CHAPTER - II
THE AFRO-AMERICAN STORY
Columbus discovered America when he landed on an island, which he named
San Salvador, in the West Indies on October 12, 1492. With this voyage, started the
famous peopling of a new continent. The Spaniards claimed the whole of the New
World, except Brazil, and by 1600 had explored and colonized a large part of South
America. North America was, by and large, left untouched for more than a hundred
years after the voyage of Columbus. One of the reasons for this was the lack of
advanced Indian communities to conquer and the absence of gold and silver mines
which could provide immediate profit. In the 17th century, however, after several
unsuccessful attempts the English and the French founded lasting colonies on the North
American mainland, while smaller enterprises were launched by the Dutch and the
Swedes.
The English made their first attempt to explore America in 1497 and 1498 when
Henry VII employed John Cabot to undertake trips to America. Cabot made two
voyages to New Foundland and parts of the mainland. This gave the English crown a
claim to sovereignty over much of North America, but Cabot's trips were not followed
up by any efforts at colonization. In the 16th century, however, far sighted Englishmen
advocated colonization. Arguments for colonization were put into writing by Richard
Hakluyt, in his Principal Navigations, Voyages. Trafficks and Discoveries of the English
Nation. Hakluyt held that colonization would solve the problem of the unemployed and
73
the people dispossessed by the enclosure system by providing them employment and
land in America. The colonies could also provide raw-material for England’s industries.
England would, therefore, become less dependant on other countries. A colonial empire
would make England independent, richer and more secure. These arguments, first
stated by Hakluyt remained the main principles of British colonial policy for the next
two hundred years.
The first serious attempt at colonization by England was made in 1585 by Sir
Walter Raleigh when he sent a group of colonists to Roanoke island in 'Virginia'. This
group returned to England after a severe winter but Raleigh, not to be discouraged, sent
a new group of colonists including women and children to Roanoke island in 1587. As
a result of war with Spain, no further expedition was dispatched until 1591, and by
that time the original colonists had totally disappeared. After these unsuccessful
experiences Raleigh gave up all hopes of colonizing America. It was only in 1607 that
a party of 104 persons reached Virginia and founded a settlement which they called
Jamestown. Raleigh's project had been taken over by a commercial company which
had received a charter from King James - I in the previous year.
The first English colony was by no means an immediate success, but it did
survive and was followed in quick succession by other colonies : Maryland in 1634,
Plymouth 1620, Massachusetts, 1628, N ew Haven, 1639, Rhode Island 1644
Carolinas, 1663 and Pennsylvania 1681. Thus, before the end of the seventeenth
century the English had established firm footholds on the American continent, and had
planted a line of settlements along a thousand miles of the A tla n tic seaboard from
Maine to South Carolina.
74
The early years of the history of that part of North America which later became
the United States of America, on the surface then, and as treated in most standard
books of American history, seem to have nothing at all to do with what was later to
become one of the major aspects of American life, that Gunnar Myrdal' termed the
"American Dilemma". This is, however, far from the truth for from the very beginning
of the "European's exploits in the New World, Negroes came as explorers, servants and
slaves” 2. In late August, 1619, just a few years after the first settlement at
Jamestown a Dutch ship left twenty Negroes at Jamestown. John Rolfe described the
event with utmost unconcern : "About the last of August come in a Dutch man of war
that sold us twenty Negars"3. The American Dilemma had its genesis in the colonial
experience itself. To deny this would be to distort American history. From the colonial
period the history of the blacks cannot be separated from the mainstream of American
history. The Blacks have been an integral, albeit a problematic part, of American life
from the time they came to the colonies till the present.
The first Blacks to arrive at Jamestown were obviously a consignment of slaves
brought in because of the insatiable demand for labour in the developing colonies.The
sale of human flesh in itself was not something that started with the establishment of
the colonies in America, but what was new was the scale of the operation. "It is not
possible to give an accurate figure of the number of slaves imported into the New
’
Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma. The Negro
Democracy. 1944 (New York : Harper & Row, 1962).
2
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom : A History of the Negro Americans, 3rd
ed. (New Delhi : Amerind Pub Co. 1967) 46. Hereafter cited in the text as Franklin.
3
Winthrop D Jordan, White over Black. American Attitudes towards the Negro, 1550181 2, 1968 (Baltimore : Penguin Books Ltd., 1971) 73. Hereafter cited in the text as
Jordan.
75
Problem
and
Modern
World from Africa. In eleven years, from 1783 thronqh 1793, Liverpool traders alone
were responsible for the importation of 303, 737 slaves while in the following eleven
years they were certainly responsible for as many. While the closing years of the
eighteenth century represented the peak in the slave trade, the preceding two centuries
show a steady increase leading to the apogee reached in the 1790's. It has been
estimated by Dunbar that 900.000 were imported in the sixteenth century, 2,750,000
in the seventeenth, 7,000,000 in the eighteenth, and 4,000,000 in nineteenth
(Franklin, 58-89}. These figures are conservative estimates. It is clear that millions of
Africans were brought to the new world as slaves. When one takes into consideration
the great numbers that were killed while evading capture and the greater numbers that
died during the middle passage the aggregate approaches staggering proportions. This
trade in human flesh must have been extremely profitable for the whites, whereas for
the blacks who were shipped into America like cattle, the experience was traumatic,
leaving scars on the psyches of the blacks, scars which they carried for generations.
The voyage to the Americas was popularly referred to as the 'Middle
Passage' Ships carried as many slaves as they could in the most barbaric conditions
possible. Overcrowding was so common that the British Parliament was compelled to
specify that not more than five slaves should be carried for every three tons of burden
of a ship of 200 tons. This regulation was, however, never enforced and slave ships
carried their human cargo stacked together like so many cardboard boxes. Often there
was no place to even lie down and the human cargo was made to stand, shackled to
each other for the entire passage. A result of this inhuman treatment was the record
number of deaths that occurred during the passage. Small pox and a disease called flux
was rife and it was not uncommon for the blacks to resort to hunger strikes and even
76
commit suicide in attempts to escape from the intolerable conditions that they found
themselves in. It is estimated that only about half of the slaves that were shipped from
Africa became effective workers in the New World . Many of those who had not died
were permanently disabled by disease or maimed by their struggle against the chains
that held them.
The slave trade was or^of the most important sources of wealth during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries despite the great expenses incurred and the high
incidence of mortality and the consequent loss. Profits of 100 per cent were not
uncommon for Liverpool
merchants. The slave trade
would have remained
"inconsequential if it had been confined to the importation of a few servants into
Europe "(Franklin, 60). It was primarily because of the development of the New World
that the slave trade grew in importance.Right from the beginning the Europeans were
interested in the economic exploitation of the New World. Labour was obviously
necessary, and the cheaper the better. The Europeans first turned to the Indians, who
were not suited to the vigorous life of the plantation system and were extremely
susceptible to the diseases that the Europeans brought with them. Indian slavery was
insufficient to meet the ever increasing demands of the colonists. The Europeans then
turned to the poor whites of Europe. Poor, landless whites we re brought into the
colonies as indentured servants. These indentured servants were bound by contract to
serve a master for a specified number of years, usually from four to seven, or until age
twenty one, as repayment for their ocean passage. During the time that a servant was
indentured he could be sold or transferred from one master to another. What was not
obvious, or noticed at that time was the fact that it was the labour of the person that
was owned and sold and not the person himself. "In America land 'was plentiful, labour
77
scarce, and, as in all new colonies, a cash crop was desperately needed. These
economic conditions were to remain important for centuries, in general they tended to
encourage greater geographical mobility, less specialization, higher rewards and fewer
restraints on the process and products of labour" (Jordon, 42). Custom and statute law
regulated the relationship between master and servant.
These legislations may have been passed so that more labour was attracted to
the colonies and also to protect traditional freedoms which were threatened by under
population and the need for labour which would be permanent. These indentured
servants too proved inadequate for the almost insatiable requirements for labour. White
servants also proved troublesome to their master. The terms of service of indenture
were often a source of conflict and many servants ran away. It became increasingly
difficult and expensive to apprehend them once they had fled and colonists began to
turn to black slaves to fill up the void. Negroes presented few difficulties, they were
easily apprehended, they could be bought outright, and since they were so different,
white masters had fewer qualms in inflicting a more rigorous code of conduct. Negro
slavery began in the 17th century, but it would be unwise to believe that slavery as it
was known later, arrived fully fledged in the colonies. Slavery differed from colony to
colony and it was only in the eighteenth century that a more uniform pattern of slavery
was established.
Slavery in the Colonies : Virginia and Maryland :
From the surviving evidence historians have surmised that slavery and other
forms of debasement appeared simultaneously in Virginia and Maryland. The twenty
Negroes that were left at Jamestown in 1619 was the beginning of a trade that
78
continued for over two hundred years. According to J. Hope Franklin, however, "the
earliest Negroes in Virginia occupied a position similar to that of white servants in the
colony" (Franklin, 71). He points out that the census records of 1623 and 1624 listed
them as servants and as late as 1651, some Negroes who had worked their term were
assigned land in the same way as white indentured servants. There are also records of
free Negroes living in the Colonies during the forty year period following their
introduction. Other historians, however, do not agree with this view.
The first Negroes were 'sold' to the Virginians and the earliest Virginian census
reports plainly distinguished Negroes from white men. In 1629, every owner of several
plantations was ordered to "take a general muster of all the inhabitants men, women
and children as well English as Negroes". Jordan sees in this distinction, between
Negroes and English, a clear discrimination. According to him "this perception of the
Negro as being distinct from the Englishmen must have operated to debase his status
rather than raise it, for in the absence of countervailing factors present, the need for
labor in the colonies usually told in the direction of non-freedom". From the scant
information available Jordan comes to the conclusion that the Negro's "status was not
ever the same as that accorded to the white servant. But we do not h n / / for sure
(Jordan, 74).
