Julie Winch - Between Slavery and Freedom: Free People of Color in America From Settlement to the Civil War

Between Slavery and Freedom

The African American History Series

Series Editors:

Jacqueline M. Moore, Austin College

Nina Mjagkij, Ball State University

Traditionally, history books tend to fall into two categories: books academics write for each other, and books written for popular audiences. Historians often claim that many of the popular authors do not have the proper training to interpret and evaluate the historical evidence. Yet, popular audiences complain that most historical monographs are inaccessible because they are too narrow in scope or lack an engaging style. This series, which will take both chronological and thematic approaches to topics and individuals crucial to an understanding of the African American experience, is an attempt to address that problem. The books in this series, written in lively prose by established scholars, are aimed primarily at nonspecialists. They focus on topics in African American history that have broad significance and place them in their historical context. While presenting sophisticated interpretations based on primary sources and the latest scholarship, the authors tell their stories in a succinct manner, avoiding jargon and obscure language. They include selected documents that allow readers to judge the evidence for themselves and to evaluate the authors conclusions. Bridging the gap between popular and academic history, these books bring the African American story to life.

Volumes Published

Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift

Jacqueline M. Moore

Slavery in Colonial America, 1619 1776

Betty Wood

African Americans in the Jazz Age: A Decade of Struggle and Promise

Mark Robert Schneider

A. Philip Randolph: A Life in the Vanguard

Andrew E. Kersten

The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms

James Westheider

Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer

Jerald Podair

African Americans Confront Lynching: Strategies of Resistance

Christopher Waldrep

Lift Every Voice: The History of African-American Music

Burton W. Peretti

To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression

Cheryl Lynn Greenberg

The African American Experience During World War II

Neil A. Wynn

Through the Storm, Through the Night: A History of African American Christianity

Paul Harvey

Between Slavery and Freedom

Free People of Color in America From Settlement to t he Civil Wa r

Julie Winch

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Distributed by National Book Network

Copyright 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winch, Julie, 1953

Between slavery and freedom : free people of color in America from settlement to the Civil War / Julie Winch.

pages cm. (The African American history series)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-7425-5114-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7425-5115-2 (electronic)

1. Free African AmericansHistory. 2. Free African AmericansSocial conditions. 3. Free African AmericansAttitudesHistory. 4. United StatesRace relationsHistory. I. Title.

E185.18.W57 2014

973.0496073dc23 2013045609

tm The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Ma teria ls, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

In memory of Janet Harrison Shannon

A great friend and a ready listener

Contents

I cannot begin my list of people to thank without acknowledging Jacqueline Moore and Nina Mjagkij, the tireless and energetic editors of Rowman & Littlefields African American History series. Jackie and Nina suggested the topic for Between Slavery and Freedom and guided me through the process of writing it. They encouraged me every step of the way. When other projects sidetracked me, they understood, but they kept me focused. They took my early efforts, labored over them with an admirable mix of tact and skill, and helped me reshape a series of long and unwieldy drafts into a shorter, tighter narrative. Without their efforts this book would never have seen the light of day.

Jackie and Nina have been wonderful editors, and my acknowledgments fall far short of the debt of gratitude I owe them. Rowman & Littlefields senior executive editor, Jonathan Sisk, and assistant editor, Benjamin Verdi, have fielded innumerable questions about everything from page length to file downloads and have done so with unfailing patience. I am grateful to them for their guidance and their forbearance.

I have incurred many other debts of gratitude. The students in my graduate and undergraduate classes at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB) have shared this journey with me. They have heard about the book project for several years. They have read document selections, chapter outlines, and in some instances, entire chapters. They have offered advice and constructive criticism. Above all, they have posed challenging questions that often made me stop and think. UMB students are perennially inquisitive, and that is what has made teaching at UMB such a joy over the years. What starts out as This may be a stupid question, but never is. I offer my heartfelt thanks to all of my students, even those who eventually decided to major in something other than history.

My husband, Louis S. Cohen, has helped in so many ways. He has l istene d and he has sympathized. He has provided tech support and has done battle with my computer on numerous occasions. He has kept the household together and he has given me the time I needed to read, to write, and to reflect. I have dedicated other books to Lou, and I know he does not begrudge the fact that this book is dedicated not to him but to the memory of our mutual friend, Janet Harrison Shannon. Her insightfulness, her enthusiasm, her good humor, and her graciousness are greatly missed but fondly remembered.

On the eve of the Civil War, the nations free black population stood at almost half a million, compared to just under four million slaves. About half of the free people lived in the Northern and Western states that had outlawed slavery, and half in the South where slavery was still legal. But while these numbers are obviously important, they tell only a small part of the story. Census takers missed many rural communities and chose not to enter some poor urban neighborhoods. The census does not tell us how many black people kept out of sight when a white stranger started asking intrusive questions. We do not know how often people who were passing as free lied about their status because they were still technically enslaved, or in how many instances light-skinned colored persons ended up in the whites column on the census form. Above all, the census cannot tell us how individual free men and women of color lived their lives. One truth that does emerge with undeniable clarity, though, from even a cursory glance at the data, is that freedom was something less than true freedom for black people. Approximately half a million African Americans were not slaves in 1860, but they were not free as whites understood the term. They constituted a segment of American society that defied easy categorization: they were free but at the same time they were not free. Theirs was a marginal status somewhere between slave and citizen.