And Be Free: 2nd Edition

By Barry Roy Nager

Slavery in America began almost four hundred years ago and ended in 1865. However, the end of slavery did not mean the granting of civil rights to people of African American heritage.

For almost a century after the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted, abolishing slavery, African American were subject to many forms of abuse from segregation, denial of the right to vote, job restrictions (last hired, first fired), and denied entrance into many public facilities such as restaurants, hotels, and colleges.

Only in the past fifty years, beginning with the Supreme Court decision ending school segregation and the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s, have many of these injustices and abuses been remedied. "And Be Free" details changes in the military to show the evolution of civil rights, from the time that African American soldiers received only about two-thirds of the pay of white soldiers, until the present, when an African American soldier, Colin Powell, was made head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and another African American, Barack Obama, was elected to the highest office in the land.

Also included are various Supreme Court decisions such as Dred Scott v. Sandford, which labeled African Americans as members of "a subordinate and inferior race," the case of Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed school segregation, and legislation starting with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 to the Civil Rights Acts enacted almost a century later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985408911

Book preview

Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

In 1861, there were approximately four million slaves in the United States; four years later, there were none. To accomplish this, the United States engaged in a fratricidal war which lasted over four years, cost more than six hundred thousand lives, and left a part of the country destroyed.

While the Civil War (or War between the States, as it is known by some) did free all slaves and granted them certain rights, over a century was to elapse before they were able to enjoy equality under the Civil Rights Act, and even today, in some areas of the country, segregation and racism still exist, if not by law, then in fact.

When I started on this book, it was to discuss the changes to the African Americans that occurred during the Civil War, since most of the books I read on the Civil War were mainly concerned with the battles fought during the war, plus the generals and leaders on both sides, and while the status of the Blacks were discussed, it was usually as a side or secondary issue. The purpose of this book was to change this and discuss the Civil War as it affected the Blacks, and the battles and conflicts as secondary, and only when they affected the African Americans, such as the Battle of Antietam, which was enough of a Union victory to allow President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

As I began to research the book, I decided to expand this to an encapsulated version of the civil rights struggle, from the beginnings of our country until the present. The book does not go into any great detail on any subject, since the purpose of the book is to give the reader a broad overview of the civil rights struggle. After each chapter, I gave a list of books which go into greater detail on the subject of the chapter, so that if the reader desires to delve further into any aspect of the subject, the books I have listed will be a good starting point.

I have focused on the United States military services to show the changes of civil rights, since they not only reflected the attitudes of White America, but also were ahead of the rest of America in the struggle for equality, and in the space of a few years, went from one of the most segregated institutions in America, to one of the most integrated. In retrospect, it was the successful integration of the military that sounded the death knell for segregation and Jim Crow.

As I have said in the epilogue, the struggle still goes on, and while this book offers no solutions to the racial problems that still have to be dealt with, this book is written in the hope that looking back at the history of civil rights may help in the future, and help avoid the mistakes made in the past, since, as one philosopher so aptly put it, Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Chapter 2

PRELUDE TO SLAVERY

How many Africans died because of slavery? No one really knows the answer. I have seen estimates as high as sixty million people. The world still shudders in horror over the Holocaust in which six million Jews died during the Nazi regime in Germany. The difference being, while the six million died between 1933 to 1945, the deaths from slavery occurred over a period of four hundred years. This figure not only includes the slaves that died while aboard the slave ships, or shortly thereafter from disease or illness contracted during that hell voyage, when they were packed so tight that they could not move around, but also those who were thrown overboard when they were thought too sick or too rebellious to be worthwhile, or simply to escape antislavery warships. The figure also includes those who were killed by slavers during the raids because they were too old or too sick, and the villagers that perished when the best of their village was taken into slavery, and the rest could not survive without them.

The first slaves were brought to North America in 1619 when a Dutch ship brought twenty Africans to Jamestown, Virginia, to be sold as indentured servants. When General Oglethorpe established the colony of Georgia, it was to give debt-ridden Englishmen a chance to start a new life. Its original charter banned Jews, Catholics, rum, lawyers, and slaves from the colony. Eventually however, all these became part of Georgia, including slavery, when the plantation owners realized the huge profits that could be made from slave labor.

Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams in 1652, banned slavery, but it was later permitted, and Newport, Rhode Island, became a major slave-trading city.

The Dutch allowed slaves in their colonies of New Netherlands (later New York), providing the slaves could only be whipped with permission of the colonial authorities.

