Page 124 - 1619 Project Curriculum

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2019 11
‘If one minute’s No. 2 1776 - 1808
/ The Limits of Freedom

freedom had been ‘

offered to me, men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, slaveholders by keeping people enslaved during some of their most productive years.
e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
Yet the demand for a growing enslaved population to cultivate cotton in the Deep South was
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’’ So begins the Declaration of
unyielding. In 1808, Congress implemented the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which
Independence, the document that eventually led to the creation of the United States. But the
terminated the country’s legal involvement in the international slave trade but put new emphasis

on the domestic slave trade, which relied on buying and selling enslaved black people already
words point to the paradox
the nation was built on: Even as the colonists fought for freedom
from the British, they maintained slavery and avoided the issue in the Constitution. Enslaved
trade continued illegally.) The ensuing forced migration of over a million African-Americans to
people, however, seized any opportunity to secure their freedom. Some fought for it through in the country, often separating them from their loved ones. (In addition, the international
and I had been told benefited from gradual emancipation enacted in states like Pennsylvania, New York and New planter elite had secured in the Constitution held that three-fifths of the enslaved population

War, whether serving for the British or the patriots. Others
to the slaveholding class: The Three-Fifths Clause that the
military service in the Revolutionary
the South guaranteed political power
was counted in determining a state’s population and thus its congressional representation. The

York, for example, children born after July 4, 1799, were legally free when they
Jersey. In New
economic and political power grab reinforced the brutal system of slavery.
turned 25, if they

were women, or 28, if they were men — the law was meant to compensate

I must die at the end Describing
The Depravity of
Slavery

‘‘BENEVOLENT men have voluntarily
stepped forward to obviate the
of that minute, I Bottom left: A miniature portrait of consequences of this injustice and
barbarity,’’ proclaimed the Rev.

Mum Bett by Susan
Anne Livingston
Williams Jr. in a historic
Peter

Ridley Sedgwick, 1811.
speech about the end of the

nation’s involvement in the trans-

Atlantic slave trade. ‘‘They have

striven assiduously to restore our
She Sued
natural rights; to guaranty them from
would have taken it.’ For Her fresh innovations; to furnish us with
necessary information; and to stop
the source from whence our evils

Freedom
man who
have flowed.’’ A free black

founded St. Philip’s African
Church

in Manhattan, Williams spoke
IN THE WAKE of the Revolutionary
in front of a white and black

War, African-Americans took
their cause to statehouses and

day the United States ban on the
courthouses, where they vigorously audience on Jan. 1, 1808 — the
international slave trade went

fought for their
— Mum Bett Freeman, better known as Mum did not end slavery, and it was 1916 poster for the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia,
freedom and the
into effect. The law, of course,

abolition of slavery. Elizabeth

often violated. Williams forced

Bett, an enslaved woman in
the audience to confront slavery’s
Allen, at center.
with its founder, Richard
Massachusetts whose husband died

ugliness as he continued, ‘‘Its
fighting during the Revolutionary
baneful footsteps are marked with

War, was one such visionary. The
new Massachusetts Constitution of
war and desolation; and its train

1780 stated that ‘‘All men are born blood; its infectious breath spreads God Wouldn’t Want Segregated Sanctuaries

is composed of the complicated

free and equal, and have certain miseries of cruel and unceasing BLACK PEOPLE, both free and enslaved, relied on their faith to hold onto their humanity under the most inhumane
natural, essential and unalienable bondage.’’ His oration further circumstances. In 1787, the Rev. Richard Allen and other black congregants walked out of services at St. George’s
rights; among which may be defined a black view of freedom Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to protest its segregated congregations. Allen, an abolitionist who was

reckoned the right of enjoying and that had been building since the born enslaved, had moved to Philadelphia after purchasing his freedom. There he joined St. George’s, where he
defending their lives and liberties.’’ foundation of the country, as initially preached to integrated congregations. It quickly became clear that integration went only so far: He was
Arguing that slavery violated this when the formerly enslaved poet directed to preach a separate service designated for black parishioners. Dismayed that black people were still treated
sentiment, Bett sued for her freedom Phillis Wheatley noted in 1774, as inferiors in what was meant to be a holy space, Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and
and won. After the ruling, Bett ‘‘for in every human Breast, God started the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. For communities of free people of color, churches like Allen’s were places
changed her name to Elizabeth has implanted a Principle, which not only of sanctuary but also of education, organizing and civic engagement, providing resources to navigate a
Freeman to signify her new status. we call love of Freedom; it is racist society in a slave nation. Allen and his successors connected the community, pursued social justice and helped
Her precedent-setting case helped impatient of Oppression, and pants guide black congregants as they transitioned to freedom. The African Methodist Episcopal Church grew rapidly;
to effectively bring an end to for Deliverance.’’ today at least 7,000 A.M.E. congregations exist around the world, including Allen’s original church.
slavery in Massachusetts.
Benjamin Banneker and Wood-engraving illustration of a cotton
Thomas Jefferson. gin, Harper’s Weekly, 1869.
A Powerful
Letter
AFTER THE Revolutionary War,
Thomas Jefferson and other
politicians — both slaveholding
and not — wrote the documents
that defined the new nation. In
the initial draft of the Declaration
of Independence, Jefferson
condemned King George III of
Britain for engaging in the slave
trade and ignoring pleas to end it,
and for calling upon the enslaved
to rise up and fight on behalf of
the British against the colonists. The Destructive
This language was excised from
the final document, however, and Impact of
all references to slavery were
removed, in stunning contrast to The Cotton Gin
the document’s opening statement
on the equality of men. Jefferson THE NATIONAL dialogue
was a lifelong enslaver. He surrounding slavery and freedom
inherited enslaved black people; he continued as the demand for
fathered enslaved black children; enslaved laborers increased. In
and he relied on enslaved black 1794, Eli Whitney patented the
people for his livelihood and cotton gin, which made it possible
comfort. He openly speculated that to clean cotton faster and get
black people were inferior to white products to the market more
people and continually advocated quickly. Cotton was king, as the
for their removal from the country. saying went, and the country
In 1791, Benjamin Banneker, a free became a global economic force.
black mathematician, scientist, But the land for cultivating it was
astronomer and surveyor, argued eventually exhausted, and the
against this mind-set when he nation would have to expand to
wrote to President Jefferson, keep up with consumer demand.
urging him to correct his ‘‘narrow In 1803, Thomas Jefferson struck
prejudices’’ and to ‘‘eradicate a deal with Napoleon Bonaparte,
that train of absurd and false the Louisiana Purchase: In
ideas and opinions, which so exchange for $15 million, the United
generally prevails with respect to States gained almost 830,000
us.’’ Banneker also condemned square miles of land, doubling the
Jefferson’s slaveholding in his size of the country and expanding
letter and included a manuscript America’s empire of slavery and
of his almanac, which would cotton. Soon after this deal, the
be printed the following year. United States abolished the
Jefferson was unconvinced of the international slave trade, creating
intelligence of African-Americans, a labor shortage. Under these
and in his swift reply only noted circumstances, the domestic slave
that he welcomed ‘‘such proofs as trade increased as an estimated
you exhibit’’ of black people with one million enslaved people were
‘‘talents equal to those of the sent to the Deep South to work in
other colors of men.’’ cotton, sugar and rice fields.
Illustration by Jamaal Barber. A.M.E. poster: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Cotton gin: Library of Congress.