Most historians, however, agree that after 1640 there are clear indications of
Negro slavery. There were free Negroes, but the number of slaves far exceeded the
number of free Negroes. The fragmentary evidence that appears after 1640 clearly
indicates that some Negroes in Virginia and Maryland were clearly serving for life. Most
of the Negroes brought in after 1640 did not have indentures or contracts. Some
79
Negroes served for longer periods than that were permitted for white servants. The first
clear indication that slavery was practised in the tobacco colonies appears in 1639
when a Maryland statute declared that "all the inhabitants of the Province being
Christians (slaves excepted) shall have and enjoy all such rights, liberties, immunities,
privileges, and free customs within this province as natural born subject of England"
(Jordan, 74).
Before, 1640 there is little evidence to show how Negroes were treated, but
after 1640, there is mounting evidence that some Negroes were in fact being treated
as slaves and that they were being held in hereditary lifetime service. County court
records after 1640 show that Negroes and any future progeny were being sold for life.
From a close perusal of estate inventures and bills of sale Jordan comes to the
conclusion that Negroes fetched a far higher price than white servants. He attributes
this to the fact that the period of servitude for a white servant was limited whereas a
Negro would have to serve for a lifetime. Further the black women were valued higher
than white women because the issues of Negroes automatically belonged to the owner
of the Negro women. Also black women could be put to work in the fields while white
women were generally not. Negroes were increasingly, subjected to degrading
distinctions and were set apart by Virginia laws which forbade them to carry arms in
1640 and Maryland in 16484. No such prohibition was put upon white servants
That Negroes were discriminated against even before slavery was written into
statute law becomes more apparent when white reaction to sexual union between the
4
Carl N. Degler. Out of Our Past : The Forces that Shaped Modem America, 3rd ed.
(New Delhi : Wiley Eastern Press, 1986) 32. Hereafter cited in the text as D'-gier
80
two races is studied. As early as 1630, a Virginia Court sentenced one Hugh Davis to
be soundly whipped for "defiling his body in laying with a negro" This distaste for
racial mixture surfaces again and again throughout the Southern Colonies. In 1662,
Virginia declared that the status of offspring would follow that of the mother in the
event of a white man getting a Negro with child. When Maryland in 1644 prescribed
service for Negroes durante vita and included hereditary status through the father, it
also prohibited union between the races. The preamble of the statute offers a clue-to
the motives behind this separation of the races. Prohibition of intermarriage became
necessary because "divers free born English women, forgetful of their condition, and
to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with Negro slaves' from which fact
questions of status of issue have arisen. Therefore, that law was enacted in order to
prevent harm to masters and for 'deterring such free-born women from such shameful
matches' ... ” (Degler, 34). Virginia finally prohibited all interracial liaisons in 1691 and
denounced miscegenation and its fruits as "that abominable mixture and spurious
issue" (Jordan, 80).
Winthrop Jordan and Carl Degler see mutual relationships between slavery and
the unfavorable assessment of Negroes. Jordan holds that in the case of Maryland and
Virginia legal enactment of Negro slavery followed practice, rather than vice versa, and
also that the assemblies were slower than in other English colonies to declare how
Negroes could or should be treated. These two patterns in themselves suggest that
slavery was less a matter of previous conception or external example in Maryland and
Virginia than elsewhere" (Jordan, 81). Degler too claims that "discriminatory legislation
regarding the Negro long preceded any legal definition of slavery." Equally important,
in view of the commonly held view that numbers of Negroes determined the inferior
81
status imposed upon the black, is the "evidence of discrimination that existed long
before numbers were large.... In short, long before slavery was an important part of the
labour system of the South, blacks had been fitted into a special and inferior status"
(Degler, 35).
In 1661, the Virginia Assembly indirectly provided recognition of Negro slavery
when it declared that a white man who ran away in the company of Negro would have
to make up the lost time of the Negro as well as his own. In 1663, Maryland enacted
a similar law and in the following year came out with the declaration that Negroes were
to serve "Durante vita". In the years that followed, a series of acts were passed by
both Virginia and Maryland which defined precisely what sort of person could be
treated as slaves . Some acts dealt with the problem of slave control and after 1690
slavery began to be associated with the complete deprivation of all rights. In 1669,
itself the Virginia assembly blandly asserted that if a slave "by the extremity of the
correction should chance to die" his master was not to be adjudged guilty of felony
since it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murther Felony)
should induce any man to destroy his own estate" (Jordan, 82). The trend was
obviously to treat slaves more as property than human beings.
By the end of the 17th century as more and more slaves were brought into the
colonies, Virginia and Maryland had already formulated codes which were very similar
to the obnoxious "slave codes" of the nineteenth century. Negro slavery had lost all
similarity to the English version of servitude and slaves were treated more as property
than as men.
82
New England Colonies
Slavery existed in the New England colonies from 1638, when Capt. William
Pierce of the Salem Ship Desire brought in Negroes along with a cargo of salt, tobacco
and cotton from the Providence Island colony where Negroes v/ere already being kept
as perpetual servants. Negro slavery did not become as important in New England as
it did in the Southern plantation colonies, as there was no plantation agriculture which
created a pressing demand for labour. Despite the fact that the social conditions of
Virginia and Maryland did not prevail in the New England or in the middle colonies,
social discrimination against the blacks was apparent from the beginning of the 17th
century. "An especially low status if not slavery itself, was reserved for the Negroes.
One source of 1639, for example, tells of a Negro woman being held as a slave on
Noddles Island in Boston Harbor. Her master sought to mate her with another Negro but
the chronicler reported, she kicked her lover out of bed, saying that such behaviour wa<
'beyond her slavery' (Degler, 36).
In trying to trace why slavery existed at all in the New England colonies, when
indentured servants would have been sufficient for its needs, historians come up with
a number of possible answers. The first, Negroes were a part of the merchandise
brought from Providence Island in the Caribbean and the selling and buying of human
flesh was initially just a part of a larger mercantile design. After 1640, there was brisk
trading between New England and other English colonies. Ships from Massachusetts
even carried on trade with Barbados. It is unlikely that ship masters who purchased
perpetual service in Barbados would sell service for term in Boston. The simplistic
explanation that it was contract with the West Indies that led to the acceptance of
slavery in the New England colonies is difficult to accept. The puritans despite their
83
belief in freedom and liberty were more than willing to enslave an alien people. They
salved their consciences by declaring in the Body of Liberties in 1641 that "there shall
never be any bond - slavery , villainy or captivities amongst us, unless it be lawful
captives taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold
to us" (Jordan, 67). Apart from the implication that bond-slavery was reserved for
those not partaking of true religion nor possessing proper nationality, the Body of
Liberties expressly reserved the colony's right to enslave convicted criminals. However,
the application of this code was reserved for Negroes and Indians, it was not applied
to white men.
The Body of Liberties also made it clear that captivity in just wars constituted
legitimate ground for slavery. This practice began during the first Pequod war of 1 637
when captured Indians were exchanged for Negro slaves. In 1 645 Emanuel Downing
in a letter to John Winthrop described the advantages of a war with the Narragansett
Indians :
"If upon a just warre the Lord should deliver them into our hands,
we might easily have men women and children enough to
exchange for Moores, which will be more gaynefull pilladge for us
then wee conceive, for I doe not see how we can thrive until we
get in a stock of slaves sufficient to doe ell our business”
(Jordan, 69).
Slave codes did not emerge until late in the seventeenth century, though slavery
actually existed long before the middle of the century. In 1 670, Massachusetts passed
a law providing that the children of slaves could be sold into bondage, and ten years
later it began to enact statutes restricting the movement of Negroes. A law of 1680
forbade Negroes to board ships in Massachusetts and most New England colonies did
84
not allow Negroes to be out on the streets at night. It was illegal in all the colonies to
sell liquor to Negroes.
It would be wrong, however, to suppose that life in the New England colonies
was as harsh as life in the Southern colonies. J. H. Franklin points out that the
puritan's respect for learning made them teach their slaves the rudiments of reading
and writing. Devout Christians, they converted their slaves and since the ability to read
the Bible was deemed necessary many Puritan masters undertook to educate the
Negroes. The New England colonies consisted primarily of towns and the slave codes
were difficult to enforce. "Since many were used as porters, clerks and messengers,
it would have been difficult to enforce curfew laws even if the puritan masters had
wanted to do so. Many slaves worked with and not simply for their masters, and there
resulted a familiarity that softened the institution and rendered ineffective many of the
laws that had been enacted to control the slaves" (Franklin, 106). The Negro in New
England held a unique place in colonial America. He was treated in a more lenient
manner than the slave in the Southern colonies, the Puritan master did not fear slave
insurrection as his Southern counterparts did. This was mainly because the Negroes did
not threaten to outnumber the whites. The Puritan masters kept a strict control on the
slaves, but slavery in the New England colonies had much of the characteristics of
indentured servitude.
Southern Colonies, Carolinas and Georgia : -
In Carolinas the settlers had no qualms about introducing slavery. Slavery was
already established in other colonies and the founders of the colony had a vested
interest in the establishment of slavery. Four of the proprietors were members of the
85
Royal African company and reaped profits both from the slave trade and from the
employment of the Negroes.
The Carolinas were initially settled by farmers who were interested in
establishing large plantations and for them slaves provided the ideal labour force.
Slavery was established even before the colony was settled. In his "Fundamental
Constitutions" John Locke said that "every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute
power and authority over his negro slaves of what opinion or religion soever"
(Jordan,85). Slavery was thus sanctioned and protected against any possible erosion
that conversion to Christianity might expose it to. The proprietors encouraged the
importation of Negro slaves into the colony. In 1663they offered to the original settlers
twenty acres for every Negro man slave and ten acres for every Negro Woman slave
brought into the colony in the first year, or ten and five acres respectively for every
man or woman slave brought in within the first five years. The result of this was that
by 1708 the Negro population was more than three times that of the white.
