fre d e ric k dou gla s s’ p ap er
son Marvis’s short boxing career. In 1980 Frazier was dience. Despite financial difficulties and criticism from
elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame. white reformers and black leaders, Douglass succeeded in
Frazier published Smokin’ Joe: The Autobiography of making his weekly publication the most influential black
a Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, newspaper of the antebellum period.
in 1996.
See also Abolition; Delany, Martin R.; Douglass, Freder-
See also Ali, Muhammad; Boxing; Foreman, George; Rob- ick; Nell, William Cooper; North Star; Smith, James Mc-
inson, Sugar Ray Cune
■ ■ B ib lio gr a phy
■ ■ Bibl iography Ripley, C. Peter, et al., eds. The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol-
Ashe, Arthur R., Jr. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the Afri- ume 3: The United States, 1830–1846. Chapel Hill: University
can-American Athlete Since 1946. New York: Warner, 1988. of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Frazier, Joe, and Phil Berger. Smokin’ Joe: The Autobiography of Ripley, C. Peter, et al., eds. The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol-
a Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin’ Joe Frazier. ume 4: The United States, 1847–1859. Chapel Hill: University
New York: Macmillan, 1996. of North Carolina Press, 1991.
greg robinson (1996) michael f. hembree (1996)
Updated by publisher 2005 Updated by publisher 2005
Frederick Douglass’ Free Blacks,
Paper ❚ ❚ ❚
1619–1860
❚ ❚ ❚
In 1860 some half a million free people of African descent
The abolitionist newspaper Frederick Douglass’ Paper was resided in the United States. Known alternately as free Ne-
founded in December 1847 in Rochester, New York by groes, free blacks, free people of color, or simply freepeo-
Frederick Douglass as the North Star. Douglass renamed ple (to distinguish them from post–Civil War freedpeo-
the paper when it merged with the Liberty Party Paper of ple), they composed less than 2 percent of the nation’s
Syracuse, New York, in June 1851. During its thirteen-year population and about 9 percent of all black people. Al-
history, several black intellectuals collaborated on it with though the free black population grew in the centuries be-
Douglass, including Martin R. Delany, William C. Nell, fore the universal emancipation that accompanied the
William J. Watkins, and James McCune Smith. Douglass Civil War, it generally increased far more slowly than ei-
also received assistance from a British abolitionist, Julia ther the white or the slave population, so that it was a
Griffiths, who helped him hone his writing skills and, as shrinking proportion of American society.
the paper’s business manager, organized fund-raising fairs But free blacks were important far beyond their num-
and lecture tours in England and the United States. The bers. They played a pivotal role in American society during
success of Douglass’s newspaper can be attributed in large slave times and set precedents for both race relations and
part to an elaborate network of support. Contributions relations among black people when slavery ended. Their
from British abolitionists encouraged Douglass to start the status and treatment were harbingers of the postemanci-
paper in 1847. Later, women’s auxiliaries in several cities pation world. Often the laws, attitudes, and institutions
organized antislavery fairs and bazaars on his behalf. that victimized free blacks during the slave years—
Douglass recognized the symbolic as well as practical political proscription, segregation, and various forms of
value of a viable black press in the struggle against slavery. debt peonage—became the dominant modes of racial op-
He gave the paper his own name to emphasize to a skepti- pression once slavery ended. Similarly, their years of liber-
cal public that a former slave could master the editor’s ty profoundly influenced the pattern of postemancipation
craft. His paper followed the eclectic approach of the ante- black life. Free people of African descent moved in dispro-
bellum reform press, but it was first and foremost an anti- portionate numbers into positions of leadership in black
slavery organ, and it carried the bold imprint of one man’s society after emancipation. For example, nearly half of the
thought. Douglass directed his message beyond the black twenty-two black men who served in Congress between
community to the broader Anglo-American reformist au- 1869 and 1900 had been free before the Civil War.
