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Episode 29: The Contradiction · Missing Pages

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Where are these Missing Pages, this map?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: We must have these pages back.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: This one's got pages missing.
0:15
SPEAKER_03: Why are the pages missing?
0:20
SPEAKER_03: Like a book with Missing Pages.
0:22
[music]
0:32
SPEAKER_01: When the Revolutionary War started,
0:33
SPEAKER_01: the southern colonies had far more loyalists than in the north,
0:37
SPEAKER_01: and there was a hope by the British that their army could take advantage of this,
0:41
SPEAKER_01: with help from the royal governors.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: However,
0:45
SPEAKER_01: there was far less interest in joining Regardless,
0:47
SPEAKER_01: it was necessary for these southern colonies to be taken,
0:50
SPEAKER_01: particularly the port at Charleston, South Carolina.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: This hope,
1:06
SPEAKER_01: though it was not as strong as it once was,
1:09
SPEAKER_01: was not abandoned completely though,
1:11
SPEAKER_01: and in the spring of 1778,
1:13
SPEAKER_01: the British colonial secretary George Germain ordered an expedition to be launched
1:18
SPEAKER_01: from Florida, led by General Clinton.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: The actual invasion from Florida into Georgia did not occur, though, until the end of November.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: But this army did make quick work as they marched to Savannah with 3,500 men,
1:33
SPEAKER_01: and they reached the town just before Christmas.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: The garrison in the town was less than 1,000 men and was no match.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Over 100 Americans were killed and nearly 500 captured in this battle.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: The British only suffered 3 dead and 10 wounded.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: For Clinton, this victory was sweet, but the ultimate prize lay further north, Charleston.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Political conflict in England prevented quick action,
1:59
SPEAKER_01: though, and the assault on Charleston would have to wait another year.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: On December 26, 1779,
2:06
SPEAKER_01: almost exactly a year after the battle in Savannah,
2:10
SPEAKER_01: General Clinton left New York behind for Charleston with some 8,500 troops.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until February 11 that he landed to prepare to attack the port city.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Now Charleston was the largest city south of Philadelphia,
2:24
SPEAKER_01: but only boasted about a third of the population of many of those cities in
2:28
SPEAKER_01: the north.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: This city was a very wealthy city though.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: It lay at the end of a peninsula filled with the houses of rich planters
2:37
SPEAKER_01: who often spent their summers on the coast rather than on their plantations.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: And thus this port,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: as we've discussed in previous seasons, was the heart of the American slave trade.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, this was not the first time that Charleston was attacked.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: It had been attacked early on in the war in 1775.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: That defense was successful,
2:57
SPEAKER_01: but since then,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: the fort and the defenses surrounding the city had fallen into disrepair,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: and the defenses that remained were poorly manned.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: When Clinton arrived, the city had less than 4,000 men defending it.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: The commander of these defenses,
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Benjamin Lincoln, had hoped that Clinton would attack from the sea.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: But Clinton had other plans.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: He landed south of the city and would approach from the back through Charleston Neck.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: After disembarking in Rioja,
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Reenforcing further,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Clinton began crossing the Ashley River on March 29th,
3:32
SPEAKER_01: and by April 1st,
3:33
SPEAKER_01: his army had built a siege line some 800 yards away from the American defenses.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: The siege that would start followed the standard days.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: There was always hope, though,
3:42
SPEAKER_01: that a surrender would come from the defenders before that final move would be made.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: The constant shelling back and forth that happened between the American lines and
4:02
SPEAKER_01: the British lines created a horror scene for both sides.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: And even with the superior numbers, it was not clear that the British were winning.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: As the lines approached, cannons turned into muskets, turned into bayonets.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: As assaults turned to close quarters, further increasing the confusion and chaos in both camps.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: However,
4:25
SPEAKER_01: after just two weeks of siege,
4:27
SPEAKER_01: the British completely cut the city off from supplies and reinforcements.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Now Lincoln was ready to surrender,
4:33
SPEAKER_01: but he was at odds with the citizens of Charleston who did not.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: And he was also at odds with Clinton when his surrender terms included being able
4:41
SPEAKER_01: to leave unscathed.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: Now after another two weeks in which the two lines got within feet of each other,
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Lincoln finally relented and surrendered his whole garrison.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: After the surrender,
4:53
SPEAKER_01: over 2,500 Continental soldiers were captured,
4:57