The increase in the number of Negroes gave rise to a corresponding fear of
Negro insurrection. To guard against this the colonial legislature passed laws in 1686
to ensure the domination of white masters. Negroes were forbidden to enter into trade,
they were not allowed to move about between sunset and sunrise without written
permission from their masters. White patrols were empowered to search Negroes and
to whip those who were considered to be dangerous to peace and order. The
overwhelming increase in numbers of the negroes led Carolina colonists by the
beginning of the 1 8th century to enact laws to decrease the disparity in the ratio of
white and negro population. In 1716 a law requiring each planter to have one white
86
servant for every ten Negro slaves was enacted. Further, a bounty of 25 dollars was
offered for every white servant brought into the colony. Late r duties were imposed for
every Negro imported into the colony. T h e se m e a s u re s h o w e v e r p ro v e d in a d e q u a te as
there were a series of conspiracies by the Negroes in the eighteenth c e n tu ry .
The establishment of slavery in the Carolinas was easily accomplished "because
after 1660traditional controls over master-servant relations were breaking down rapidly
in England itself" (Jordan, 84). The state in England was not at all concerned about
master-slave relationships in the colonies and the Council for Foreign Plantations
blandly asserted in 1664 "Blacks are the most useful appurtenances of a plantation and
perpetual servants" (Jordan, 85). Slavery in Colonial Carolina developed differently from
slavery in New England and Virginia. In Carolina slavery arrived almost fully fledged,
there was no interim period when there was any doubt about the status of the Negroes,
they came as slaves and were treated in a far more harsh manner than slaves in New
England and New York
Georgia : Georgia was established on different principles from those of other colonies. It
was to be settled by Englishmen who were released from prison. The trustees placed
a number of restrictions upon the settlers, there was to be no free land titles, no
alcoholic beverages and no Negro slaves. The trustees were very particular about
keeping slavery out of Georgia because they felt that most of the colonists would be
5
In 1720 several slaves were burned alive and others banished because of a revolt near
Charleston. In the Cato Conspiracy of 1739, the slaves killed two guards and began to
march towards Florida, killing all whites who tried to interfere. The whites armed
themselves, pursued and subdued the rebels. About thirty whites and 4 4 Negroes lost
their lives.
87
too poor to buy slaves. Moreover, the main aim of rehabilitation in establishing the
colony would fail if the settlers spent their time in overseeing Negro slaves instead of
engaging in honest labour.
The aims of the founders were irreproachable but the colonists had different
views on the subject. They did not see why they had to do without slaves when their
neighbours in Carolina had the help of their slaves to do the hard work. Colonists began
to petition the Government with formal requests for permission to import Negroes. The
first requests were rejected, but not to be undone they began to hire slaves from
Carolina on hundred year terms. In 1750, the prohibition against slavery was repealed
and Georgia followed the other Southern colonies by adopting a strict slave code to
control an ever-growing slave population.
In the slave codes adopted by Georgia in 1755, not more than seven slaves
were allowed to go out together unless they had a white person with them. Slaves
were not allowed to possess canoes, horses or guns. No Negro was to be taught to
read and write.
New York
The English took over New Netherlands from the Dutch in 1664 and renamed
it New York. This was about the time that slavery was being written into the law in the
Southern Tobacco Colonies. There were Negroes in New Amsterdam as early 1628, but
their exact status is not very clear. Winthrop D. Jordan feels that "the status of
Negroes under Dutch rule lies enshrouded in the same sort of fog which envelops the
English colonies” (Jordan,83). According to him Negroes were not slaves in New
88
Netherlands until 1650, Franklin, however, holds a different point of view. According
to him the West India Company which was instrumental m promoting the Dutch interest
in the slave trade owned several plantations which were cultivated with the help of
Negro slaves, "In 1638 the Director General of New Netherlands could report that the
largest farm owned by the Company was cultivated by the blacks" (Franklin,89). The
slaves under the Dutch were treated in a more humane way than in other colonies.
They were allowed freer movement and slaves were often manumitted for meritorious
services. The Dutch did not institute a rigid system of slavery.
The English instituted regulations similar to those that prevailed in other
colonies. In 1665, the first English Code recognized the practice of service for life in
a proviso patterned after the Massachusetts Bay law of 1641. Slavery flourished in
New York during the remaining years of the 17th century and the Negro population
grew as English vessels brought in a larger and larger number of Negroes each year.
By the eighteenth century slavery was firmly entrenched in New York. In 1706 colonial
legislature enacted a law stating that baptism of a slave did not provide any grounds
for a slave's claim to freedom.
Pennsylvania : -
When William Penn founded his colony in 1681 Negroes were already living in
that area. Records indicate that Negroes were working there from 1636. In 1662, the
Dutch West India company agreed to furnish fifty Negroes to be used as workers near
the lowland areas of the Delaware river.
Pennsylvania was the first colony where
sentiments against slavery were evident. The Quakers as a sect held slavery
89
in
abhorrence and in 1688 the Germantown Quakers issued a protest against human
servitude :
"These are the reasons ... why we are against the traffick of
man-body, as followeth :
Is there any that would be done or handled in this manner'1..
Now, tho they are black, we cannot conceive there is more
Liberty to have them slaves, as it is to have other white ones.
There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be
done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent
or color they are.And those who steal or robb man, and those
who buy or purchase them, are they not all alike?” '1
In 1693 George Keith remonstrated with the Pennsylvanians for holding men in
perpetual bondage. Religious feelings aside, slavery was not economically viable in
Pennsylvania. Plantation agriculture was not practised and the colony which consisted
mainly of small farmers, artisans and shopkeepers did not have to depend upon slave
labour.
Before 1700, the legal status of slaves was vague and in "many ways slaves
and indentured servants enjoyed similar positions” (Franklin, 97). After 1700, however,
the status of the slave was more clearly defined and laws were passed to distinguish
them from the rest of the colonists. However, slavery as practiced in Pennsylvania was
never at any time as harsh as that in the rest of the colonies. Unlike the Carolinas
where land was given for every slave brought into the colony, in Pennsylvania, duty
was imposed on every Negro brought into the colony. This was to discourage the
6
From facsimile copy, published at Germantown in 1880, rpt. in W.E.B. Du Bois, The
Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870
(1 896) in W.E.B.Du Bois : Writings ed., Nathan Huggins (New York : Literary classics
of the United States, Inc. 1986). 28-29.
90
importation of human flesh. It is clear, therefore, that in Pennsylvania slavery was to
take a different course from that of the rest of the colonies. The Quakers were lax in
the application of the Slave Codes and they were among the first to start organised
movement against this heinous practice. The Quakers unlike the puritans never sought
to justify slavery and were more interested in either bettering the lot of the slaves or
in trying to abolish the institution altogether. Since Negro slavery was not widespread
in Pennsylvania the colonists did not have to take recourse to stringent slave codes to
subdue a large slave population. In a study of the early history of the blacks in the
English colonies a number of facts come to light. The first and most obvious being that
the practice of discrimination against the blacks long preceded the law. There is no
evidence to show that blacks were ever looked on as equal to the whites.
Discriminatory legislation regarding the blacks preceded any legal definition of slavery.
Winthrop Jordan has meticulously gathered evidence to demolish the view that slavery
was the force that dragged the blacks down to social inferiority and degradation. The
roots of racial prejudice in America can be traced to its early colonial history.
The legal status of the Negro in early colonial history is shrouded in a mist but
the fact of discriminatory treatment meted out to them emerges even from the most
scanty records. Another point worth repeating is that slavery was an established
practice in both the Southern and Northern colonies, this belies the widely held
presumption that slavery was an offshoot of the plantation economy. Discriminatory
legislation against the Negroes was passed even in colonies where there was no fear
of the whites being swamped by the Negroes. The colonists in the 17th century
established the system of slavery, the more rigorous form of which was practised
before the Civil War. The roots of the Jim Crow laws can be traced b ack to th is period
91
itself. In the sentiments of the Quakers of Pennsylvania one can note the beginning of
the abolitionist movements.
1 8 t h C e n t u r y : P r e - R e v o lu t io n a r y E ra
The beginning of the 18th century saw slavery firmly established in the English
colonies. Slavery had become an integral part of American colonial life and till the
American Revolution there were no serious objections to the institution of slavery.
Ethical considerations were set aside and colonists accepted slavery unquestioningly
as a part of life. The slave population flourished apace, the slave trade which had been
growing steadily during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries reached its zenith in the
18th century. The defeat of the Dutch by France and England in the 17th century and
the war of Spanish succession helped England to establish a virtual monopoly on the
slave trade. There was no dearth of supply and English ships brought in more than
7 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 slaves to the New World in the 18th century, the highest number since the
slave trade began. This sudden increase in the number of slaves led the white man to
accept and adapt his way of life to the institution of slavery :
"For roughly the first sixty years of the eighteenth century slavery
itself grew
without appreciable
opposition,
or even
comprehension, gradually becoming barnacled with tradition,
folkways and a whole style of life. Most important for the future,
unthinking acquiescence in the existence of slavery, resulted in
unthinking acceptance of the presuppositions upon which slavery
rested. Slavery seemed a necessary response to conditions, a
submission to the decrees of life in America (Jordan, 101).
In the 18th century the heaviest concentration of negroes was to be found in
the Southern half of the English colonies. Negro settlement, was of course not a matter
of choice, They were forced to live wherever the white man found them more useful.
92
From about 1730 almost to until the Revolution Negroes comprised at least one third
of the total population within the line of English settlement from Maryland to South
Carolina. The increase in the number of Negroes in the 18th century led to a more rigid
codification of the slave laws because one of the major concerns of the white men was
the effective control of the large slave population.
Despite the myth of the happy, contented Negro slave that proponents of
slavery built up, there was a constant fear of slave insurrection. This fear was well
founded because the so called happy carefree Nigger not only reacted personally to
injustice but also fought together to conspire against his white oppressor. Slave
insurrection and white phobia was also not confined to the Southern colonies where
the slave codes were most strictly imposed.
