Blogging Mary Bowser
February 6, 2012
Did African Americans Own Slaves?
99 Days to Publication, so here's today's entry in the 100 Fascinating Facts Countdown:
Did African Americans own slaves? It's a good question for black history month, and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
The short--and surprising--answer is yes. But as they like to say on Facebook, "It's complicated." Or at least more complicated than a simple yes suggests.
For one thing, the vast majority of slaveowners in the U.S. were white. And even most whites didn't own slaves. So it's important not to overplay the idea of black slaveholding. But in Virginia, where my novel is set, there were blacks who owned slaves. And although they were only a small fraction of all slaveholders, today's fascinating fact is about understanding why blacks owned slaves at all.
Did African Americans own slaves? It's a good question for black history month, and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
The short--and surprising--answer is yes. But as they like to say on Facebook, "It's complicated." Or at least more complicated than a simple yes suggests.
For one thing, the vast majority of slaveowners in the U.S. were white. And even most whites didn't own slaves. So it's important not to overplay the idea of black slaveholding. But in Virginia, where my novel is set, there were blacks who owned slaves. And although they were only a small fraction of all slaveholders, today's fascinating fact is about understanding why blacks owned slaves at all.
Laws about slavery varied from state to state, even from city to city, and also from year to year. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Virginia passed a law barring newly freed blacks from living in the state. There were already some free blacks in Virginia, and they and their descendants could stay in the state. But if a slave was freed, they had to leave Virginia within one year, or they would be forced back into slavery.
Imagine you are a free black person who has a family member--your spouse, your child, your parent, your sibling--who is a slave. If you are able to save or borrow enough money to buy that person, what happens next? Remember, newly freed slaves can't stay in Virginia. In other words, freedom meant leaving the only family and community this person has--with no education, no money, nothing to help them begin a life elsewhere in freedom.
So in order to keep their families together, free blacks sometimes bought a relative, without freeing her or him. Parents owned children, or vice versa; wives owned husbands, or vice versa. They would not have sold, whipped, or otherwise exploited these family members, but in the eyes of the law, this was slave ownership. And it lasted right up until slavery became illegal, and free blacks gained the right to stay in Virginia permanently.
Check back tomorrow, and the day after . . . 98 more facts to come!
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