SPEAKER_01: and some 800 more militia men were disbanded.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Both sides had suffered by this point about 250 casualties,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: though the Americans suffered far more losses of guns and supplies.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Now after the siege,
5:11
SPEAKER_01: fear spread throughout the entire state of South Carolina,
5:14
SPEAKER_01: and To alleviate this,
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Clinton issued a proclamation granting pardons to any rebel
5:24
SPEAKER_01: who would swear their allegiance to the crown.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: This in turn angered the loyalists who had hoped that the rebels would be punished
5:32
SPEAKER_01: for their misdeeds.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Clinton didn't get to see the actual fruits of this labor, though,
5:38
SPEAKER_01: as immediately after releasing this proclamation,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: he left South Carolina to return to New York and gave his replacement,
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Charles Cornwallis,
5:46
SPEAKER_01: instructions to subdue the rebels in the South and restore order.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: This would be no easy feat, though.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Throughout the rest of 1780 and into the next year,
5:57
SPEAKER_01: violence would spread throughout the southern colonies between the independent rebel
6:01
SPEAKER_01: and loyalist militias.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Some battles involved thousands of men on each side, but most were small.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Raids, skirmishes,
6:09
SPEAKER_01: pillaging,
6:10
SPEAKER_01: and even singular murders brought the whole population into conflict with itself.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Cornwallis spread his army throughout the southern states to try to bring
6:18
SPEAKER_01: the region back to order in the summer of 1780.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: However, the Americans created their own force to try to disrupt that.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Given his success at the Battle of Saratoga, Horatio Gates was chosen to lead this effort.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: However, Gates' shortcomings and perhaps his delusions of grandeur took hold quickly.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: Two days after his arrival on July 25th,
6:42
SPEAKER_01: he marched his army of 1,400 bedraggled Continental soldiers towards Camden,
6:47
SPEAKER_01: South Carolina.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: The addition of two more militias brought this total up to some 4,000 troops,
6:53
SPEAKER_01: but they were heavily fatigued
6:55
SPEAKER_01: when they reached their destination some two weeks later.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Now Camden was the town that Cornwallis was occupying at this point,
7:02
SPEAKER_01: and had recently been reinforced with some 2,000 troops.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: But Cornwallis was not willing to retreat from this city,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: as there were nearly 1,006 soldiers in the town,
7:13
SPEAKER_01: and he was not going to abandon them.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: The night of August 15th,
7:17
SPEAKER_01: after only letting his troops rest for a few days,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Gates ordered his army to march towards Camden.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: Along the way,
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Gates was shocked to find out that his army,
7:26
SPEAKER_01: which he had thought numbered 7,000, now numbered just 3,052.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: He continued anyway.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: To make matters worse,
7:37
SPEAKER_01: the meal that they had eaten the night before was not kind to their stomachs,
7:42
SPEAKER_01: so the already small and beleaguered army was weakened even further.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: Now at the same time, Cornwallis began his march towards the Americans.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Though with a far more capable and healthy army.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: At 2.30 in the morning, they met on the road.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: As the sun rose on August 16th,
8:03
SPEAKER_01: the armies finally got a good look at each other and the battlefield.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: They found that they were surrounded on all sides by swamp.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: So, the Americans would be forced to go right through the British army.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: At roughly the same time,
8:17
SPEAKER_01: both armies detected some movement on one of their flanks,
8:20
SPEAKER_01: and thus weakness, so both began marching on the other to take the advantage.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Now in the end,
8:27
SPEAKER_01: this was really just them reacting to each other,
8:29
SPEAKER_01: neither of them was actually reorganizing at this point,
8:32
SPEAKER_01: but now the battle had started.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: As they approached each other, they threw volleys of musket balls.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: The far more disciplined British regulars stood firm, the American militias did not.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: While the Americans were able to hold off for a while,
8:48
SPEAKER_01: the smoke-filled battlefield made communication and organization nearly impossible,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: and thus the superior British discipline eventually won out,
8:57
SPEAKER_01: and the American army was overrun.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Robert Middlecoff, in his book The Glorious Cause, describes this retreat.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Quote, The Americans did not withdraw from the battlefield in a manner recommended
9:09
SPEAKER_01: by military manuals.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Rather, they left in a crowd with no regiment retaining its integrity as a unit.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: Gates made no attempt to discipline or reorganize this herd,
9:19
SPEAKER_01: choosing rather to outdistance it astride a fast horse.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: That evening,
9:24
SPEAKER_01: he reached Charlotte,
9:25
