Slavery and Freedom in the Age of RevolutionThe Making of a White Mans Country

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Slavery and Freedom in the Age of Revolution/The
Making of a White Mans Country

• AAS-HIUS 365Monday, Oct. 12, 2004

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Lecture Outline

• Constructing Race, Gender, and Citizenship in the
  17th and 18th Centuries
  
• Manumission and Emancipation The Regional Growth
  of the Free Black Caste
  
• Making a White Mans Country Immigration,
  Naturalization, Colonization and Emigration

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1.Constructing Race, Gender, and Citizenship in
18th CenturyAmerica
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Relevant Laws

• Defining tithable persons
• Defining the rights and duties of citizens

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Defining Tithables

• A series of colonial Virginia laws taxed Indian
  and Negro women, both free and enslaved, while
  exempting English women.
  

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• Historian Kathleen Brown argues that Virginia tax
  law constructed race, gender, and citizenship by
  defining black women as tithable and white
  women as not.

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• Kathleen Brown on the significance of these
  laws
  
• Virginia lawmakers began in 1643 to define the
  social meaning of racial difference by reserving
  the privileges of womanhood for the masters and
  husbands of English women. In a colony where
  many English women worked regularly in tobacco
  fields, creating a legal identity that would
  distinguish them from enslaved women was crucial
  to maintaining traditional English family roles.

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Cultivating Tobacco in Virginia, 1798.
(Sketched from life near Fredericksburg)
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Defining Negro Women as Tithables

• 1643 Ministers allowances are enacted and
  confirmed to be ten pounds of tobacco per poll,
  and a bushel of corn per poll, for all tithable
  persons, that is to say, as well for youths of
  sixteen years of age and upwards, as also for all
  Negro women of the age of sixteen years.
• 1644 It is declared that because there shall be
  no scruple or evasion as to who are and who are
  not tithable, it is resolved by the General
  Assembly that all Negro men and women, and all
  other men, from the age of sixteen to sixty shall
  be adjudged tithable.

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Defining Negro Women as Tithables

• 1668 Negro women though permitted to enjoy their
  freedom, yet ought not in all respects to be
  admitted to a full fruition of the exemptions of
  the English and are still liable to the payment
  of taxes.
• 1682 Indian women servants sold to the English
  are to pay levies in like manner as Negro women.
  

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Defining Negro Women as Tithables

• 1705 It is enacted that all male persons of the
  age of sixteen years and upward, and all Negro,
  mulatto, and Indian women of sixteen years, not
  being free shall be tithable or chargable for
  defraying the public, county, and parish
  charges.
• 1723 All free Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians
  (except tributary Indians to this government),
  male and female above sixteen years of age, and
  wives of such, shall be deemed tithables.

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A Revolutionary Era Change of Policy on Tithables

• 1723 All free Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians
  (except tributary Indians to this government),
  male and female above sixteen years of age, and
  wives of such, shall be deemed tithables.
• 1769 The law which declared all free Negro,
  mulatto, and Indian women and all wives of free
  Negroes to be tithable is found very burdensome
  to such Negroes, and moreover derogatory of the
  rights of free-born subjects. It is therefore
  enacted that all free Negro and Indian women, and
  all wives, other than slaves, of free Negroes and
  Indians are exempt from being tithables, and from
  the payment of public or parish levies.

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B. Defining the rights and duties of citizens

• The right to own slaves
• The right to bear arms
• The right to vote

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The right to own slaves

• 1670 Negroes or Indians, though baptized and
  enjoying their own freedom, hsall be incapable of
  purchasing Christians, yet they are not deterred
  from buying any of their own nation
• 1705 No Negro, although Christian, shall
  purchase any Christian servant, except of his own
  complexion or such as are declared slaves. If any
  Negro shall purchase any Christian white servant

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The right to bear arms

• 1639 All persons except Negroes are to be
  provided with firearms and ammunition or be fined
  at the pleasure of the governor and council
  
• 1680 Whereas the frequent meetings of
  considerable numbers of Negro slaves under
  pretense of feasts and burials is judged of
  dangerous consequence, it is enacted that no
  Negro or slave may carry arms, such as any club,
  staff, gun, sword, or other weapon
• 1705 Slaves shall not go armed under penalty of
  twenty lashes on the bare back, well laid on.

