaches us. They were discriminated against as much as blacks in the South. History

tells us that the North was partially free. One thing that was consistent was the struggle for

education. Schools were racially segregated, and that was not something that could have been

changed. This would leave a multitude of black children to be taught in old and usually decrepit

churches. The teachers weren’t motivated either because the black schools were not being funded

like the white schools were. There were more systems in the north that contributed to black

oppression then included in the text books and education is a great example

It can be seen across history that being free was not something easy, and it did not

guarantee freedom either. The target on your back followed you as you left the fields, and it

stayed as you navigated through antebellum America. Even being a freed person gave you an

even bigger target since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed and even before that.
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Whether free or not, white America would always try and find a way to put you back in chains,

and it did not change until the American Revolution, and even after that, it stayed true.