SPEAKER_01: 60 miles away, and by the 19th he was at Hillsborough, another 120 miles farther on.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: He had gone to Hillsborough, he later explained, to secure a base and rebuild his army.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: Most of his soldiers did not follow him, preferring instead to head for home.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: End quote.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: In the end,
9:42
SPEAKER_01: nearly a thousand Americans were killed or wounded in this battle,
9:46
SPEAKER_01: with another thousand captured.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: The British suffered only 68 dead and 245 wounded.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Now this defeat not only broke the spirit of many patriots, it did not fulfill its mission.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: The violence throughout the southern states would continue apace.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Prior to the revolution, slavery was upheld by a planter class that was largely of one mind.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: But the splitting of loyalties during the revolution threw the whole institution into flux.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Geographic proximity to
10:25
SPEAKER_01: the fight also made various regions react slightly differently throughout the war.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: But overall,
10:33
SPEAKER_01: the invocations of liberty and freedom from bondage,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: in this case from the king, reinforced the many calls for emancipation.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore,
10:43
SPEAKER_01: a simultaneous rise in religion brought all men,
10:46
SPEAKER_01: black or white, free or slave, onto equal footing before God.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: Now,
10:51
SPEAKER_01: these changes did not bring forth a rapid rise in manumission or abolitionism among
10:56
SPEAKER_01: the colonists, and in many places, the opposite occurred.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: However,
11:00
SPEAKER_01: the question of slavery became much louder as time went on,
11:04
SPEAKER_01: and more people put their principles to work.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: The upending of the colonial economy and later the rapid expansion of
11:10
SPEAKER_01: the economy pushed slaves into many trades away from the fields.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: These new trades offered skills, independence, and even payment.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: In the end, though,
11:20
SPEAKER_01: even with these shifts,
11:22
SPEAKER_01: there were more slaves in North America after the war than before it.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: There were some concessions that took place,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: like the ending of importation from Africa in most colonies,
11:34
SPEAKER_01: but the slow emancipation in the north and the reinforcement in the south meant
11:40
SPEAKER_01: that slavery would remain a stain on the new republic.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Jefferson's attempt to pin the trade on King George in the Declaration
11:49
SPEAKER_01: of Independence did not stick,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: and the debate on the topic was largely pushed aside until the war was won.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: But everyone knew the contradiction would need to be confronted.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Slaves did not often pick sides during the war.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: They would individually pick the side that they felt benefited them most.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: There was little loyalty to one side or another.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Rather, the chaos provided a means to their ultimate end.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Freedom.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: In whatever way they could get it.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: And for those who did gain their freedom, their lives afterward took a variety of forms.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: In his book, Many Thousands Gone, Ira Berlin states, quote,
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Some embraced their owner's Christianity, others created a religion of their own.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: Some added their voice to the call for abolition and universal equality.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Others labored hard to preserve their ties to the planter class,
12:53
SPEAKER_01: mimicking its manner,
12:55
SPEAKER_01: adopting its principles,
12:56
SPEAKER_01: upon occasion entering into its ranks as slaveholders with hardly a backward glance.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: The nature of post-emancipation reconstruction,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: like the character of emancipation itself,
13:08
SPEAKER_01: rested upon the various circumstances of black life.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: End quote.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: For those who did not gain their freedom, they did not give up the fight.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: The year 1783 may have marked the freedom of the Americans from the chains
13:24
SPEAKER_01: of King George, and in some new states even the freedom from bondage.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: But there were many chains that still needed to be broken.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm going to follow this story by region.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: It seems to be the best way to do it,
13:39
SPEAKER_01: and it's how Ira Berlin lays out his book in Many Thousands Gone.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: There's the New England colonies, like Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: The middle colonies, like New York and Pennsylvania, though Berlin does put these two together.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: I think it's better if they're apart.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: The Upper South, the Chesapeake, like Virginia, and the Lower South, like the Carolinas.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: I will also be mentioning briefly these other colonies surrounding this in Canada
14:09
SPEAKER_01: and in the Mississippi Valley and also some in the Caribbean.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: But I'll be mostly stuck here within the 13 ex-colonies as the war starts.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: In the last episode that pertained to slavery in Era 2...