872 Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
second edition
fr ee blacks, 1 6 1 9–1 86 0
origins. Like Maryland whites, about half of these free
black people were under sixteen years old, and, of these,
almost nine in ten were of mixed racial origins. Few black
people of unmixed racial parentage enjoyed freedom in
colonial Maryland; the free black population was not only
light skinned but also getting lighter. Unlike slaveholders
in the Caribbean and South America, Maryland slave own-
ers emancipated their sons as well as their daughters with
equal—if not greater—facility. The sex ratio, following
that of slaves, generally favored males. In addition, about
one-sixth of adult free blacks were crippled or elderly per-
sons deemed “past labor,” whom heartless slaveholders
had discarded when they could no longer wring a profit
from them. In all, free black people composed 4 percent
of the colony’s black population and less than 2 percent
of its free population. Almost a century after slavery had
been written into law, the vast majority of Maryland black
people remained locked in bonded servitude. The routes
to freedom were narrow and dismal.
Fragmentary evidence from elsewhere on the North
American continent suggests that free black people were
rarely a larger proportion of the population than in Mary-
Scene depicting the daily activity of free blacks in Brazil. From
Debret, Jean Baptiste. Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil, ou land. In most places they made up a considerably smaller
Sejour d’un artiste francais au Bresil, depuis 1816 jusqu’en 1831 share of the whole, and in some places they were almost
inclusivement, epoques de l’avenement et de l’abdication de S. M. D. nonexistent.
Pedro 1er, fondateur de l’Empire bresilien. Dedie a l’Academie des
Beaux-Arts de l’Institut de France. Published 1834–1839. art and Although their numbers were universally small, the
artifacts division, schomburg center for research status of free people of African descent differed from place
in black culture, the new york public library, to place in colonial North America. In Spanish Florida and
astor, lenox and tilden foundations.
in French and (after 1763) Spanish Louisiana, black people
generally gained their freedom as soldiers and slave catch-
Although free blacks have been described as more ers in defense of colonies vulnerable to foreign invasion
black than free, they were not a monolithic group. Their and domestic insurrection. Playing off the weakness of Eu-
numbers, status, and circumstances changed from time to ropean colonists, free African and Afro-American men
time and differed from place to place, in some measure gained special standing by taming interlopers, disciplining
based on their origins, their social role, and relations with plantation slaves, and capturing runaways. However
the dominant Euro-American population, on the one grossly discriminated against they were, service in the
hand, and the enslaved African-American population, on white man’s cause enabled some free black men to inch
the other. up the social ladder, taking their families with them.
Spanish authorities first employed black men, many
The Colonial Era of them runaways from English colonies, in defense of St.
Augustine in the late seventeenth century. Eager to keep
Before the American Revolution, few free blacks could be the English enemy at bay, Spanish officials instructed the
found in colonial North America. The overwhelming ma- fugitives in the Catholic faith, allowed them to be baptized
jority of these were light-skinned children of mixed racial and married within the Church, and then sent them
unions, freed by birth if their mother was white, as colo- against their former enslavers in raids on the English set-
nial law generally provided that a child’s status followed tlements at Port Royal and Edisto. Black militiamen later
that of its mother. Others were manumitted (i.e., freed) fought against the English in the Yamassee War and pro-
by conscience-stricken white fathers. A 1775 Maryland tected Spanish Florida against retaliatory raids. During the
census, the fullest colonial enumeration of free blacks, eighteenth century, Spanish officials stationed black mili-
counted slightly more than 1,800 free people of African tiamen and their families at Gracia Reál de Santa Terésa
descent, 80 percent of whom were people of mixed racial de Mosé, a fortified settlement north of St. Augustine.
