HIST 339 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Our Nig, Prudence Crandall, Indentured Servant
Document Summary
Free blacks occupied a very precarious and ambiguous position--be they in the north or the. South; black skin in the us is equated with slavery, so they are automatically in a strange space where people are likely to assume them to be one thing. In some places free blacks can vote, in others not; varies by location. In 1799 there were 59,557 free blacks in the us; by the time of the civil war, the number was closer to 500,000 (by 1860) Free black population was concentrated in the upper south and the mid-atlantic states. After the american revolution, states in the north passed gradual emancipation laws. Free blacks could purchase the freedom of other blacks; free blacks would have children. In 1850 in the south, the mixed race population constituted 37% of the free black population but only 8% of the free black population; women outnumbered men (male laborers were generally more costly than women)