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The right to bear arms

• 1723 Such free Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians as
  are capable may be listed and employed as
  drummers or trumpeters, upon invasion,
  insurrection, or rebellion all such shall be
  obliged to attend and march with the militia, and
  do the duties of pioneers or such other servile
  labor as directed.
• 1755 An act for regulating the militia requires
  free mulattoes, Negroes, and Indians to appear
  without arms and be employed as drummers,
  trumpeters, or in other such servile labor as
  they shall be directed to perform.

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The right to vote

• 1723 No free Negro or Indian whatsoever shall
  hereafter have any vote at any election
  
• 1762 No woman, infant under twenty-one years of
  age, recusant, convict, person convicted in Great
  Britain or Ireland during the time for which he
  is transported, nor any free Negro, mulatto or
  Indian, although such persons are freeholders,
  shall have a vote.

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2.Manumission and Emancipation The Regional
Growth of the Free Black Caste
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• Early Virginia colonial law defined free blacks
  as pariahs and imposed strict conditions on
  private manumission to discourage the growth of
  the free black population.

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Defining the terms of manumission

• 1691 A great inconvenience may happen to this
  country by setting negroes and mulattoes free, by
  their entertaining Negroes from their masters
  service, or receiving stolen goods, or being
  grown old bringing a charge upon the country...
  it is enacted that no Negroes, or mulattoes be
  set free by any person whatsoever, unless such
  person pay for the transportation of such Negro
  out of the country within six months after such
  setting free, upon penalty of ten pounds sterling
  to the church wardens
• 1723 No Negro or Indian slave shall be set free
  upon any pretense whatsoever, except for some
  meritorious service to be adjudged by the
  governor.

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A Revolutionary Era Shift in Policy on
Manumission

• 1769 Thomas Jefferson prevails upon Richard
  Bland to introduce in Virginias colonial
  legislature an initiative to ease restrictions on
  private manumission. I seconded his motion,
  Jefferson writes, and as a younger member was
  more spared in the debate. He was denounced as an
  enemy of his country and was treated with great
  indecorum.
• 1782 Virginia state legislature enacts
  liberalized manumission law It is lawful for
  any person by last will or other instrument in
  writing, seal and witnessed, to emancipate his
  slaves.

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Growth of Free Black Population in Virginia,
1780-1810

• 1780 1,800
• 1790 13,000 (609 percent increase)
• 1800 20,000 (58 percent increase)
• 1810 30,500 (59 percent increase)

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Percentage of Free Black Population in Virginia
1800
1790
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Virginia Clamps Down on Manumission and Growth of
Free Black Population

• 1806 If any slave hereafter emancipated shall
  remain within this Commonwealth more than twelve
  months after his freedom, he shall forfeit such
  right, and may be sold by the overseers for the
  benefit of the poor.

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Growth of Free Black Population1790-1810 in South
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Growth of Free Black Population1790-1810 in U.S.
Percentage Growth 1790-1800 82.5
percent1800-1810 -- 72 percent

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What causes this temporary shift in white
Southern attitudes toward manumission and
emancipation?

• Two main sources of egalitarian/libertarian
  ideology
  
• Age of Revolution all men are created equal
  all men have a God-given right to liberty
  
• Great Awakening/religious revivals all men
  equal in eyes of God Southern Quakers and
  Methodists push for liberalized manumission laws
  

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Slavery and the Revolution
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1723 Va. Law Restricts Manumission to Slaves Who
Perform Meritorious Service
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1723 Va. Law Prohibits Free Blacks and Indians
from Voting

• No free Negro or Indian whatsoever shall
  hereafter have any vote at any election.

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Age of Enlightenment Leads to Liberalization of
Black Codes But Not the Extension of Full
Citizenship to Free Blacks
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1769 Va. Law Exempts Free Black Indian Women
from Taxation

• The law which declared all free Negro, mulatto,
  and Indian women and all wives of free Negroes to
  be tithable is found very burdensom to such
  Negroes, and moreover derogatory of the rights of
  free-born subjects. It is therefore enacted that
  all free Negro and Indian women, and all wives,
  other than slaves, of free Negroes and Indians
  are exempt from being tithables, and from the
  payment of public or parish levies.