14:24
SPEAKER_01: As you move from North to South, these slave societies became more and more rigid.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: But these differences in these various colonies also changed how slaves interacted
14:35
SPEAKER_01: with each other, how the Black or African American community developed, if at all.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: And you'll see some of that as well.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: But before we do that, let's get into the AP Notes.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: Now like the previous episode with the social revolution regarding women,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: there's also a section in the notes on
14:55
SPEAKER_01: the social revolution regarding African Americans.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: It starts like this.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: What side did African Americans fight on during the Revolutionary War and why?
15:05
SPEAKER_01: I said, the British, they were promised freedom.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And approximately 5,000 blacks fought for the Continental Army and were mostly free.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: What religious group led the way in outlawing slavery?
15:16
SPEAKER_01: I said the Quakers in New England in 1770 made the first law against slave-owning
15:21
SPEAKER_01: and the first anti-slavery society worldwide.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Next, what did many northern states do during the Revolutionary War regarding
15:29
SPEAKER_01: the institution of slavery?
15:30
SPEAKER_01: I said, they outlawed slavery usually through gradual emancipation.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: By 1830, there were about 3,000 slaves left.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: In northern states, free blacks began to gain what three rights?
15:42
SPEAKER_01: The right to vote if they owned property,
15:44
SPEAKER_01: curfews and other laws restricting their movement ended,
15:47
SPEAKER_01: and equal treatment in court rulings.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: As the population of free blacks in the north grew,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: many free blacks began to lose these rights,
15:55
SPEAKER_01: and free blacks were treated as second class citizens.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: What did free blacks in these cities like Philadelphia and New York start doing in
16:01
SPEAKER_01: the late 1700s to help the plight of their race?
16:04
SPEAKER_01: I said, And finally,
16:13
SPEAKER_01: eventually the move to abolish slavery would lose momentum by the early 1800s.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Free blacks would start losing these rights.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Why was there such a push in the north to grant blacks freedom and equality?