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
873
second edition
f r e e b la c k s, 1 61 9– 1 8 60
Mosé became the center of free black life in colonial Flori- cure the freedom of their families and a modest place in
da until its destruction in 1740. Thereafter, free blacks societies that were otherwise hostile to free people of Afri-
were more fully integrated into Spanish life in St. Augus- can descent. From their strategic position they entered the
tine. They married among themselves, with Native Ameri- artisan trades, frequently controlling many of the intersti-
cans, and with African and Afro-American slaves; worked tial positions as shopkeepers, tradesmen, and market
as craftsmen, sailors, and laborers; purchased property; women—occasionally even as plantation overseers and
and enjoyed a degree of prosperity and respectability. The midwives.
free black settlement at Mosé was rebuilt in the 1750s, and In English seaboard colonies white nonslaveholders
it once again became a center of free black life in colonial served as soldiers and slave catchers and monopolized the
Florida until the Spanish evacuated the colony in 1763. middling occupations as artisans, tradesmen, and over-
French authorities in Louisiana first enlisted black seers. Free blacks, as a result, were confined to the most
soldiers in quelling an Afro-Indian revolt in 1730. There- marginal social roles. They had few opportunities to ad-
after, officials incorporated black men into Louisiana’s de- vance themselves, accumulate property, gain respectabili-
fense force and called upon them whenever Indian con- ty, and buy their loved ones out of bondage. Their status
federations, European colonial rivals, or slave fell far below that enjoyed by free blacks in the Gulf region.
insurrectionists jeopardized the safety of the colony. On
each such occasion—whether the Chickasaw war of the The Antebellum Period
1730s, the Choctaw war of the 1740s, or the threatened
The American Revolution transformed the free black pop-
English invasion of the 1750s—French officials mobilized
ulation. But because the Revolution took a different
black men, free and slave, with slaves offered freedom in
course in different places and because of differences within
exchange for military service. By 1739 at least 270 black
the extant slave and free black populations, the reforma-
men were under arms in Louisiana, of whom some 50
tion of black life moved in different directions in different
were free.
parts of the new republic. Post-Revolutionary free black
The black militia played an even larger role in Spanish life can best be understood from a regional perspective.
Louisiana than it had under the French. Spain gained con- During the antebellum years, there were three distinctive
trol of the colony in 1763 as part of the settlement of the groups of free blacks in the United States: one in the
Seven Years’ War. Finding themselves surrounded by hos- northern or free states, a second in the upper South, and
tile French planters, Spanish authorities embraced free a third in the lower South. Each had its own demographic,
people of African descent as an ally against internal as well economic, social, and somatic characteristics. These differ-
as external foes. They recommissioned the Louisiana free ences, in turn, bred different relations with whites and
black militia, adopting the division between pardo (light- slaves and, most important, distinctive modes of social ac-
skinned) and moreno (dark-skinned) units present else- tion.
where in Spanish America. Officials clad the free black mi-
First, the Revolution transformed the North from a
litiamen in striking uniforms and granted them fuero mili-
slave to a free society, greatly enlarging its free black popu-
tar rights, thereby exempting the black militiamen from
lation. But slavery died hard in the northern states, and
civil prosecution, certain taxes, and licensing fees—no
the gradualist process by which northern courts and legis-
mean privileges for free black men in a slave society.
latures abolished slavery left some black people in bondage
The free black militia thrived under the Spanish rule, until the eve of the Civil War. Still, post-Revolutionary
becoming an integral part of the colony’s defense force. emancipation ensured that eventually all northern blacks
When not fighting foreign enemies, free black militiamen would be free, and by the first decade of the nineteenth
were employed to maintain the levees that protected New century the vast majority had emerged from slavery. To
Orleans and the great riverfront plantations, to fight fires their number were added immigrants from the South,
in the city limits, and to hunt fugitive slaves. As the value most of them fugitive slaves. In 1860 about a quarter of
of the free black militia to Spain increased, so did the size a million blacks, slightly less than half of the nation’s free
and status of the class from which the militia sprang. In blacks, lived in the free states.