Under early English law, Blacks who became Christians and met other requirements by sea could not be slaves. This was soon changed in America. In 1664, Maryland mandated lifelong servitude for Blacks, and this was soon followed by Virginia in 1667. In 1663, the English Royal Africa Company was granted a monopoly for the slave trade, which lasted until 1696; after that date, slave trading was initiated by merchants in the New England colonies.

In 1688, the first antislavery protest was made by a group of Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and in 1700, Reverend Samuel Sewall published The Selling of Joseph, one of the first antislavery tracts. Later, another clergyman, John Woolman, published a series of his sermons, under the title Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, which was instrumental in convincing Quakers to oppose slavery.

One of the first slave insurrections took place in Stono, South Carolina, in 1739, in which thirty Whites and forty-four Blacks were killed. This was only the first of a number of slave insurrections that were to occur before slavery was abolished.

In the American Revolution, over five thousand Blacks fought for the Continental army. George Washington was at first reluctant to enlist Black troops, but did so when he learned that the British army was also trying to recruit Black troops.

In Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence, King George III was accused of being responsible for the slave trade, and he prevented the colonies from outlawing it. This provision, however, was deleted at the request of Southerners and Northerners involved in the slave trade.

From 1777 to 1783, various Northern states such as Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts abolished slavery. And most of the Northern states followed soon thereafter. This was not because the North was more virtuous or nobler than the South, but more because the smaller family farms and greater industrialization by the North made slavery impractical. Nor did it stop the New England shipowners from furnishing slave ships or churches, nor both North and South from investing in slave ships as part of their investment portfolio, much like churches of today invest their surplus funds in General Motors or AT&T.

Slavery thrived mainly in an agricultural environment. In England, for example, slavery was abolished in 1807, in Great Britain and in all their colonies in 1837. While there were many in England who despised slavery, the main reason for its abolition was because by that time, England was changing from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation, and slavery became obsolete and a burden on industrial expansion.

Chapter 3

MORAL DILEMMAS AND

RATIONALIZATIONS FOR SLAVERY

Slavery presented a moral dilemma for the White population of America; in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stated that all men are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The problem was, however, that everyone knew that the slaves were not considered to be created equal, and if they were alive, were not at liberty nor allowed to pursue happiness.

Another moral dilemma concerning slavery was a biblical one. In the book of Genesis 1: 27, it stated that God created man in his own image, in his own image created he him. Therefore if God created man in his own image, what right did one man have to enslave another?

In order to answer these problems, the White people, both North and South, came up with the following rationalizations in order to justify enslaving the Black man in the South, and giving him second-class status in the North.

1. The Negro, while of the human race, is of an inferior species, and therefore not considered to be made in the image of God, and therefore not entitled to be considered as made in God’s image. When one also realizes that at that time, most Whites thought the same thing, in varying degrees, of the Oriental and the American Indian, they in effect, at least mentally, changed the wording of the Bible to read, God created the White man in his own image, in his own image, created he him.

2. The Negro, a savage and not being a Christian, required enslavement in order for him to be civilized and obtain the blessings of Christianity.

3. The Negro was incapable of managing for himself and needed the benevolent hand of a master to take care of him and his needs, and was actually happy being in servitude.

4. A further rationalization was from the story of Noah. In the Bible, after he landed on Mount Ararat, his son Ham saw him naked, and said, A slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers. (Gen 9:25-27) In biblical tradition, the Africans were descendants of Ham, and the plantation owners often would refer to their slaves as Hamites.

Of course, there is and never have been any scientific evidence showing that one race is superior or inferior to the other, though there have been some claims by pseudoscientists (such as Dr. Shockley) that Blacks as a race are inferior to other races, but these claims have been dismissed by the scientific community as without foundation.

The Southern attitude toward slavery can best be summed up by a speech made by Jefferson Davis, after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted into law. He spoke of the Emancipation Proclamation as a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere are doomed to extermination.

This was the typical Southern view of slavery, that an inferior race could not manage by themselves, and had to be guided by a massa to tell them what to do. The fact that many Blacks in the North were successful businessmen and professionals was apparently overlooked by the South, or else considered an exception or aberration, not typical of the race as a whole.

The thought that the slaves were happy and contented also was wishful thinking and delusion on the part of the South, as witnessed by the numerous escape attempts and slave revolts throughout the era of slavery, the most famous being that of Gabriel in 1800, Denmark Vesey in 1822, and Nat Turner in 1831. While all these rebellions were eventually crushed, and the leaders executed, they created in the South an aura of fear and paranoia, which caused the South to react by restricting education to the slaves, for an educated slave is more likely than an uneducated slave to resist being a slave and do everything he can to fight the system.

