The Antebellum Status of Blacks in the USA Essay

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Blacks in antebellum America were far from monolithic, in their personal identities or in their cultural and political status. For example, F&H point out that even among the free blacks in free states, there would be significant differences in levels of status, wealth, and power. Some had significant savings and real estate holdings not dissimilar from their white counterparts, whereas others held positions of low status such as domestic servants. Moreover, racism continued to permeate northern white society and blacks still were disallowed from participating in the political process. Yet as Parker’s Sankofa, we meet people like Shango, who represents the ways blacks and slaves subverted the systemic racism via the accumulation of specialized skills. The historical record reveals three main categories of African-American status during the antebellum period: free blacks in free states, enslaved blacks in Southern/slave states, and free blacks in Southern/slave states. Of these three, I would personally prefer being a free black in a free/Northern state for the main reason being that I could potentially wield more power given my privileged position.

F&H do discuss the ways free blacks in New York possessed power and wealth to a far greater degree than their free black counterparts in the South could ever hope to do (Chapter 8). Although these situations were relatively rare, they showed that there was at least the potential to participate more fully in American society via starting businesses or participating in the community.

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I believe that by empowering my own community, and giving back to the blacks who still struggled, that I would be able to make a difference. If I were a free black in the South, even if I were like Shango or Frederick Douglass who made a clear difference through his writings, I would still be restricted legally by my status. I would also continually fear for my life. Ironically, though, the film 12 Years a Slave also showed that it was possible for a free black in New York to be bereft of his freedom, shackled and imprisoned on the sole basis of his skin color. Without idealizing life in the North, I would nevertheless prefer to be a free black in the North because there would be greater opportunities for my children and myself.

After all, even Shango and similarly highly skilled free and enslaved blacks in the South were continually at the mercy of not….....

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