Between Slavery and Freedom by Julie Winch

uncertain position midway between slavery and freedom, with an end to their bondage in sight but with precious little freedom in their immediate future. Only Vermont had abolished slavery outright. Most Northern states had adopted gradual abolition, and although lawmakers in New Jersey and New York had debated abolition on a number of occasions, they had yet to take decisive action. And in none of the Northern states did the courts or the legislatures declare free black people citizens. Although they might not be slaves, they were somehow less than equal to whites in the eyes of the law and in the minds of their white neighbors. In 1788, for example, the Massachusetts General Court barred from the state all “Rogues, vagabonds, common beggars, and other idle, disorderly, and lewd Persons.” 8 Not surprisingly, whites thought that many free blacks belonged to one of those unwelcome and unwanted groups. Expulsion of the black poor, the binding out of their children, and the routine incarceration of black law-breakers for longer terms than those that white lawbreakers received for the same offense—these practices were commonplace throughout the North. The states retained their old colonial-era restrictions and added new ones whenever lawmakers concluded that the free black population was getting too troublesome.
    In the immediate post-Revolutionary period the South was anything but united on the issue of black freedom. As they had done in the colonial era, slave owners in South Carolina and Georgia generally emancipated those individuals to whom they had a personal connection, including their concubines, their children, their biracial half-siblings, and their favored house slaves. The result was a small community of light-skinned people whose tiesto their emancipators often endured into freedom. By contrast, in the Upper South emancipations were more general, and they took place for reasons of ideological or religious commitment, or as a result of economic considerations. And of course the slaves themselves pushed hard. To imply that they sat back and waited for whites to liberate them is to ignore a vital part of the picture.
    The enslaved seized their freedom through flight. They also sued, claiming that they were the descendants of white women. After a couple of well-publicized court victories in the 1780s, hundreds of slaves all over Maryland suddenly “discovered” that they had white female ancestors. When light-skinned slaves hinted that they had befriended a lawyer who would see justice done, some masters actually bargained with those slaves: if there was no more talk about white grandmothers and great-grandmothers and if they served quietly for a few more years they would get their freedom. It was not a game for the faint-of-heart. The power obviously lay with the master, but there was just a chance that he might want to avoid an expensive court case.
    With or without the threat of lawsuits, other slaves gained their freedom. The Upper South was wavering. Tobacco prices tumbled in the 1780s as planters discovered that they had lost their once-reliable overseas customers. Instead of tobacco, they turned to growing wheat and raising hogs, only to find that they did not need as big a labor force. They could not sell their excess slaves because the market was glutted and no one was buying, so in some instances they let those slaves earn the price of their freedom. It also became simpler and cheaper to liberate one’s slaves. In 1782, Virginia rewrote its law to allow owners to free almost anyone under the age of forty-five. Delaware and Maryland also eased the restrictions on freedom. Owners could essentially do what they liked with their “property.” Some called in their lawyers and instructed them to draw up formal deeds of emancipation. Others simply told their slaves they did not want or need them any longer. The free population received an additional boost as a result of