In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860

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Oxford University Press, 1998 M04 30 - 352 páginas
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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Contenido

1 Slavery and Slave Trading in the Colonial North
3
2 Culture Race and Class in the Colonial North
30
3 Revolution and the Abolition of Northern Slavery
55
The Evolution of Family and Household
77
Poverty Work and Regional Differences
101
Building Institutions for Social and Spiritual Welfare
125
7 Culture Politics and the Issue of AfricanAmerican Identity
155
Colonization and the Question of Emigration
177
9 The Growth of the Antebellum Antislavery Movement
203
10 The Widening Struggle Growing Militancy and the Hope of Liberty for All
237
Epilogue
269
Notes
271
Index
325
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Página 320 - An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters...
Página 212 - I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.
Página 125 - Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.
Página xi - Alas! and am I born for this, To wear this slavish chain? Deprived of all created bliss, Through hardship, toil and pain! How long have I in bondage lain, And languished to be free! Alas! and must I still complain— Deprived of liberty. Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief This side the silent grave— To soothe the pain— to quell the grief And anguish of a slave? Come, Liberty, thou cheerful sound, Roll through my ravished ears! Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, And drive away my fears.
Página 71 - Therefore, no male person, born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law to serve any person, as a servant, slave, or apprentice...
Página 57 - April, 1775, was the day of founding the Pennsylvania society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and for improving the condition of the African race.
Página 200 - Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites— we have enriched it with our blood and tears.
Página 200 - We are NATIVES of this country; we ask only to be treated as well as FOREIGNERS. Not a few of our fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence ; we ask only to be treated as well as those %vho fought against it.
Página 185 - Through a mistaken policy, you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer shall exist. As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessings.
Página 58 - His violent prejudice against our West Indian and American settlers appeared whenever there was an opportunity. Towards the conclusion of his " Taxation no Tyranny," he says, " how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

Acerca del autor (1998)

James Oliver Horton is the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at the George Washington University, directs the African-American Communities Project at the Smithsonian Institution, and is the author of Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community. Lois E. Horton is Professor of Sociology and American Studies at George Mason University and the co-author of Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggles in the Antebellum North.

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