In Virginia, slave unrest was evident in the 17th century itself. In 1687 a plot
was uncovered in the Northern Neck in which the slaves during a mass funeral, had
planned to kill all the whites in the vicinity in a desperate bid for freedom. By 1694
lawlessness among the slaves had become so widespread that governor Andros
complained " that there was insufficient enforcement of the code" (Franklin, 74). In
South Carolina stringent slave codes (and import duties) were not enough to suppress
insurgency. In 1720 and 1730 two serious Negro uprisings were suppressed near
Charleston and in 1739 there were three uprisings in the colony. The most serious was
the Cato conspiracy which began about twenty miles West of Charleston on a
plantation at Stono. The slaves killed two guards in a warehouse and secured arms and
ammunition and proceeded to escape toward Florida and freedom. The whites armed
themselves and pursued the rebels. After several encounters all but ten were captured
93
or killed. Similar plots were uncovered throughout the 18th century and as summarily
put down. Harsher slave laws were enacted to contain Negro insurgency
Slave insurrection was not confined to the Southern colonies alone. As a matter
of fact some of the most violent slave revolts took place in New York where laws were
enacted to completely suppress the negroes. The laws were, however, no proof against
the Negroes of New York who very early during the colonial period displayed a defiance
towards authority. In 1696 when the Mayor of New York ordered a group of slaves to
disperse, they refused and one of them even "assaulted the M a yo r on the face'
(Franklin, 91). He was, of course, publicly flogged, drawn round the city and
mercilessly lashed at every corner, this and similar treatment was meted out to any
Negro who showed even a hint of insolence, but public humiliation and even death was
not always enough to keep the Negro in his place. New Yorkers had to face a similar
situation in 1741 when fears of Negro insurgency plagued them.
Numerous other incidents of slave unrest appear throughout colonial history
exploding the myth of the happy Negro who was contented with his lot. Apologists for
slavery who contended that there were very few cases of Negro unrest and it was only
the abolitionists who put such thoughts in the Negro's head seem to have wilfully
overlooked a large section of the Negro population. The Negro's unhappiness with the
situation he found himself in was not, therefore, a p h e n o m e n o n of the Civil War, hut
had roots in the slave experience itself
Slave unrest raised a number of problems for the whites in the 18th century. To
contain slave insurrection slave codes had to be tightened and both the blacks w h o
94
were subjugated by the codes and the whites who had to enforce them were willy nilly
led to accept a way of life where the Negro was considered to be less than a human
being. The exact status of the Negro may be divined from a courtroom lecture
addressed to a condemned Negro in which he was told that :
"many, it may be said in most, of your complexion there was "an
untowardness, as it would seem, in the very Nature and Temper
of ye... degenerated and debased below the Dignity of Humane
Species... the Beasts of the People without so much loyality as
an ox or an ass".78
*
To keep the slave on the level of an animal seemed to be the major concern of the
whites. He was not only sold on the block like cattle, he was allowed none of the rights
the white colonists enjoyed. The negro slave could not possess arms, or fight for the
militia, he could not vote for the assembly and he had no rights over his children. They
belonged to the owner of the female slave. In regard to their marriage, they proceeded
as follows :
"In case you have not only male but likewise female negroes,
they must intermarry, fitalics mine) and then the children are all
your slaves; but if you possess a male negro only, and he has an
indication to marry a female belonging to a different master, you
do not hinder your negro in so delicate a point, but it is no
advantage to you, for the children belong to the master of the
female; it is therefore advantageous to have negro-women".15
He could at the whim of his owner be separated from his family. There are, innumerable
cases of children separated from their parents and of female slaves sexually abused by
7
(Horsmanden), Journal of Proceedings, VI, 186, quoted in Jordan, 1 19.
8
Peter Kalm, "Kalm's Travels in North America" rpt. in The Making of American
Democracy Readings and Documents. Vol.l, 1942-1865ed. Ray Allen Billington et.al.
rev. ed. (New York : Holt, Rhinehart Winston, 1966) 69.
95
their white masters. The Negroes could not appeal to any white. The movement'', of the
Negro slave was restricted, and if he escaped, his master could capture and bring him
back. The Negro slave in short was his master's property and was completely at his
mercy.
This discriminatory treatment was not confined to the Negro slave. Indignity and
humiliation was heaped on the free Negro as well. Many colonies during the 1st half of
the 18th Century did their best to prevent too many negroes from becoming free.
Between 1722 and 1740, South Carolina required newly freed slaves to leave the
province, unless permitted to remain by special act of assembly. Virginia in 1691
required manumitted Negroes to leave the colony, but by 1 723 prohibited manumission
unless specifically permitted by the governor and Council. Georgia, however, placed no
bars on manumission and the northern colonies which set conditions on manumission
were more concerned with masters freeing superannuated slaves so that their upkeep
would fall on the public purse. Despite the conditions set on manumission there was
a steady trickle of private manumissions, through the first half of the 1 8th century.
Once free, the Negroes had to face humiliating restrictions Often they were
included in certain provisions of the slave codes. They could not testify against whites,
were prohibited from striking white colonists, and many colonies passed laws excluding
Negroes from the militia. Free negroes were barred from sexual relations with whites,
they were often more severely punished than white men for the same crime, taxed
more heavily and prohibited from owning real estate.
96
Free Negroes were generally excluded from the polls. North and South Carolina
officially prohibited Negro voting from about 1715. Georgia reserved the right to vote
to white men in 1761 and Virginia excluded Negroes from the polls in 1723. In
Maryland and the northern colonies Negroes were not officially barred from voting, but
it "seems fairly certain that they were usually barred by local customs" (Jordan, 1 26).
Governor William Gooch of Virginia seemed to echo popular colonial sentiment on the
suffrage issue when he wrote to the Board of Trade in England in 1736 indicating the
necessity of legislation restricting suffrage to the whites :
"The Assembly thought it necessary to fix a perpetual Brand upon
Free Negroes and Mulattos by excluding them from that great
privilege of a Freeman.... And 'tis likewise said to have been done
with design, which I must think a good one, to make the free
Negroes sensible that a distinction ought to be made between
their offsprings and the Descendants of an Englishman, with
whom they never were to be Accounted Equal.9
Although legal segregation did not exist in 1 8th century America, the whites
effectively kept Negroes, slaves as well as free, at arms length. In the sphere of work
white workers became reluctant to work alongside Negroes, the result was that
Negroes were automatically assigned more servile tasks. In the churches too, Negroes
were usually seated in a separate section of the church. This separation, was a fall out
of 18th century ideas about strict adherence to social distinctions. Where education
was concerned it becomes increasingly apparent that avenues for acquiring quality
education for free Negroes was severely limited. Churches did run schools but these
were rarely racially mixed and where racially mixed schools did exist the white
communities were antagonists to the idea of their children studying with Negroes.
9
William Gooch to Board of Trade. May 1 8, 1 736. Quoted in Jordan, 1 2 7 .
97
The status of the free Negro in the 1st half of the 18th century is a clear
indicator that discrimination against the Negro was more on the basis of race than
because of their slave status. This is borne out by the fears of miscegenation and of
the white man's increasing desire to rationalize the differences, physical and mental,
between himself and the Negro.
There was extensive interracial mixing in most of the English colonies, this is
made obvious by the presence of a large number of mulattoes. There were regional
differences in miscegenation between different colonies, but one aspect was common
throughout the colonies. Miscegenation (and the offsprings of such unions) was always
a source of great tension rivalling only the tension caused by fear of slave uprisings.
Nowhere was miscegenation considered a good thing. In most colonies offsprings of
these unions were considered illegitimate and laws were passed prohibiting
miscegenation. The Virginia
and Maryland
assemblies passed
laws
against
miscegenation as early as 1660followed by N. Carolina in 1717, Pennsylvania in 1726
and Georgia in 1740.
Racial slavery in the colonies resulted in the complete subjugation of the
Negroes by the whites who used various methods to control a large slave population.
Sexually, as in every other way, the white man completely dominated the Negroes.
Black women were sexually exploited and the black man who watched impotently was
completely emasculated. Out of interracial sexual relationships a uniform set of beliefs
concerning the negroes' sexual powers emerged. This core of beliefs which took shape
during the colonial period remained in force (right down to the twentieth century) for
centuries and shaped the course of black-white relationships.
98
The common assumption about the Negroes was that they were more lascivious
than the whites. The Negro woman was considered to be far more passionate than her
white counterpart. Her sexual abandonment was attributed to the fact that she was a
barbarian and came from a hotter climate. By conferring such attributes to the black
women the white man was by implication excusing his own infidelity and justifying his
passion. By calling the black woman passionate he succeeded in shifting the
responsibility of his lasciviousness to her. The white man could scarcely be blamed for
succumbing to the passionate overtures of the black woman.
White attitudes to the Negro male were complex. It was a common belief that
Negro men were more virile and promiscuous than whites. Added to this was the belief
that all Negro males lusted after white women. The whites accepted these attributes
unquestioningly and whenever there were fears of slave insurrection there was a
concurrent fear of sexual aggression even though most of the time it was baseless. The
fears of the white man to a certain extent, were a fall out of his own sexual aggression.
He was afraid that his own dominance, was threatened. In calling the Negro male
promiscuous he was projecting his own sexual promiscuousness on to the Negro male
and so assuaging his own guilt.
The white man's fear of Negro sexual aggression and his own sense of sexual
inadequacy is illustrated by the fact that castration was often used as a tool of
punishment and slave control. Jordan pointed out that castration was never legally
authorized in New England, whereas in the Carolinas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New
Jersey it was sanctified by law: " Castration of Negroes clearly indicated a desperate,
generalized need in white men to persuade themselves that they were really masters
99
and in all ways masterful, and it illustrated dramatically the ease with which white men
slipped into treating their Negroes like their bulls and stallions whose 'spirit' could be
subdued by emasculations” (Jordan, 156).
The American colonist's distaste for miscegenation can be measured by the way
in which the children of interracial sexual unions were treated. In the Portuguese and
Spanish colonies of South America there was a complicated system of measuring the
child depending on the degree of intermixture of Negro and European blood. In
complete contrast, the English colonists lumped anyone with even a tinge of Negro
blood a mulatto. In no English colony did mixed blood confer immunity from slavery or
discrimination. The Mullato was always classed with the Negro. Neither the whites or
the negroes for that matter thought that white blood conferred any distinction upon the
mulatto. The only way in which a person of mixed blood could move into white society
was by 'passing' i.e. passing himself off as white. This ruse led to further
complications and the mullato had to always live with the fear of discovery. The
children of miscegenation were never accepted by whites because miscegenation itself
aroused unreasoning fear and dislike in the minds of the white population.