The fear of an uprising also caused the South to institute a system of brutality to keep the slaves in line, and as William McFeely stated in his biography of Frederick Douglass, The code also demanded the avoidance of leniency. Neither the overseer nor, certainly, the master was to do anything to ameliorate the harshness of a slave’s life. Such actions would only lead to expectations of greater liberty … no manumissions, no hope of freedom to disrupt the basic order of the world the slaves were ordained to inhabit. And food and clothing were kept sparse.

The most common form of punishment was whipping, which would often be administered for trivial offenses such as oversleeping. Other forms of torture such as mutilation and breaking of limbs were not unknown, though perhaps the one feared most by the slaves were to be sold and separated from one’s family to an unknown fate; it was in many ways more dreaded than actual physical torture, and was the carrot that kept the slaves from trying to escape or rebel.

Chapter 4

SLAVE REVOLTS

The three most famous slave revolts during the period of slavery were by Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner.

The first revolt was by Gabriel, a slave living on a plantation in Richmond, Virginia. Gabriel was unique in that he was a skilled blacksmith who was allowed to hire himself out and keep a portion of his earnings. He was also one of the few slaves who knew how to read and write. Inspired by the exploits of Toussaint-Louveture and his slave army who were fighting the French in Haiti, he and his brothers recruited a small army of free Blacks and slaves. He and his men planned to begin the revolt on August 30, 1800, and were determined to spare no Whites except for Quakers, French, and others opposed to slavery.

The revolt failed because there was a torrential rainstorm on that day, and they were betrayed by two slaves from a neighboring plantation. Eventually Gabriel and twenty-four of the slaves were hanged, despite pleas from Thomas Jefferson to stop the hangings, after eighteen of them had been executed.

Before he was executed, one of the slaves told the court, I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer had he been taken by the British and put to trial. I have adventured my life in endeavoring to obtain my liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice in their cause.

Two years later, another revolt planned by one of Gabriel’s followers, like Gabriel’s planned uprising, also fizzled.

The immediate outcome of these uprisings was for Virginia to enact laws restricting slave meetings on Sunday, to forbid slaves being taught to read and write, and decreed that any slave who had been emancipated had to leave Virginia within one year of receiving their freedom.

The second uprising was led by Denmark Vesey. Vesey was a skilled carpenter who saved several thousand dollars and purchased his freedom from his owner, a ship’s captain. He was one of the leaders in Charleston’s black church, but the church was shut down when he became too outspoken for the White citizenry. In 1822, Vesey and his followers planned to seize the armory and obtain weapons, burn the city and kill as many Whites as possible, and then take some ships and make their way to Haiti. Like Gabriel’s plot however, it was also betrayed by a slave, the conspirators were arrested, and more than thirty of them were hanged in July 1822.

The most famous and the most destructive of the slave revolts occurred in 1831 and was led by Nat Turner. Nat Turner was a slave owned by the Travis family in Virginia. Turner became fanatically religious and served as a preacher for the slaves of the areas who called him the prophet. Beginning in 1825, he began to see visions which told him to slay my enemies with their own weapons, and when a solar eclipse occurred in 1831, he took it as a sign to begin the revolt.

On the night of August 21, 1831, Turner and seven fellow slaves murdered the Travis family and then set out on a campaign that terrorized the Virginia countryside in Southampton County, Virginia, for the next forty-eight hours. By that time, the community had been aroused, and the group members were either killed, captured, or dispersed by the militia. Nat Turner managed to escape with about twenty of his followers but was finally captured, and with sixteen other members of his band, was hanged on November 11, 1831.

In reprisal for the raid, state and federal troops swept through the area and killed about two hundred Blacks who took no part in the uprising. As a result of the uprising, new laws were passed forbidding slaves to read and write and taking away what few freedoms they enjoyed at the time, and also had postal inspectors seize any abolitionist material in the mail.

A number of years ago, William Styron wrote a bestseller called The Confessions of Nat Turner which was based on the revolt. This book, however, has been criticized because the author attempted to claim that the uprising was spawned by Turner’s repressed feelings of homosexuality, rather than a fight for freedom. A number of Black scholars pointed out in their criticisms that Turner was married at the time, and there was never any proof of homosexuality, so that Styron’s work, while interesting reading, is in many respects a work of fiction that used the revolt led by Nat Turner as its background.

While all the revolts eventually failed, they had a lasting effect on the South. They became more and more frightened of slave uprisings. To allay their fears, they resorted to ever more brutal behavior toward