“A cause worth fighting for, is worth fighting for to the end.” Grover Cleveland (1896)
Over the years, Americans have devoted great attention to enslaved Blacks: their mistreatment, travails, and tragedies. And rightly so. That said, little attention has been directed to the experiences of free Blacks. Though a fictional character in the novel High Bridge, Hiram Nash was such a person. What did “free” mean to Mr. Nash? What did that freedom allow? Did free Blacks experience freedom in the white American sense of the word? Did being free protect Hiram Nash from abuse and derision? Before addressing these questions, let’s discuss the prevalence of free Blacks in 19th century United States.
From 1619 through 1807, Blacks were forcibly taken from their homes in Africa to work as enslaved Blacks in the New World (e.g., Hannah-Jones et al., 2019). Bringing Blacks to the United States effectively ended with the institution of the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves on January 1, 1808. Based on the US census of 1810, there were 911,435 Blacks in the United States (Seventh US Census, 1853). Most of these were enslaved Blacks (803,041), however, ~10% (108,395) were free Blacks. By 1850, the numbers of Blacks in the United States had quadrupled; of the 3,638,808 Blacks, 434,495 were free and 3,204,313 were enslaved Blacks. Part of this increase resulted from a small amount of illegal smuggling of Blacks into the United States, but most resulted from the increase in the domestic population. In contrast, the numbers of whites trebled: increasing from 5,862,004 to 19,553,068, and that includes an estimated 2,094,610 who migrated into the US between 1820 and 1850 (Simkin, 1997). Thus, the Black population grew substantially more than the white population.
The data for individual states is illuminating. Let me give some examples. As much of the action High Bridge occurs in the latter 1840s, I examined the data from the census for 1850 (Seventh US Census, 1853). At mid-century, the nation’s largest state was New York; it boasted 3,097,394 people. Of that population, <2% were Black, and all of them were free Blacks. Only one state in the North still had enslaved Blacks in 1850. That was New Jersey. Blacks accounted for 5% of the population of New Jersey and that included 236 enslaved Blacks. In contrast, Mississippi had the largest population of enslaved Blacks (300,878) of any state. Indeed, Mississippi had more enslaved Blacks than whites. It was the only state with that distinction. Paradoxically, Mississippi was the Southern state with among the fewest free Blacks (930).
An interesting state is Virginia where one in seven enslaved Blacks in the US lived (Seventh US Census, 1853). The original Commonwealth of Virginia was a large state with marked contrasts. The eastern part of the state was flat and easily tilled. Thus, it lent itself to the development of large farms. Even the white population tended to be homogeneous; it comprised mostly white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant settlers. The successful of landowners in the east heavily depended on free labor (i.e., enslaved Blacks). Eastern Virginian whites fought to maintain the flourishing plantation system. They argued for suffrage to be a right only for landed men and that for taxing and electoral purposes Blacks should be counted as three-fifths of a person.
In contrast to the east, western Virginia geography was mountainous. Likewise, settlers in this region were heterogenous: German, Scotch-Irish, and migrants from the north. White (i.e., potentially voting) residents in the west were interested in a democratic government, one that did not require property ownership to be enfranchised. Fractures in the commonwealth appeared by1829. Representatives of western counties argued at the constitutional convention for a more democratic government. Failing that effort, a plan hatched was for 39 of the most western and mountainous counties to secede from Virginia. This new state would be called Kanawha. The Civil War accelerated this process and along with some border counties, the state of West Virginia was born.
How did the separation of Virginia reflect Blacks living throughout the state? Whereas in “East” Virginia, Blacks accounted for nearly half of the population (Table 1). In Kanawha, the situation was strikingly different. Only one in twenty residents was Black, most of whom were enslaved Blacks. The ratio of free Blacks to enslaved Blacks was greater in Kanawha than in “East” Virginia. Interestingly, the mean age of free Blacks in Kanawha was less than it was for free Blacks in “East” Virginia or for enslaved Blacks regardless of their home. It is unclear what contributed to this difference. I surmise that stress of their lives must have been great. After all, there were few free Blacks, or enslaved Blacks for that matter, in Kanawha. At least in “East” Virginia, there were many Blacks and a sense of community and camaraderie likely existed.
Table 1. Population in regions of Virginia.
location ----------- “East” VA ---------- ------------ Kanawha ------------
population whites free Blacks enslaved whites free Blacks enslaved
number 685,608 52,603 463,119 209,192 1,720 9,409
% of total VA 48.23 3.70 32.58 14.71 0.12 0.66
% of VA region 57.07 4.38 38.55 94.95 0.78 4.27
So-called “East” Virginia comprised the counties in the current-day Virginia. Kanawha was formed by 39 counties in the mountainous west. Note that data for counties in the border region between “East” Virginia and Kanawha (that ultimately became part of current-day West Virginia) were not included in these tallies as they were transitional in geography, had farms of different sizes, and was home to a heterogeneous population. The calculation for the percent of VA region is based on the total number of people in “East” Virginia (left) and Kanawha (right).
So let’s go back to Manlius where there were few Blacks. There were no enslaved Blacks and only 15 free Blacks, i.e., 0.24% of the population. Life was hard for them. Though they were not property and were able to conduct their lives more or less as they saw fit, they had few rights and were often treated with disdain. Blacks could not vote, hold elective office, or enter into many occupations (e.g., medicine and law). Black men were largely limited to domestic occupations (e.g., being a carpenter, cooper, barber) and women were confined to household work (e.g., cooking, cleaning, and childcare).
Being a free Black, Hiram Nash could be safe in expecting the worst from his community. His expectations were realized when residents in Fayetteville reflexively accused him of a crime – without evidence and without care. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 would only have solidified his fear. This law rendered all Blacks, runaway or free, as suspect and vulnerable to capture by anyone for “return” to the South. The burden of proof, if there was a way to verify their freedom, lay in the responsibility of the Black person. The Nashes would have acutely felt the fear caused by the Fugitive Slave Law, but more on that in another blog.
Hannah-Jones N, Roper C, Silverman I, Silverman J (2019) The 1619 project: a new origin story. NY Times Mag.
Simkin J (1997) Immigration to the USA: 1820-1860. Spartacus Ed.
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAE1820.htm
American Panorama (2022) Forced migration of enslaved people. Univ. Richmond.
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/forcedmigration/#tab=1&narratives=true&cotton=true&sugar=true&labels=false&decade=1810&loc=5/-9.601/12.788
US Census Bureau (1853) 1850 Census: the seventh census of the United States. pp 242-257.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/1850a/1850a-28.pdf