1803, when the Americans took control over Louisiana, But universal emancipation in the North did not
the free black militia numbered over five hundred men. transform the economic status or social standing of black
The central role of free black men in defense of colo- people—except perhaps for the worse. Before the Revolu-
nial Florida and Louisiana allowed them to enlarge their tion, northern slaves had been disproportionately urban
numbers and improve their place within those colonies. in residence, black in color, and unskilled in occupation.
Black militiamen employed their pay and bounties to se- Free blacks followed that pattern, becoming in fact more
874 Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
second edition
fr ee blacks, 1 6 1 9–1 86 0
Methodist Episcopal Zion denominations and the Prince
Hall Masons, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, and
the Knights of Pythias were among the largest of these, ex-
tending their reach to all portions of the North. Every
black community also supported a host of locally based in-
stitutions and organizations. Members of these institu-
tions, national and local, joined together to hold regional
and national conventions that protested discrimination
and worked for group improvement. From Richard Allen
to Frederick Douglass, the black leaders forged a tradition
of protests that demanded full equality.
As in the North, the free black population in the
upper South was largely a product of the American Revo-
lution. But in this region, the ideas and events—along with
the economic changes—of the Revolutionary era merely
loosened the fabric of slavery by increasing manumission,
self-purchase, and successful suits for freedom. Slavery
survived the challenge of the Revolutionary years, and in-
deed flourished. Nevertheless, the free black population
grew rapidly, so that by 1810 the upper South contained
nearly 100,000 free blacks, who composed about 8 percent
of the black population in the region and almost 60 per-
cent of all free people of African descent. Thereafter, the
tightening noose of slavery slowed the growth of the free
black population, and the proportion of free black people
residing in the region declined.
The free black population in the upper South was the
Cover page of the summary report for the “First Annual product of two patterns of manumission. The first and
Convention of the People of Colour,” 1831. Convened in
Philadelphia at the Wesleyan Church on Lombard Street, the most important occurred on a large scale; it was indis-
convention was held to organize African-American opposition to criminate and rooted in ideological and economic changes
slavery, discrimination in the free states, and the colonization of the Revolutionary era. The second, smaller and more
movement. manuscripts, archives and rare books selective, originated in personal relations between master
division, schomburg center for research in black
culture, the new york public library, astor, lenox and slave. The first wave of manumissions produced a
and tilden foundations. population that, like the slave population, was largely rural
and black in color. To the extent, however, that post-
Revolutionary emancipation was selective—with masters
urban and unskilled during the antebellum years, as they
choosing whom they would free—it produced a free black
increasingly migrated to cities and found themselves
population that was more skilled and lighter in color than
pushed out of artisan trades by European immigrants. that of the North. In the course of the nineteenth century,
Nevertheless, post-Revolutionary emancipation al- manumission became even more selective, so that freepeo-
lowed black people certain rights. Because the abolition of ple of the upper South became increasingly skilled in occu-
slavery freed northern whites from the fear of slave revolts, pation, urban in residence, and light in skin color. The ab-
they did not look upon every gathering of black people as sence of large-scale European immigration to the slave
the beginning of a revolution. They limited the political states and a long-standing reliance on black labor allowed
rights of free blacks, but they allowed them to travel freely, upper South free blacks to enjoy a higher economic stand-
organize their own institutions, publish newspapers, and ing than those in the free states. In 1860, a quarter to a
petition and protest. Black men and women transformed third of free black men practiced skilled trades in Nash-
these liberties into a powerful associational and political ville, Richmond, and other upper South cities.
tradition. African churches, schools, fraternal organiza- But if the presence of slavery helped elevate their eco-
tions, and literary societies flourished in the northern nomic status, it severely limited the freepeople’s opportu-
states. The African Methodist Episcopal and African nities for political or communal activism, for southern
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
875
second edition
f r e e d m a n’ s b an k
whites looked upon free black people as the chief inspira- traveled and highly educated, as much at home in Paris
tion and instigators of slave unrest. White southerners not and Glasgow as in New Orleans and Charleston, they
only prevented free black people from voting, sitting on dared not attack slavery or racial inequality publicly. Many
juries, and testifying in court but also barred them from feared to identify with slaves in any fashion. Rather, they
traveling without permission and meeting without the su- saw themselves—and increasingly came to be seen by
pervision of some white notable. These constraints cir- whites—as a third caste, distinct from both free whites and
cumscribed political and organizational opportunities. No enslaved blacks.
