Free Black Community Research Articles

Race, Money, Politics and the Antebellum Black Press

When John Russworm and Samuel Cornish launched the first African American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, in 1827, there seemed to be a vast and untapped audience hungering for news by and about the black community. In the first issue they optimistically observed that there were FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND free persons of colour, one half of whom might peruse, and the whole be benefitted by the publication of the Journal.(1) But within a year Russworm had left the paper after the two clashed over the question of black colonization in Africa. Cornish renamed the paper the Rights of All and continued his quest to make it a dominant cultural and political force among free blacks. By 1829, he could not secure enough subscribers or underwriters to keep the paper going, and the first African American newspaper ceased publication.(2)In the decades before the Civil War, sustenance was rare for the nearly forty African American newspapers that quickly appeared, only to quickly disappear. Russworm and Cornish's expectations of the free black community and its ability to support its own periodicals were clearly flawed. Poverty, illiteracy, competing political agendas, and the social effects of racism and discrimination contributed to the creation of an audience that could not support --financially or otherwise--a single vision of one newspaper. African American publications played a vital role in galvanizing the abolitionist movement, encouraging education and racial improvement, and disseminating the news, yet nearly all operated at a loss and most were short lived.(3)Research on the antebellum black press has focused on the editorial content of these newspapers or the individuals who edited and published them. The most recent comprehensive study on the subject repeatedly points to the financial difficulties of these newspapers, but does not dwell on the specific economic, political, and cultural factors that impeded their success.(4) The often celebratory tone of the history of the black press overshadows the extent to which the dissemination of African American ideas and culture was obstructed in nineteenth century America. Research that considers the origins and maintenance of these obstacles can provide a more realistic understanding of the role of race in the evolution of American journalism.This article is an examination of what happened to a little-known black newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, which was published between 1853-1860 in what is now Canada's Ontario province. The Freeman addressed a diverse community in Canada, comprised of fugitive slaves and African American expatriates, as well as abolitionists and missionaries on both sides of the border. It was among only a half-dozen antebellum black-owned newspapers in North America that lasted more than two years, although it eventually folded on the eve of the Civil War.(5)Scholars have noted that few business records exist for nineteenth-century newspapers, and this is particularly true for small and undercapitalized black newspapers like the Freeman.(6) The lack of financial records does not mean that constructing such a history is impossible; rather, it may take some imagination and vigilance to create an economic profile of these papers.(7) The commentary in editorial columns, surviving correspondence, and other documents provide insight into the struggle for survival of the antebellum African American press. The narrative that unfolds in the pages of these papers describes an uphill battle waged by editors and publishers to build a viable subscription base, solicit donations, recruit advertisers, and receive payment for their product.On the surface, at least, it appears that the problems that plagued the Freeman were not unlike those suffered by countless small-town and rural newspapers across the United states and Canada. Yet, when we consider the competing exigencies of the audience, African American newspapers faced additional obstacles. …

Platform for change: the foundations of the northern free black community, 1775-1865

Platform for change: the foundations of the northern free black community, 1775-1865

Drums of Defiance: Maroon Music from the Earliest Free Black Communities of Jamaica

Drums of Defiance: Maroon Music from the Earliest Free Black Communities of Jamaica

Changes for Mrs. Thornton’s Arthur: Patterns of Domestic Service in Washington, DC, 1800–1835

Several hours before dawn on 5 August 1835, a Washington slave slipped into his mistress’s bedroom, axe in hand. Anna Maria Thornton awoke to see a drunken Arthur, her longtime house slave and the son of her trusted cook and maid, Maria, threatening her with, she believed, murder. Luckily for Mrs. Thornton, Maria was in the room and, “being fortunately awake, seized him & got him out” while her mistress sounded the alarm to the neighbors. Shocked and horrified, Mrs. Thornton recorded in her diary the attack and Arthur’s escape, subsequent capture, and criminal indictment (Thornton, Aug.—Oct. 1835). Some of Washington’s less reputable citizens reacted with hate and violence. In the ensuing days, out-of-work white mechanics gathered at the steps of the city hall, looking for a scapegoat for the disorder Arthur represented. On 12 August the mob turned its wrath on the vulnerable free black community. The “Snow Storm,” named for a victim of its destruction, free black Beverly Snow, was Washington’s most infamous riot. The crowd burned Snow’s restaurant, along with several other symbols of free black success (Werner 1986: 243–45; Curry 1981: 99–100).