Some of this dislike can be traced to the differences between the Africans and
Europeans. The most startling difference was obviously that of colour. The white man's
distaste for the African's appnnrancn was augmented by the African's slave status. It
seemed to be a depravity. Even through there could be no gainsaying the fact that
blacks were humans the white intelligentsia placed them below the whites in the Great
Chain of Being. The Negroes were closer to the Apes. This belief coupled with that of
the story of Noah's son relegated the Negro to an extremely low status. A position in
100
society he seemed unable to get out of. The position of the Negro did not appreciably
change up to the Revolutionary period. There had been protests against the slave trade,
some colonies had imposed almost prohibitive import duties and some religious groups
like the Quakers had questioned the right of one man to hold another in bondage.
However, there had been no frontal attack upon the institution of slavery and even in
the Northern colonies the majority of colonists paid little attention to the pernicious
institution.
For the Southern slaveholders, the American Revolution was a war for political
liberty, which among other rights, included the right to hold slaves. This contradictory
stance was obvious to masters, slaves and the British. Masters became more
concerned about slavery and its abolition as thousands of slaves fled to the British who
promised them freedom. About 5000 slaves served with the revolutionary armies while
an estimated 30,000 went over to the British. The Acts of British Parliament "set
people a thinking more than they had done in their lives before" (Franklin, 1 27). They
began to think of their dual role as oppressed and oppressor. It was almost natural for
the colonists to link the problem of Negro Slavery to their fight against England. The
struggle of Negroes to secure their freedom was also growing. When James Otis was
penning his eloquent protest on the Rights of the British Colonies, in which he affirmed
the Negro's inalienable right to freedom, Negroes themselves were petitioning the
General Court of Massachusetts for their freedom on the grounds that it was their
natural right. The actions of Crispus Attucks, a black man, on the night of the Boston
Massacre when he was killed aroused the conscience of the colonists. In 1774, Abigail
Adams wrote to her husband, "It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to
fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as
101
good a right to freedom as we have". About the same time Thomas Jefferson wrote
"A summary view of the Rights of British America" in which he said that the abolition
of slavery was the great object of desire in the colonies, but that it had become
increasingly difficult because Britain had consistently blocked all colonial efforts to put
an end to the slave trade. In their thinking the colonists had moved from
an
unquestioning acceptance of slavery to a position where they saw that slavery was
inconsistent with their fight against England.
However, the real test for the colonists came when Jefferson submitted his draft
for the Declaration of Independence. The formulation that all men were created equal
and, therefore, had "certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness" was accepted. But when he made specific charges against the King among
which was one that he had "waged cruel war against human nature itself" by
establishing slavery in the colonies, the delegates found it unacceptable. Those who
favoured slavery realized that if Jefferson's views prevailed in the Declaration of
Independence, there would be no justification for slavery once independence was
gained. This silence of the Declaration of Independence on the matter of slavery made
it difficult for abolitionists to use the document to bolster their arguments. The
ambivalence that is apparent in the Declaration is also seen in the constitution which
was written during the summer of 1787.
The constitution was written eleven years after the colonists had declared their
independence. During the intervening years there were conflicts between the States.
An important factor that kept the states from trusting one another was the institution
of slavery. There were about 50,000 slaves in the U.S. at that time and they
102
constituted about 20 percent of the total population. However, more than 90 per cent
of them lived in the South. By 1787, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had abolished
slavery and Connecticut, Rhode island and New York had enacted programmes of
gradual emancipation. By 1804, all the states North of Maryland, except Delaware
would be committed to abolition. However, the South was moving in the opposite
direction. In Virginia in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War a programme of
voluntary emancipation had been tried, but by 1787 a negative reaction to it had
already begun to settle in. In the other Southern States, the commitment to slavery as
the normal status for the Afro-Americans never wavered The difference in attitude of
the Southern and Northern states led to a showdown in the federal convention of
1787. The delegates, all white males, agreed on almost everything except slavery. In
parts of the country where there were few slaves, it was readily seen that slavery was
inconsistent with the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence. But in
sections where Afro-Americans were numerous, most white people thought slavery
was necessary . Without slavery, they argued, Afro-Americans would abuse their
liberty, and the economy of the South based on plantation agriculture, would collapse.
The framers of the constitution had a difficult time trying to bridge the widening chasm
between the states.
The issue of slavery could not be ignored because it was linked to two
fundamental questions before the convention : the problem of representation, and the
problem of what powers to assign to the federal government. On the question of
representation the system of one state one vote system that had prevailed in the
Continental Congress had to be changed. In 1783 the problem had been to distribute
the tax burden among the various states. Southerners, to reduce their share of the tax
103
burden sought to eliminate slaves from the formula altogether, while Northerners tried
to have slaves equal with free men, A compromise had been struck whereby slaves
counted as three-fifths of a free person. In 1787 the roles were reversed, it was the
Northerners who insisted that slaves should be counted as equal to free persons. No
one at the convention, proposed that slaves, as such, be represented in the Continental
Congress or in the Electoral College. What was at stake was whether to give
Southerners any additional representation for their slaves. Finally, the Southerners won,
a Constitution was framed where black slaves were politically not persons at all; yet
at the same time, slaveholders were given more weight in the Government than men
who owned no slaves.
The second issue which confronted the framers of the Constitutions concerned
the powers of the federal government. On this point as it affected slavery vHitnernen
were adamant, the federal government could not interfere with the institution of
slavery. Northern delegates were only too willing to consider slavery as a 'local'
institution which was not to be subject to federal regulation. Northerners whose
consciences were troubled by this approach consoled themselves with the belief that
slavery was dying anyway. In fact, this was an illusion. Deep Southerners at the
convention were quite candid about their reliance on slavery and their intention to keep
black people enslaved. The slave trade affected relations between the states. Public
opinion in the North was extremely hostile to it and planters in Virginia and Maryland
believed they had enough slaves and were willing to outlaw the trade immediately.
However, the Deep Southerners did not agree and the argument was again resolved by
a compromise, the Carolinians and Georgians would be permitted to import slaves for
20 more years after which the Congress would be authorized to outlaw the trade. The
1 04
other issue which was discussed, and an understanding arrived at were the laws that
were to govern fugitive slaves. The Northerners agreed that fugitives could be taken
back but the financial burden of recovery would fall on the owners. After this law was
passed there was no place in the United States that could provide a legal sanctuary for
slaves. No Northerner expressed concern that the clause might endanger the liberty and
safety of free blacks. The only issue debated was the right of the slaveholder to his
property. The American Revolution had freed the white Americans from the shackles
of Britain, but for her black population, freedom from Britain meant only a more
stringent adherence to the slave codes, especially in the South, the Constitution had
effectively placed the Negro on a much lower level than the white man. His inferiority
was written into the Constitution and it would take a long time for him to overcome
this hurdle:
"The adoption of the federal constitution marks the end of an era
not only in the political history of the United States but in the
history of the American Negroes as well... Americans could no
longer lay the onus for slavery at the door of the Mother country
They proudly accepted the challenge and responsibility of their
new political freedom by establishing the machinery and
safeguards that ensured the continued enslavement of the Negro”
(Franklin, 144).
The Nineteenth Century : The Civil War and After:By the end of the 18th century, slavery was on its way out in the Northern
colonies, and the framers of the Constitutions hoped that slavery would soon die out
in the Southern colonies as well. The glut in the tobacco market and the fact that rice
and indigo brought little profits to the planters raised hopes of slavery declining in the
Southern colonies. However, the demand for cotton to feed the textile industry in
England, after the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 paid
105
put to such hopes. Cotton became an extremely profitable crop and negro labour
became essential for the economic well being of the South. ' The Louisiana Purchase'
of 1803 opened up new lands for cotton cultivation and there was increasing demand
for Negro slaves.
It was inevitable that the question of slavery would become the most important
issue in the formation of the new states. The Northern states insisted that the new
states were not to become slaves states. However, the Southern states were not
willing to accept this. The land that was being settled was eminently suitable for cotton
cultivation and the settlers insisted that slavery was essential. Finally a compromise
was reached in 1820 where slavery was excluded from Louisianan Purchase Lands
North of 36° 30 latitude. The Missouri Comprises deeply disturbed thinkers like
Thomas Jefferson who felt that the failure to limit the expansion of slavery threatened
the very life of the nation. He described the decision as a "reprieve" and said that the
news came "like a fire bell in the night awakened and filled me with terror. I considered
it at once the knell of the Union"10
The expansion of slavery into the western lands led to the rise of the domestic
slave trade and the enactment of strict laws to control the negroes. These Black Codes
covered every aspect of the life of the slaves. The domestic slave trade gained new
footholds after the official closing of the African trade in 1808. States like Kentucky,
Virginia and Maryland which grew little or no cotton found it profitable to enter the
slave trade. Their excess slaves could profitably be sold to the rapidly expanding cotton
10 Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820 in The Making of American
Democracy : Readings and Documents. Vil-I. ed. Billington et. al. Rev. ed. ( N e w York
: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1966) 249.
106
states of the South. The domestic slave trade led to the pernicious custom of breeding
slaves. This custom was one of the most fantastic manipulations of human
development in the history of mankind. Southerners who prided themselves on their
civility and culture saw nothing wrong in treating their slaves like prize animals. The
domestic slave trade also led to the dividing of families. White owners pacified their
consciences by arguing that family ties among slaves were either extremely loose or
non-existent and slaves were, therefore, indifferent to separation. The buying and
selling of human flesh became a part of the social fabric of the South.
