Between Slavery and Freedom (19 page)

Portrait of Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet). In 1781, Elizabeth Freeman and her lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, won her freedom and helped end slavery in Massachusetts by arguing that the Massachusetts constitution's guarantee of freedom and equality applied to everyone in the state. Sedgwick's daughter-in-law, Susan Ridley Sedgwick, painted this portrait of Freeman thirty years after her landmark case. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society)

Benjamin Banneker's Almanac. Self-taught mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), the author of a series of well-received almanacs, publicly challenged Thomas Jefferson in print, asking how the framer of the Declaration of Independence could defend slavery and condemn black people as intellectually inferior to whites. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. Founded by Methodist preacher Richard Allen in 1794, Bethel eventually became the “mother church” of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination and a vibrant hub of black community life. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)

Paul Cuffe. New England–born shipowner Paul Cuffe (1759–1817) played a crucial role in promoting the emigration of American free blacks to Africa. He hoped it would give them greater economic opportunities and lead to the abolition of slavery. (Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum)

Black Sawyers Working in Front of the Bank of Pennsylvania, Philada. The working people in this lively Philadelphia street scene painted around 1811 by German-born artist John Lewis Krimmel were most likely free. However, even though the men were skilled craftsmen, they may not have been able to find steady employment. The nursemaid probably lived in her employers' home rather than with her own family. (Rogers Fund, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: ART RESOURCE)

Kidnapping. As this illustration from Joseph Torrey's A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery (Philadelphia, 1817) shows, even in the supposedly free states black people were in danger of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)

Black and White Beaux. This refined and elegantly-dressed young couple out for a stroll in New York City belonged to the black middle class that was emerging in a number of communities by 1830. (From Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans [1832], The Library Company of Philadelphia)

James Forten. Born to free black parents in Philadelphia, James Forten (1766–1842) served on an American privateer during the Revolutionary War while still in his mid-teens and then carved out a career for himself as a successful sail-maker and real estate speculator. He was an outspoken critic of slavery and racial inequality. (Leon Gardiner Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

David Walker's Appeal. David Walker's 1829 pamphlet urged free blacks to insist on equality with whites and told the nation's slaves to demand their freedom. The Appeal outraged the defenders of the racial status quo, and when Walker died in 1830 of tuberculosis it was rumored that he had in fact been murdered. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)