How Free were Free Blacks In the North

How free were the Free Blacks in the North?

By Austin Witthun

How free were free blacks in the north? Many people believe that they were always treated equally to the white people. That they were give equal opportunities for jobs and freedoms similar to jobs. According to the information in the DBQ pages, this may not have been the case. In this essay I will answer to the best of my ability the question; how free were free blacks in the north?

One thing that was not equal between the whites and blacks is voting and jury duty. Only 5 states (Doc A.) let Blacks vote in their courts and the rest did not although some states had certain restrictions, only 5 were a definite yes. Only one state let the blacks on jury duty and, that wasn’t even until 1860 in Massachusetts (Doc A.).

As it is stated in the previous paragraph, some states had free blacks and some didn’t. The chart on document A shows that the amount of states that have less freedoms than blacks are more than double. It’s even more that that if you are looking at the male jury duty section.

Most blacks were not allowed in most courts, as said previously, and they were also not allowed in almost all of the same places like work places and stores as white people. Segregation is the word for this and this point is made clear in document B when it says “… but we shall not associate with him.” meaning that they (the white people) didn’t want anything to do with the black people. It also begins to list numerous things that the blacks were not allowed to do. For example, dining, going to the theater, representing in legislature, going to church and marrying their daughters was always to be segregated. As it says in document C, the author says things like: “No one will employ me; white boys won’t work with me…” saying that the segregation makes it hard for them to get a job.

With all of these points in mind, I conclude that the so called free blacks in the northern states weren’t as free as everyone (including myself before I researched the things that I did) thought they were. The main points of this argument being the Free states vs. non Free states, the voting/jury duty abilities of blacks in the northern states and, my biggest point being segregation, prove my conclusion that they weren’t that free.

Sites:

DBQ resources:

Leon litwack, north of slavery, university of Chicago, 1961

Charles MacKay, life and liberty of America: or sketches of a tour in the United States and Canada, London, 1859

Found in Charles Andrews, the History of the New York free-schools, mahlon day, new York, 1830

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States