16:24
SPEAKER_01: They thought that they were slaves to the British Empire and
16:26
SPEAKER_01: that they had slaves themselves, as well as unity among them.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: And that's everything in this section.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: As it's become a trend throughout this section,
16:36
SPEAKER_01: there is some good stuff in here,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: but a lot of it is oversimplified and there are lots and lots of details
16:42
SPEAKER_01: that are missing.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: And some of it is a little bit misleading.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Now grab your musket or your pen in the fight for emancipation and let's fill
16:52
SPEAKER_01: in those Missing Pages.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: The shift towards emancipation for white colonists was the quickest in
17:10
SPEAKER_01: the New England colonies.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: There were a few reasons for this.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: First was that the rise of the rhetoric regarding liberty and freedom,
17:19
SPEAKER_01: especially the This consternation about the enslavement of the people of
17:24
SPEAKER_01: the colonies by the king originated in New England.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, the chaos in the beginning of the war dissolved many master-slave relations.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And finally,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Currently,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: and perhaps most critically,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: the enslaved population was already very small,
17:41
SPEAKER_01: especially in the northernmost colonies.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: Rhode Island boasted the largest proportion, at about 6% of their population being enslaved.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: For reference, most of the southern colonies, this was at 30-40%.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: So by this point,
17:58
SPEAKER_01: slaves had not developed a separate identity or culture like many of the colonies to
18:03
SPEAKER_01: the south.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Thus, collective resistance was more rare.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Slave work was also far more diverse,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: with most living near urban areas rather than on far-flung plantations.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: But even those slaves on farms were much more involved with the operation of
18:20
SPEAKER_01: the farm as a whole rather than just toiling in the fields.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: When the war began,
18:25
SPEAKER_01: the chaos brought by the battles and fleeing families gave slaves ample opportunity
18:30
SPEAKER_01: to flee themselves.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Most often they fled north to the remaining British colonies in Canada or
18:36
SPEAKER_01: towards any nearby British camp.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: The latter reason is because that whenever a British army would occupy a city,
18:43
SPEAKER_01: They would provide a bastion for slaves to escape their bondage
18:47
SPEAKER_01: and potentially even offer them freedom in order to disrupt
18:50
SPEAKER_01: the American labor supply.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Thus, many slaves risked the punishment that would come if they were caught
18:57
SPEAKER_01: and made their way to the camps.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: When the British would then leave the city behind,
19:01
SPEAKER_01: they would bring with them the slaves that had been brought into the camp,
19:05
SPEAKER_01: granted that they were not owned by a loyalist planter.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: So that often meant that many slaves from these southern plantations also ended up
19:14
SPEAKER_01: in the northern cities.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to do a little bit of a sidebar here because this will kind
19:19
SPEAKER_01: of come up continuously throughout this podcast episode.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: The camps that the British would create and thus the offers
19:27
SPEAKER_01: for emancipation were not really a way to free slaves on its own.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: Rather, it was meant to limit American armies and production.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: And the amount of slaves that did arrive quickly overwhelmed the camps.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: Therefore,
19:41
SPEAKER_01: many blacks were left behind as the army moved on as there weren't supplies
19:45
SPEAKER_01: to help them keep going,
19:47
SPEAKER_01: and many,
19:48
SPEAKER_01: after realizing the dream offered was limited,
19:51
SPEAKER_01: returned to their families on the plantation.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, Loyalist planters were able to keep their slaves as they fled to safety.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: This was not a broad emancipation.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, the conditions were not great after fleeing.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: They were fundamentally better given their freedom,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: but free blacks were still at the bottom of the societal hierarchy in Canada.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: And until emancipation laws were passed a decade after the war,
20:17
SPEAKER_01: many slaves merely changed location and Not status.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: There were also few trade jobs available in Canada,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: so most blacks were forced to become servants or sharecroppers.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Some more were able to make it across the Atlantic to London, but they fared no better.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: They were left scrambling in the underclass of the metropolis,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: with no further help being offered from the government.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: But this was,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: even though there were ulterior motives,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: a way for slaves to find freedom during the Revolutionary War.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: The chaos that the war brought allowed slaves to slip through the cracks and escape