black newspapers were published and no black conven- With the general emancipation of 1863, free people
tions met in the South. There were no southern counter- of African descent carried their diverse histories into free-
parts of Allen or Douglass. Black churches, schools, and dom. Although Civil War emancipation liquidated their
fraternal societies were fragile organizations, often forced special status, their collective experience continued to
to meet clandestinely. With limited opportunities for po- shape American race relations and Afro-American life.
litical outlets, free black men and women poured their en-
ergies into economic opportunities, and, as tradesmen and See also Antebellum Convention Movement; Coartación;
artisans, made considerable gains. Emancipation; Fraternal Orders; Freeman, Elizabeth
(Mum Bett, Mumbet); Manumission Societies; Migra-
This tendency toward economic advancement at the
tion; Mutual Aid Societies
expense of political activism was present in an even more
exaggerated form in the lower South, particularly the port
cities of Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans. These
■ ■ B ib lio gr a phy
places were largely untouched by the egalitarian thrust of
Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Ante-
the Revolutionary era. Moreover, when the United States bellum South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974.
gained control of Louisiana and Florida, American offi- Breen, T. H., and Stephen Innes. “Myne Owne Ground”: Race
cials decommissioned and dispersed the free black mili- and Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, 1640–1676. New
tias, and slaveholder-dominated legislatures subjected the York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
existing free black population to considerable restrictions. Curry, Leonard P. The Free Black in Urban America, 1800–1865:
The free black population increased slowly in the nine- The Shadow of the Dream. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987.
teenth century, its growth the product of natural increase
Deal, Douglas. “A Constricted World: Free Blacks on Virginia’s
and sexual relations between masters and slaves. Almost Eastern Shore, 1680–1750.” In Colonial Chesapeake Society,
all free blacks were drawn from the small group of privi- edited by Lois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B.
leged slaves who had lived in close contact with their own- Russo, pp. 275–305. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North
ers, connections that often bespoke family ties. As a result, Carolina Press, 1988.
former slaves were overwhelmingly urban and light Foner, Laura. “The Free People of Color in Louisiana and St.
Dominque: A Comparative Portrait of Two Three-Caste So-
skinned, a quality that earned them the title “free people cieties.” Journal of Social History 3 (1970): 406–430.
of color,” or in New Orleans gens de couleur. Although Gaspar, David Barry, and Darlene Clark Hine, eds. Beyond
comparatively few in number, most were far more skilled Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas. Urbana: Uni-
than free blacks in the upper South. In some places, such versity of Illinois Press, 2004.
as Charleston and New Orleans, over three-quarters of the Johnson, Michael P., and James L. Roark. Blacks Masters: A Free
free men of color practiced skilled crafts, and they monop- Family of Color in the Old South. New York: Norton, 1984.
olized some trades on the eve of the Civil War. A handful Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States,
1790–1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
of wealthy free people of color even purchased slaves and
Sterkx, Herbert. The Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana,
moved into the planter class. 1724–1860. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University
As in the upper South, the presence of slavery in the Press, 1972.
lower South prevented free people of color from translat- ira berlin (1996)
ing their higher economic standing into social and politi- Updated bibliography
cal gains. Denied suffrage and proscribed from office, they
found a political voice only by acting through white pa-
trons—their manumittors, their customers, and occasion-
ally their fathers. Their own organizations remained pri-
❚ ❚ ❚
Freedman’s Bank
vate, exclusive, and often shadowy, especially in
comparison to the robust public institutions created by The short history of the Freedman’s Bank, officially titled
free black people in the North. Although some were well the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, exemplifies
876 Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
second edition