The enactment of stringent laws, known as the Black Codes led to the complete
degradation of the Negro. The laws differed from state to state but the basic premise
upon which they were based was the same. The premise was that slaves were not
persons but property and laws should protect the ownership of such property and
should maintain a due subordination of the slaves in order that the optimum of
discipline and work could be affected. A slave had no standing in the courts. The
ownership of property by slaves was generally forbidden. The killing of a slave was
rarely regarded as murder and the rape of a female slave was regarded as a crime only
because it involved destroying the property of another. Restrictions were placed on the
movement of slaves, they were not allowed to carry fire arms and education was
denied to them. In the planation they were made to work mercilessly and the housing
and clothes provided for them was of the lowest quality. All these measures cannot be
explained away as the result of economic necessity alone. Racial stigma was at the
root of many of these Black Codes. The close connection "between the stigma of
slavery and the Negro began early in the history of American society. The reinvigoration
of slavery during the nineteenth century rendered that original attachment even more
107
close" (Degler, 185).
All these repressive measure had an immense influence on the psychology of
the Negro. They were forced to submit to powerful white masters, and this led to the
popular conception of the happy and contented slave. Slave owners were quick to point
out that the black man's nature helped him to adapt to an inferior status. They based
their argument on the fact that there were very few revolts in the South. Researchers
like John Hope Franklin have, however, unearthed evidence of the underground
Railroad, and the fact that Negroes fought in the Civil War show the widespread
dissatisfaction of the Negroes with the prevailing system. The slave songs also reveal
much about the unhappiness of the Negroes with their lot.
In a society which justified slavery as the proper status for the black race there
was very little place for the free Negro. The free Negroes were often hounded out of
the south by legislation which were enacted to make life impossible for them. Many
states in the years preceding the Civil War passed laws designed to facilitate the
enslavement of free negroes. It was little wonder then th a t th e im a g e m v/hioh the
Negro beheld himself was largely determined by his actual status under slavery.
"The very demeanour of the black was conditioned by slavery.
Under the duress of the whip they learned the need for deferential
behavior, recognized that they must present happy faces to
masters and mistresses, and that to appear too smart or too
ready around white folks could be dangerous. Habits of work,
responsibility and self-respect were geared to the low standard
set by slavery" (Degler, 187-1885.
108
The doctrine of Negro inferiority which had begun as early as the seventeenth century
was given a fillip by nineteenth century pseudo scientific arguments. Ethnologists like
J.C. Nott and J.D.B. De Bow contended that the physical differences between the
Negro and the Caucasian rendered them morally and politically different.
Even though all states north of Pennsylvania had provided for eventual abolition
by 1804, anti slavery sentiments had lost most of its vigor by 1790 (Jordan 349).
According to Jordan a number of reasons led to this decline. A Revolutionary
philosophy which stressed the importance of the right to property could not benefit the
Negro. As slaves were property, their masters obviously had the right to dispose of
them as they wished. Even Humanitarian sentiments which gained ground in the 19th
century finally helped in making slavery more acceptable. By concentrating on the
elimination of inhumane treatment, "the humanitarian impulse helped make slavery
more benevolent and paternal and hence more tolerable for the slave owner and even
for the abolitionist" (Jordan, 368). Abolitionists, were not very popular even in the
North because they advocated freedom for the Negro at the cost of the Union.
It was only when the southern states began to insist that the North co operate
with them in the preservation of slavery that the Northern stance against slavery began
to harden once again. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which the South had won as
concession in the compromise of that year, was an example of this. Under this law the
card's were heavily stacked in favour of the slave catcher and Jury trials were
eliminated. This law appeared to many in the North as an attempt by the Southern
states to infringe in the rights of the Northern states. As a consequence, in many of the
free states the act became a nullity. The Missouri compromise further alienated
109
Northerners. For 33 years the North had believed that the 36° 30' line constituted a
permanent barrier to the northward expansion of slavery. In the new act they felt that
the Southerners had broken a solemn promise. The desire of the Southern states to
enlist Northern support for the extension of slavery into new areas led to the formation
of the Republican Party. The divisions between the states had now begun to reach a
point where compromise was no longer feasible. The Dred Scott case of 1857 further
widened the gulf. The Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott could not be freed
because under the laws of Missouri, Scott was not a citizen. The judgement further
stated that Afro-Americans had not been citizens at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution and had not become citizens of the nation since. Thus, Scott had been a
slave even while at Fort Snelling for Congress had exceeded its authority in adopting
the Missouri Compromise prohibition on slavery. In 1 860, Abraham Lincoln was elected
President, solely on votes form the North and Southerners felt that they had no other
option but no secede from the Union.
The Civil War which lasted through 1861-65 had a greater impact on AfroAmerican than any other single event in the nation's history. Before the war, the vast
majority of black Americans were legally slaves, after the war the 'peculiar institution'
was finally stamped out with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. In 1857, the
Dred Scott decision had announced that no Afro-American could be a citizen of the
United States. After the war, constitutional amendments and legal statutes affirmed the
citizenship of Afro-Americans. It is important to realise that these victories were not
just by-products of he conflict between white-Southerners and Northerners, they were
also the result of a long struggle by black men and women. Afro-Americans had fought
in the Union army and worked for abolition. This participation in the war effort was not.
110
however, a simple matter because the black was not welcomed to join the army
Frederick Douglass took the lead in urging the Union to let the blacks fight. The AfroAmerican had to struggle for the right to fight in a war that affected him more
dramatically than any other in American History. It was only in 1862 that the Lincoln
administration agreed to allow blacks to join the Union army. The large scale
participation of the hlacks in the war effort and the conduct of the black soldiers in the
army helped to win some of the power for their causes of freedom and citizenship.
The Afro-American campaign against slavery had been going on for generations,
but the Civil War gave them a fresh impetus and a new hope for final success. Leaders
like Frederick Douglass were outspoken in their belief that the war should be seen as
an effort to free the slaves as well as to preserve the Union. Along with their fight for
emancipation blacks began to attack all forms of overt racial discrimination, the majority
of mid-nineteenth century Americans considered blacks to be inferior. Abraham
Lincoln's famous statement during his debates with Douglass in 1858 that he was not
in favour of social equality for the Negro, echoed prevalent white sentiments. The
Negro, he said "is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in c o lo r, perhaps not
in moral or intellectual endowment". (Degler, 202). Socially, blacks were generally
shunned and the segregation of public facilities was common. The blacks had access
to very poor quality education and they could vote on an equal basis with white men
only in five states. Faced with this second class status blacks in the North began to
speak out against supposed inferiority and they even led successful movements against
segregation in streetcars and schools in some states.
R e co n stru ctio n 1 8 5 7 - 1 8 7 7
The period immediately after the Civil War was taken up with the tremendous
task of rebuilding the South. The new status of the Afro-American had to be studied
and the rights of the newly emancipated black had to be safeguarded. The Freedman's
Bureau was set up by the federal Government in 1865 with this aim in view. When the
war ended, the position of the newly freed black man was ambiguous throughout the
nation. In the North, though he was e citizen, society discriminated against him, end
he was denied the ballot in all states except New York and five in New England, In the
South the Negro was neither slave or citizen. With the adoption of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, however, blacks became full citizens, equal
in civil rights and voting privileges with white men. However, these Amendments and
the moderate Civil Rights law which was passed by Congress were not enough to
secure the rights of the blacks permanently. Initially blacks sat in constitutional
conventions and helped to draft state constitutions. They also held responsible offices
and represented their states in Washington D.C. But these inroads were not enough to
stem the racial hatred and fear which had existed for centuries.
Most Southern whites remained irrevocably opposed to granting blacks a
position of equality in the United States. White racist preconceptions, were in no way
eliminated by the actual behaviour of black men and women. Afro-Americans were
identified as bitter enemies and white terror organizations quickly began to be formed
to intimidate blacks. Groups like the infamous Ku Klux Xian, Knights of the White
Camelia and White Brotherhood resorted to systematic violence for political ends. The
extent of violence inflicted on blacks can be gauged by the claims of a white supremist
gang, Higgie's Scouts, who announced that they had murdered 116 blacks in
Mississippi alone. The Southern whites were not willing to accept the black man's new
place as defined by the constitution. Worsening economic conditions and changes in
the political scenario turned the attention of the Northerners away from the blacks and
the promises they had made were soon forgotten.
One by one, beginning in the late 1860s, the former Confederate states reverted
to exclusively white rule. Blacks were effectively excluded from government by new
regimes that rode to power on waves of political intimidation and economic
ascendancy, the U.S. Supreme Court virtually nullified the racially protective aspects
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In the case of United States, V
Crukshank, in 1 874, a distinction was drawn between those rights protected under the
Fourteenth Amendments by the Federal Government and those rights protected by the
state governments. Since voting was a state right, the individual states involved should
protect the constitutional rights of their citizens to vote. In the case of United States
V. Reese, also in 1874, the court ruled that though discrimination could not be legally
practiced on the grounds of race, color or previous condition of servitude, any other
grounds regardless of racial intent might be acceptable The withdrawal of federal
troops in 1877 helped to speed up the process of disenfranchisement of the blacks
During the nineties and the opening years of the twentieth century a number of
constitutional conventions wrote an end to Negro participation in Southern politics. The
way was led by the Mississippi Constitutional Assembly of 1890 which eliminated the
Negro voter permanently and institutionally. Poll taxes and literary tests were the
principle devices employed to circumvent the prohibitions of the Fifteenth Amendment.
The end of Reconstruction also marks the failure of the Freedman's Bureau The
Bureau failed in its primary duty to protect black
c iv il
rights
in th e h o s t i le s o u t h
The
Bureau had only limited success in its attempt to secure justice for blacks. It was only
able to extend protection for the short period it was in existence and left little
permanent benefit. Most agents were aware, even before the Bureau ended, that they
had not gained enough courtroom protection for black citizens from the violence of
white people. For the black man, ownership of land was a vital necessity if he was to
gain economic independence. The law that created the Freedman's Bureau had also
provided that confiscated and abandoned land be rented or sold to the freed slaves.