New Light on Richard Allen: The Early Years of Freedom

ICHARD Allen was one of the most gifted Americans of his generation. At a time when historians have been commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of the Constitution and the accomplishments of the white founding fathers, little attention is paid to this black founding father. Yet his role as a shaper of thought and a builder of institutions was matched by few of his white contemporaries, and what he accomplished was done in the face of obstacles that most of them did not have to overcome. At age twenty, only a few months released from slavery, he was preaching to mostly white audiences and converting many of his hearers to Methodism. At age twenty-seven, he was one of the founders of the Free African Society of Philadelphia, perhaps the first autonomous organization of free blacks in the United States. Before he was thirty-five he had become the spiritual leader of what would grow into Philadelphia's largest congregation-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Over a long lifetime he founded, presided over, or served as officer in a large number of other organizations designed to improve the condition of life and expand the sphere of liberty for Afro-Americans. Never receiving formal education, he became an accomplished and eloquent writer, penning and publishing sermons, tracts, addresses, and remonstrances; compiling a hymnal; and drafting articles of organization and governance for various organizations. He lived past his seventy-first birthday, dying in i83 i, and left a legacy that flourishes today. Almost all that is known about Richard Allen's early years, especially the crucial few years after he obtained his freedom, comes from his autobiographical reflections, narrated to his son Richard Allen, Jr., when the senior Allen was an old man. The memoir was discovered by Daniel A. Payne in a trunk in the possession of Allen's youngest daughter in i850, when Payne began research for the first history of the African MethodistEpiscopal Church.1 In the course of doing research on the formation of the free black community in Philadelphia, I have found documents that add to what is known about Allen's early years of freedom and, at the same time, testify in most particulars to the accuracy of his memory when, late in life,

Life stresses of the free Black community as represented by the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, 1823–1841

The congregation of the Reverend Henry Simmons (First African Baptist Church at 8th & Vine, Philadelphia) from 1823 to 1841 used a cemetery rediscovered through subway expansion which was carefully excavated by M. Parrington and S. Pinter in 1983-1984; currently 75 adults were available for study. As an overall health indicator, longevity at 38.9 years (N = 39) female and 44.8 (N = 36) male indicates more stress on females. Probable causes of stress are inadequate nutrition for the performance of arduous labor, pregnancy, and childrearing, unsanitary living conditions, limited exposure to sun, and extensive exposure to infectious diseases. Nutritional indicators of stature, dental lesions, skull base height, and pelvic brim index scarcely advance over 1790-1820 Catoctin Furnace, Maryland, slaves' indicators. Disease evidence includes limb-distorting rickets in one child who died at age 8, anemia, and arthritis; but the incidence of arthritis was less than at Catoctin. Genetic traits are chiefly African. Family links show in details: os acromiale in about 30%. This plus less violence (fewer fractures) suggests community strength developing.

Abraham Lincoln Illustrated Envelopes and Letter Paper, 1860-1865 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS287 did. Again and again they point out that in the final analysis the Ellison empire rested on the willingness of whites to tolerate it. That toleration was not automatic. Johnson and Roark make an important contribution with their account of the reenslavement crisis of 1859 and 1860. Historians have previously known about legislative debates and statutes, but with the Ellison letters Johnson and Roark show the impact speeches and laws made on the free black community. These upperclass free people of color were increasingly apprehensive, and with good reason. The forces urging that all blacks be enslaved or deported were gaining strength. By the end of 1860 the future looked ominous, but then came the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which changed everything. I would be remiss to close this review with no comment on the research done by Johnson and Roark. In my view this book represents historical investigation at its best. Beginning with the corpus of Ellison family letters , these two historians plunged into city, county, and state records and newspapers, and manuscripts of neighboring whites. Imaginative and ingenious research produced this book. Finally just a brief comment on No Chariot Let Down, which contains the thirty-four letters that started Johnson and Roark on their remarkable journey. Located since 1979 at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, these letters permit historians to look at the free mulatto elite through its own eyes. Written chiefly in 1859 and 1860 by members of the Ellison family in Charleston and Stateburg, these letters provide a concreteness that brings alive this extraordinary family. I congratulate Johnson and Roark; they have done remarkable and significant work. William J. Cooper, Jr. Louisiana State University Abraham Lincoln Illustrated Envelopes and Letter Paper, 1860-1865. By James W. Milgram. (Northbrook, 111.: Northbrook Publishing Company , 1984. Pp. 272. $19.95.) Envelopes decorated with political and patriotic motifs have been printed in the United States since the 1850s, but their peak period in popularity and aesthetics alike coincided with Abraham Lincoln's five-year stint in the national spotlight. According to a standard philatelic reference work, the number of known varieties of patriotic covers produced North and South from 1860 through 1865 exceeds eleven thousand. Their designs range from tiny upper-left symbols or sentiments to elaborate, sprawling vignettes that barely leave room for name, address, and stamp. Illustrated letter paper was also in vogue during this period, often providing the greater potential of a larger design space. Most Civil War designs 288CIVIL WAR HISTORY convey the solemn demeanor of a nation in the throes of self-destruction, but others—the many cartoon and caricature covers in particular—bear witness to a rich, often ribald sense of humor that survived the worst of our national crises. Along with other types of material culture from the period, these covers comprise a truly significant scholarly resource ignored almost altogether by historians. As candidate, wartime president, commander-in-chief, and finally as martyr/icon, Abraham Lincoln appeared on many of the cover and letter paper designs printed from his nomination as the 1860 Republican standard-bearer through the 1865 summer of shock and anguish that followed his assassination. Nearly four hundred varieties of Lincoln covers are catalogued in this handsome and useful volume, the vast majority of them reproduced at actual size in uniformly crisp illustrations. Also included is a truly eclectic array of other Lincoln graphic material and related covers promoting other presidential candidates, military notables, and the Union war effort. A final chapter, rather inappropriately titled "Lincoln Mementos," provides the texts of some of the more interesting letters sent inside Lincoln covers, along with such ephemera as assassination headlines, examples of plain envelopes addressed to Lincoln, and a handbill offering a thirty-thousand-dollar reward for the assassin John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln Illustrated Envelopes and Letter Paper is the handiwork of a prominent collector and physician, not a scholar, and the results are often apparent. Organizational discipline is haphazard throughout and disappears altogether in the final chapters. An introductory essay creating a cultural context for the Lincoln covers and exploring their use and thematic significance would have added much to the volume; Michel...