20:54
SPEAKER_01: into the cities and become anonymous.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: The northern slave owners were also more sympathetic to calls for manumission
21:02
SPEAKER_01: and full emancipation than any
21:07
SPEAKER_01: James Otis Jr.,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: for instance,
21:09
SPEAKER_01: was one of the first,
21:10
SPEAKER_01: when in 1761 he called for equal rights between blacks and whites,
21:15
SPEAKER_01: not as a new principle,
21:17
SPEAKER_01: but merely by including blacks in his definition of quote-unquote all colonists
21:21
SPEAKER_01: in his arguments against the crown.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: By the start of the revolution,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: anti-slavery positions became common throughout the rest of New England.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Both the values of the Enlightenment and their Christian faith were used as justification.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: In his book,
21:36
SPEAKER_01: Death or Liberty,
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Douglas R. Edgerton relays what historian Graham Russell Hodges said.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Quote, Slavery ultimately died in the northern states due to an uneasy alliance
21:49
SPEAKER_01: between elite white reformers,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: evangelicals,
21:52
SPEAKER_01: legislatures,
21:53
SPEAKER_01: and attorneys,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: and African-American agitators,
21:56
SPEAKER_01: who signed petitions,
21:57
SPEAKER_01: hired lawyers,
21:58
SPEAKER_01: crafted traps,
21:59
SPEAKER_01: As Hodges aptly notes, it was, quote,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: this is now quoting Hodges,
22:09
SPEAKER_01: the unceasing efforts of blacks themselves,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: end quote,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: that set on free labor on the road to extinction in the years prior to 1804,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: end quote.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: As a note, this episode will be fudging some lines around the confines of this era.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So bear with me as I try to keep it localized to the revolution,
22:29
SPEAKER_01: but many of these changes that happen happen after the revolution.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: However,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: much of it was due to what happened during the revolution,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: as well as the rhetoric and the general principles that were arising during
22:42
SPEAKER_01: that time.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Also, in the next era,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: there are much bigger fish to fry when it comes to the slavery question
22:48
SPEAKER_01: that will be discussed in due time.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Beyond the slave owners kind of taking a stand,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: there was also pressure from the slaves themselves.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: Two rulings in 1781 on lawsuits brought on behalf of slaves created a new tactic
23:02
SPEAKER_01: for bringing freedom to slaves.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Using the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties as justification, in which it states that, quote,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: As well as the new state constitution that claimed that, quote,
23:19
SPEAKER_01: all men are born free and equal,
23:21
SPEAKER_01: end quote, the court decided that slavery was illegal.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: This did not immediately emancipate all slaves that would have to happen in
23:29
SPEAKER_01: the legislature,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: not in the courts,
23:31
SPEAKER_01: but it was a massive step that effectively made all laws pertaining to slavery null
23:36
SPEAKER_01: and void.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: Individual cases would need to be brought,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: which would assuredly win,
23:42
SPEAKER_01: And so Masters understood that slavery was effectively banned,
23:46
SPEAKER_01: even if there was no new law stating that explicitly.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Now the rest of New England followed Massachusetts in this path after
23:54
SPEAKER_01: the war reached its close,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: but they acted through the legislature rather than the courts.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Rhode Island,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: for instance,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: passed a law banning slavery, but as we'll see, there were some caveats.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: These laws provided an avenue for freedom,
24:09
SPEAKER_01: But full emancipation was gradual,
24:12
SPEAKER_01: such that the final slave, even in New England, would not be free until the 1800s.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: There were also other pressures.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: As the war ended,
24:22
SPEAKER_01: there was an influx of labor from those returning from the war,
24:26
SPEAKER_01: as well as the natural increase of population and an increase in immigration.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore,
24:32
SPEAKER_01: the increasing number of lawsuits brought by slaves against their masters made
24:36
SPEAKER_01: the practice not just immoral but impractical,
24:40
SPEAKER_01: especially for how small the population already was.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Now these calls for an equal embrace of natural rights for all men spread through
24:50
SPEAKER_01: the black population as well.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: They even petitioned the government using principles from John Locke and
24:56