Though a few freedmen secured land in this manner. President Andrew Johnson's
Amnesty Act of May 29, 1865, and his later liberal pardoning policy, which restored
to owners all property except slaves took most of the land away from Bureau
supervision. Where the black man did get possession of land he did not have the
necessary capital to make farming a success. The result was a dependence of
sharecropping which did not give him the independence for which he had fought. Black
men had no choice, they had to accommodate themselves to the harsh realities of a
labour market over which they had little power. Black folk remained a peasant class,
subservient to white owners of land and wealth. And without economic independence,
political independence was all but impossible.
However, the Freedom's Bureau, did make a long lasting contribution to the
struggle of the American black to gain equality. This was in the field of education.
Before Reconstruction, governments provided public education only for whites. Most
southern whites viewed, education for blacks as dangerous and a waste of effort. All
over the South in 1865-67, Northern whites who attempted to instruct b'acks were
114
subjected to violent attacks. The Freedman's Bureau provided valuable service by
building schools and providing free transportation and cheap provisions for teachers.
The Bureau also served as a co-ordinating body for benevolent institutions who were
sending teachers and funds to the South. During its five years of operation in the South
the Bureau claimed that it was instrumental in instituting 4,239 schools that employed
9,307 teachers and instructed 2,47,333 pupils.
The rise in education among the blacks was the only silver lining in the
otherwise dark history of the Afro-American during the closing years of the 19th
century. Once the black was effectively disfranchised Southern whites did everything
in their power to keep the races completely separate. Beginning in Tennessee in 1870,
Southerners enacted laws against intermarriage of the races in every Southern state.
Five years later Tennesse adopted the first "Jim Crow" law and the rest of the South
rapidly followed suit. Blacks and whites were separated on streetcars, waiting rooms,
cemeteries, in housing, in prisons and even in telephone booths. By 1885, most
Southern states had laws requiring separate schools, and in 1896, the Supreme Court
upheld segregation in the "separate but equal" doctrine in the Plessy V. Ferguson case.
Blacks reacted in several ways to white proscriptions. Barred from politics some
turned to the accommodationist philosophy of Booker. T. Washington (1856 1915),
who advised Blacks to work diligently and patiently for economic advancement which
would in turn bring equality. Washington's philosophy was anathema to leaders like
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1863), who thought that Washington was not militant enough
with regard to agitation for civil rights. He formed the Niagra Movement in 1905 as a
protest against both Washington's leadership and the deteriorating legal situation. This
115
movement was one of the bases for N.A.A.C.P. Du Bois was also an influential figure
in the Pan-African Congress held in 1919. Afro-Americans led by leaders like Du Bois
began to petition Congress for a new civil rights bill. Failing this, they began agitating
for state civil rights laws in the North. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century saw states like California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New-Jersey, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin passing or strengthening Civil
Rights acts. In general, the laws barred discrimination in public amusement, travel, inns
and theaters. One of the most persistent of the black's campaigns was the protest
against Jim Crow travel arrangements. State laws were challenged in the U S. Supreme
Court, and between 1887 and 1910, six cases were bought before the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
Many black leaders spoke out against segregated travel, they called it immoral,
unchristian, inconvenient, tyrannical and an attempt to fasten a badge of inferiority on
blacks. The protest against segregation on streetcars was the most effective. When
southern states and municipalities passed Jim Crow laws pertaining to local
transportation between 1891 and 1909, Afro-Americans in Atlanta, Augusta and
Savannah, were so successful in their boycotts that public transportation companies
dropped the segregated seating arrangement. From 1901 to 1905, black boycotts were
partially successful in Jacksonville and Pensacola, and Montgomery Mobile However,
victory was temporary as white supremacy crusades stringently enforced the line of
caste.
116
The Twentieth Century
By the end of nineteenth century the dreams of freedom of most Afro-Americans
seem to have ended with the enactment of stringent Jim Crow laws. The riots that
flared up both in the North and the South were a clear indication of the immense chasm
between the two races.1’ The increasing number of lynchmys were also seen by most
Afro-Americans as portents of worse things to come. The violence that the AfroAmerican had to face was daunting but the Civil War and the Reconstruction had
succeeded in giving to the blacks a voice they never had earlier In 1905, a group of
young men led by W.E. B. Du Bois, decided
to fight more aggressively. They
demanded "freedom of speech and criticism, manhood suffrage, the abolition of all
distinctions based on race,the recognition of the basic principles of human brotherhood,
and respect for the working man" (Franklin, 445). The Niagra Movement as it was
known, later merged into a larger bi-racial group known as the N.A.A.C.P. The
N.A.A.C.P. launched a vigorous programme against lawlessness and lynchmgs It also
worked towards gaining industrial opportunities for the Negro. Its mouthpiece the '
Crisis' played an important role in disseminating its racial views amongst a large
number of people. The Legal Redress Committee of the N.A.A.C.P fought legal battles
incessantly for the rights which were denied to the black man.
Two other factors, the migration of the blacks to the North, and the participation
of black soldiers in World Wars-I and II also played a decisive role in the fight for racial
equality. One of the most important social and economic phenomena during World War
11 In 1904. Statesboro, in Georgia was rocked by riots. The most sensational riot occurred
in Atlanta in Sept, 1906. In Aug, 1906, three companies of Negro soldiers were
involved in rioting in Brownsville Texas. In the north riots took place in 1904 in Ohio
and 1908 in Illinois.
117
i was tha migration of thousands of blacks to thn North. Thn severe labor depression
in the South in 1914 and 1915 and the damage by the boll weevil to cotton crops
during 1915 and 1916 forced many black farmers to leave the South. Meanwhile, the
decline of foreign immigrants and the increased industrialisations of the North created
a large market for black labor. Adverse social conditions in the Southern states also
caused many blacks to leave for the North. Lynching, disfranchisement, injustice in the
southern courts, in short an existence as a second class citizen made southern blacks
leave for the North in large numbers. Very often life in the North for the blacks was a
far cry from the rosy picture that they had dreamt of. They were crowded into
tenements12, their children were sent to second rate schools, they were exploited by
white industrialists and nothing in their rural life prepared them for the rigors of life in
the cities. This led to an increase in crime and juvenline delinquency. However, in spite
of the deprivations and discomforts of the city, urbanization was important for the
political regeneration of black America. The concentration of blacks in northern cities
led to greater political sophistication. Perusing the records they began to vote with
greater discernment. In 1923they voted against those who had defeated the Dyer anti­
lynching bill. In 1930, they defeated two senators who had voted for the confirmation
of the North Carolina racist John J. Parker as Supreme Court Justice. In addition they
began to shift their political allegiance to the Democratic Party. Blacks first
demonstrated their political muscle when they elected a black Republican, Oscar de
Priest of Chicago to Congress in 1928. The political clout of the blacks was also
reflected in the importance that Presidential candidates gave to the question of race.
Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt were among the first Presidential candidates
12 See Richard Wright, 1 2 Million Black Voices : A Folk History of the Negro in the United
States. (New York: Arno Press, 1969).
118
who promised to work for racial equality. This trend was followed by President
Kennedy whose victory was to a large extent dependent on the black vote.
The participation of black soldiers in both the World Wars was also another
important factor in rousing the self pride of the blacks. It also directed world attention
to the discrimination meted out to the blacks in a country which was fighting against
fascism. Black men were enlisted in the Army only after the passage of the selective,
Service Act on May 18, 1917. However, they were no longer satisfied to participate
in the war only as enlisted men. They began a campaign demanding the setting up of
training camps for black officers. After much petitioning camps were set up to train
black officers and soon many black men received commissions in the army.The
recruitment of back officers did not stop discrimination in the army and in the civilian
agencies that served in the army. Complaints flooded the War Department about the
discriminatory attitude of white officers towards black soldiers. Black soldiers
possessed qualifications for posts requiring higher skills and intelligence. Despite these
drawbacks exemplary courage was shown by black soldiers in battle. The experience
of the black soldiers in France did much to raise the moral of blacks both at home and
in Europe. For the most part black soldiers moved about freely in France and associated
on equal terms with both French men and women. Although white Americans looked
on askance at such activities the black soldiers who had once tasted of such equality,
found it difficult and undesirable to return to the inferior positions that the United
States offered to them. They felt that it was not unreasonable to hope that the ideals
of democracy for which they had willingly laid down their lives would now be available
to them in their own country. They did not want to return to a pre-war normalcy, the
editor of the 'Crisis' undertook to speak for returning Negro soldiers when he said :
119
"We return ; we return from fighting. We return fighting. Make
way for Democracy! We saved it in France and by the Great
Jehovah, we will save it in the U S.A., or know the reason why"
(Franklin, 479).
The returning Negro soldiers and the black population were no longer satisfied
with their inferior positions. They saw that they could fight as bravely as their white
counterparts and this gave a boost to their self-esteem. Tf\e whites, however, were
equally determined to see that Negroes did not get the benefits of first class citizens.
The Ku Klux Klan had been revived in the Southern states but after the war the
movement gained momentum. From an organization which boasted of a few thousand
members it became a militant union of more than 100,000 members. It spread into
areas where there had been no previous manifestations of race hatred. It was
instrumental in inflicting violence and intimidation on Negroes, Japanese and other
Orientals.
However, Negroes were no longer willing to accept meekly the treatment meted
out to them. Race riots become an increasingly common feature of life in the United
States. In 1919, alone 25 race riots took place in different urban centres of the
country. The increased population of Negroes in the cities, coupled with militant Negro
soldiers unwilling to compromise and give up the gains they had acquired during the
war, showed in a willingness to defend themselves against white fascist groups,
something which Negroes had never done earlier. More far reaching and lasting effects
were won by organizations like N.A.A.C.F., the National Equal Rights League and the
National Baptist Convention. The N.A.A.C.P. fought vigorously to secure the passage
of a federal law against lynching. The Association also undertook to secure in the
courts the rights which Negroes could not otherwise obtain. It sought to break down
1 20
the practice of the southern states of excluding Negroes from the Democratic primaries
After many legal battles it finally succeeded in 1944 in the Smith V. Allwight case,
when the Supreme court decided that the exclusion of Negroes from the Democratic
primary was a clear violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The association and many
Negroes, came to regard the court as the most reliable safeguard of the rights of all
citizens.