Free Negroes in the District of Columbia: 1790-1846 (review)

82CIVIL WAR HISTORY at Charleston intrigued this reviewer, and his chronicles of the cruises of Ahbama and the ironclads at Charleston are excellent. A similar accolade can be applied to the chapter describing the battle between Monitor and Virginia. Many of the other chapters, especially the ones relating to the war on inland waters, are pedestrian. Only a few of the many sources covering these operations were consulted, and accordingly these chapters are devoid of new information and interpretations. Mr. Nash has made a strong case for the decisive role played by the Union Navy, and with this contention your reviewer is in agreement. The book is indexed and well illustrated with a number of woodcuts , photographs, and plans. The maps reproduced from Battles and Leaders and the Official Records Atlas are too greatly reduced to be useful . In the future, it is hoped that publishers will either reproduce maps of this type at a legible scale or eliminate them. A number of typographical errors were also noted. Edwin C. Bearss National Park Service Free Negroes in the District of Columbia? 1790-1846. By Letitia Woods Brown. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Pp. 226. $7.95.) Among the urban centers in the antebellum South, Washington was unique; civic authority was vested in the federal government. The District of Columbia, initially created out of territorial grants by Maryland and Virginia—only to have the Virginia section later retroceded in 1846—came into existence at a most propitious time for the future of the slave and free black community of Washington. Both states, prior to Gabriel Prosser's revolt, had liberal slave codes which not only permitted manumission but continued residence as well. Blacks also had recourse to the courts as legal persons in initiating suits to "recover freedom." These liberal provisions were carried over into use in the new capital, where blacks were to become the beneficiaries of "better racial practices of the federal government." Other factors were also fortuitous for blacks in the move of the capital to the banks of the Potomac. The developing economy of the area offered employment opportunities, while the ideological climate in the formative period made for a "social structure with a certain fluid quality perhaps peculiar to that time and place." The scattered nature of the settlements in the District also allowed escapees to find freedom and relative security against capture. Professor Brown very ably presents a survey of slavery and its legal intricacies in both Maryland and Virginia as a background for developments in the District of Columbia. Her study of the free black community is chiefly concerned with its origins: descent from free white women; manumission by will, deed, and elsewhere; and freedom by virtue of a master's violation of the law against importing slaves into the District. In this, Free Negroes in the District of Columbia makes a BOOK REVIEWS83 good companion volume to Constance McLaughlin Green's The Secret City. Yet, in terms of its title and its appearance in the Urban Life in America Series, edited by Richard C. Wade, it is a monograph of limited value, for unfortunately the rich social, economic, and cultural life of the freeman is largely neglected. Richard R. Duncan Georgetown University A Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African SZace Trade. By Ronald T. Takaki (New York: Free Press, 1971. Pp. x, 276. $7.95.) This interesting volume is the first book on the southern effort to reopen the African slave trade in the 1850's. Professor Takaki traces the effort from Leónidas W. Spratt's call for the reopening in 1853 to Spratt's anguished cry for still another "revolution" after the Confederate Constitution outlawed the trade. Contrary to the usual view that reopening was the work of a few ineffective extremists, Takaki contends that the movement was relatively widespread, and resulted from an internal crisis in the South, a crisis based in part on the recognition that southerners themselves doubted the morality of slavery. The reopening agitation, Takaki claims, was a revolution by young men who were revealing their concern with southern guilt over the slavery question, concern with gaining enough population to compete economically and...