As the Negroes began to gain ground within the American political system, they
began simultaneously to fight for their rights in two other important areas, the Armed
Forces and in the field of Education. As the United States began to gear itself to enter
the Second World War, Negroes began to raise the question of what consideration
would be given to them in the fighting forces and in the manufacturing of the materials
of modern warfare. Negroes found great difficulty in securing lucrative employment in
plants that held large defense contracts. They were offered low paying jobs even
though the Federal Govt, did make some efforts to secure equal employment for them.
When the Negroes realized that the rigid anti-Negro policy in industry was not
undergoing any change they developed a plan for drastic action. In January, 1941, A
Phillip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, advanced
the idea of fifty to one hundred thousand Negroes marching on Washington to demand
the employment of Negroes in defence industries. Government officials were alarmed
by this threat because of the adverse publicity that it could get around the world. On
June 25, 1941 the President issued his famous Executive Order 8802, in which he
said that:
"there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in
defence industries or Government because of race, creed, color,
or national origin....And it is the duty of employers and of labor
121
organizations... to provide for the full and equitable participation
of all workers in defence industries without discrimination
because of race, creed, color or national origin....” (quoted in
Franklin, 579).
Negroes were jubilant for them the President's Executive Order was the most
significant document since the Emancipation Proclamation. Southern whites and white
employers in general were opposed to the President's order. Although discrimination
continued, the Negroes had won a very important battle.
In the Armed Forces, the Selective Service Act was passed in 1940. in which
a clause was inserted forbidding discrimination in the drafting and training of men.
However, when many boards accepted only white men Negroes began to protest
loudly. The announcement of the War Department in the fall of 1940, that Negroes
would be received into the army on the general basis of the proportion, of the Negro
population of the country, helped to increase the number of Negro recruits into the
Army. However, Negroes were to be organized into separate units which were to have
white officers only. There would be no Negro officers other than medical officers and
chaplains. Negroes, however, were not satisfied with these concessions, especially
after Negro commissioned officers had fought in World War-I. They were determined
to secure equal and integrated training as officers. The War Department conceded to
their demands in October 1940 itself when it was decided that Negroes and white
soldiers would be admitted to the same officer candidate schools. The culmination of
the fight of black troops against desegregation came in Jan. 1945, when it was
announced that Negro troops would be integrated with white troops in a unit to fight
on German soil. Negroes everywhere were elated with the news of the experiments,
but their joy was shortlived because these units were disbanded at the end of the war.
122
The Second World War did mark certain steps forward for the Negroes in the Armed
Forces. They won the right to train as pilots and were even received into the Marine
Corps which was the exclusive domain of white men.
However, discrimination continued on almost all other fronts. Negro soldiers
were forbidden to read Negro newspapers, transportation for Negro soldiers was most
unsatisfactory. At post exchanges they were segregated and given inferior
merchandise. The theaters and other entertainment facilities were frequently set apart,
and the accommodation for Negroes was below the standard of those provided for
white soldiers. Negro soldiers did not take these rebuffs lying down. Very often their
resistance to segregation and discrimination led to innumerable clashes. There were
serious riots at Fort Braf, Camp Robinson, Camp Davis, Camp Lee, and Fort Dix The
history of Afro-Americans in the armed forces of the United States are a good reflection
of the struggle that Afro-Americans had to face in the country. From the very minor
role they played in the Civil War where they were willing to be camp followers to the
1st World War where their resistance to segregation and discrimination was more
articulate and far reaching the Afro-American had travelled a long way. The complete
integration of the armed forces by 1950 was the culmination of this long struggle.
One of the most important effects of the Reconstruction, as has already been
pointed out was the importance given to the education of the Negroes. This
preoccupation with education continued into the twentieth century. Blacks in America
continued to show the same interest in education as they had done in the period
immediately following Emancipation. The triumph of white labour unions was an
important factor in increasing the opportunities of the black worker. There was
123
increased participation of blacks in union activities. As the black worker became an
active union member and a participant in union policy, his prospect for equal
employment became much brighter.
By mid century the courts and the Interstate Commerce Committee were
protecting the rights of Negroes to travel about the country without restriction. In 1950
the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was a burden on Interstate Commerce In
1955 the Interstate Commerce Commission declared that all racial segregation on
interstate trains and buses must end by January 10, 1956. The decree also applied to
waiting rooms in railway and bus terminals. The Southern states were reluctant to
accede to such decrees, they held out by setting up separate waiting rooms for
interstate black passengers. Civil Rights activists, however, were not to be deterred
by such moves, they were ready to face violent opposition for the sake of
desegregation. New modes of protest soon took shape. In May, 1961, the Congress
of Racial Equality, an interracial direct action group founded in 1942, sent "Freedom
Riders" into the South to test segregation laws and practices in interstate
transportation. In Arinston and Birmingham, Albama, the interracial teams were
attacked by angry segregationists. Advocate General Robert K e n n e d y o rd e re d an F B I
enquiry and made it clear that Freedom Riders would be protected. When Riders were
assaulted in Montgomery and the local police intervened belatedly the Attorney General
dispatched a force of 600 deputy marshalls and federal officials to the scene.
Protests against segregation in all walks of life gained momentum in the 1960's.
They took the form of peaceful sit ins and processions. This trend was set in motion
by four students from the Negro Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro,
124
North Carolina. They entered a store, made several purchases and sat down and
ordered coffee. They were refused because they were blacks. They sat at the counter
till the shop closed. This action of these four students was followed by sit ins in all
public places against segregation. Young people, both white and black, sat in white
libraries, waded in white beaches and slept in the lobbies of white hotels Many were
arrested for trespassing, but this novel form of protest soon gained enough publicity
and support to open up many facilities which were earlier reserved only for whites.
These various forms of protest culminated in the "March on Washington for jobs and
Freedom". All the major Civil Rights groups were joined by many religious, labour and
civic groups to make this demonstration a tremendous success. On August 28, 1963,
more than 200,000 blacks and whites from all over the United States staged the
largest demonstration in the history of Washington D.C. President Kennedy received
the leaders of the March and pledged his support for equality. Americans, both white
and black, had travelled a long way since the Emancipation Proclamation.
The pressure of the Civil Rights Movement forced the U.S.Congress to pass
several bills to improve the status of the blacks in America. Between 1953 and 1957
the House of the Representatives passed Civil Rights Bills several times but none ever
come to vote in the senate. In 1957 President Eisenhower introduced a bill which was
passed after much bitter debate. The bill, the first Civil Rights Act since 1875,
authorized the federal government to bring civil suits in its own name, to obtain relief
in federal courts where any person was denied his right to vote. It also credited the
United States Commission on Civil Rights. In 1960 Congress passed another Civil
Rights bill. This bill "provided that if a registrar resigned after complaints had been filed,
the proceeding could be instituted against the state. The act further required that voting
records be preserved for twenty two months" after any election (Franklin, 624). The
election of John F. Kennedy as President of the U.S.A. with the active support of the
blacks ensured that they would win more rights. Kennedy pressed for equal
employment opportunities and issued orders to prevent discrimination in federally
supported housing. He also sent federal troops to secure the admission of two black
students in Alabama. However, the moves were not enough to satisfy the demand of
the blacks. Sit ins, demonstrations, processions and violence increased as Civil Rights
Activities pressed for their demands. The President and Congress could not remain
indifferent to such public pressure and in 1963 a Civil Flights bill was introduced to the
Congress. President Kennedy was killed before the bill could be passed, but with the
active support of President Lyndon B. Johnson the Civil Rights Bill was passed in 1964.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most "comprehensive law in support of
racial equality ever enacted by Congress. It gave the attorney general additional power
to protect citizens against discrimination and segregation in voting, education and
public facilities" (Franklin, 635). It also extended the terms of the Commission of Civil
Rights to Jan. 1968 and established a federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. The Act also provided for technical and financial aid to help communities
in the desegregation of schools. The Civil Rights Act in effect finally granted effective
freedom to the blacks a hundred years after the emancipation proclamation.
While there was a decline in discrimination after the passage of the Civil Rights
Act, there was also a strong resistance to it. There were many instances of violence
unleashed on blacks. The Ku Klux Klan regrouped and in Mississippi, Alabama,
Louisiana and Georgia, its members paraded in protest against racial equality. White
126
and black civil rights workers were killed, and in between June and October of the
year, some twenty-four Negro Churches in Mississippi alone were destroyed in
bombings and fire. The events that took place after the passage of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 were a fair indication of the trend that race relations were to take
The blacks gained substantially on all fronts, the sense of pride which had been
instilled by Marcus Garvey and the Black Muslim organization although more muted had
become a part of the make up of the blacks. The blacks had gone through the traumatic
process of redefining themselves and their attitudes towards the whites had undergone
a sea change. The whites too, had undergone the same process. From a unquestioning
sense of their own superiority to a recognition of the black man as an equal was a
difficult process. If the blacks had to grapple with a sense of anger and frustration to
arrive at a position where they could have a working relationship with the whites. The
whites too had to cope with their sense of guilt and to see that their atonement did not
smack of condescension. Overwhelmingly both blacks and whites had to work out and
recognize their interdependence on each other.
These tasks have not been easy. More than three hundred years of racial hatred
and conflict cannot be wiped out by any Act of Congress. The violence that still breaks
out and the controversy raised by the issue of Affirmative Action ’ , is proof enough
that many issues of race, especially the question of identity, still dogs the people of the
United States. The fiction of Fmilkner end Wright reflect many of the problems that
have been thrown up in the history of the blacks. That is why a knowledge of the
13 See, President Bill Clinton's address on June 14, 1997, to the graduating class of the
Univ. of California at San Diego, ptd. in" U.S.Society and Values, Electronic Journal",
Sept, 1997 (New Delhi : U.S.I.S).
127
historical background of the blacks becomes essential for a study of the fiction of these
two writers.
128