SPEAKER_01: the cases stated previously As justification for emancipation, even if gradual.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: But the winds were shifting quickly.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: In Vermont, the 14th state founded in 1777, they banned slavery in their constitution.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Once freed, many black men and women took on new names as a sign of the end of their bondage.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: They would often replace their bastardized or derisive names like Caesar or Cuffee
25:27
SPEAKER_01: and take on an Anglican name like William or James.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: They would also take on new surnames.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Like their first names,
25:33
SPEAKER_01: they often took common names like Jackson or Morgan,
25:36
SPEAKER_01: but others opted to celebrate further with names like Liberty or Freeman.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: Now as we move south into the middle colonies we'll see that the slaves held here,
25:47
SPEAKER_01: much like in New England,
25:50
SPEAKER_01: Are most common in urban centers like New York City and Philadelphia,
25:54
SPEAKER_01: and most slaveholders were small,
25:56
SPEAKER_01: with one slave, the richest even just two or three.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Now Philadelphia had a slightly higher free black rate due to the major influence of
26:04
SPEAKER_01: the Quakers, but for all intents and purposes these two cities were pretty similar.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: Mostly because the Quakers,
26:10
SPEAKER_01: while encouraging their congregants to put an end to slavery,
26:14
SPEAKER_01: We're not full abolitionists,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: nor did they really want to associate with free blacks themselves.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: At the southern end,
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Delaware was kind of the transition point from the urban north to
26:24
SPEAKER_01: the plantation south.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: They did not have an abundance of tobacco,
26:28
SPEAKER_01: like in Virginia,
26:29
SPEAKER_01: for instance,
26:30
SPEAKER_01: but the enslaved population was almost a third of the total,
26:34
SPEAKER_01: and mostly on large farms.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: Now these middle colonies,
26:38
SPEAKER_01: with New Jersey added among them, escape was especially common for slaves.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Not only were the largest British camps here,
26:48
SPEAKER_01: but many of the largest cities provided ample cover that was not really available to
26:53
SPEAKER_01: the north or to the south quite as much as Boston was still much smaller
26:57
SPEAKER_01: than these other cities.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: So these escaped slaves were able to hide much more easily among
27:03
SPEAKER_01: the many poor workers that already lived there.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: During the revolution,
27:06
SPEAKER_01: the fugitive slave population doubled in Philadelphia and quadrupled
27:11
SPEAKER_01: in New York City.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time,
27:14
SPEAKER_01: this was young men who did not have wives or children or families in general
27:18
SPEAKER_01: to worry about.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: And as the success rate of escape increased, so did the number of attempts.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: The revolutionary rhetoric,
27:26
SPEAKER_01: as we saw in the New England colonies,
27:29
SPEAKER_01: also spread wide and Enslaved and free blacks would use the contradiction of
27:34
SPEAKER_01: the desire for liberty among their enslavers against them.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: This led to many calls for manumission for themselves and their families on
27:42
SPEAKER_01: the basis of the principles of this new nation.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Many masters were sympathetic to this,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: but pragmatism and compromise often ensured slavery was nowhere near its end.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: And as the governments and planters dragged their feet on emancipation, slaves would do it.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Despite the growing evidence against the efficacy,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: let alone the morality,
28:09
SPEAKER_01: of slavery, many slaveholders doubled down on their defense of the practice.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Calls for restored order joined together with religious doctrine,
28:17
SPEAKER_01: and some even used John Locke's right to property as justification,
28:21
SPEAKER_01: though this was much more common in the South.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Now the debate surrounding slavery was widespread,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: and it was well understood among the slaves that the disruptions they felt from
28:32
SPEAKER_01: the war could be exacerbated by their own actions.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: There were also allies in government like George Bryan in Pennsylvania
28:40
SPEAKER_01: who brought forward emancipation legislation and But these often failed on
28:45
SPEAKER_01: the grounds of being too radical, so compromise was struck.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: However, these compromises merely extended the existence of slavery well into the next century.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: For instance,
28:55
SPEAKER_01: the 1780 Bill in Pennsylvania,
28:58
SPEAKER_01: which was the first of these in the Middle Colonies,
29:01
SPEAKER_01: had convoluted rules about when and how slaves could become free.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: So slavery was not going to go extinct.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: The New York legislature attempted many versions of their own type
29:10
SPEAKER_01: of gradualist bill,
29:12
SPEAKER_01: often filled with many limits on freed blacks as well,
29:16
SPEAKER_01: but each bill hit a new roadblock preventing its passing.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: There was agreement, though,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: that the overseas slave trade needed to be abolished,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: and a law specifically banning it was passed in 1785.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: But slavery as a practice remained, and the population of slaves increased after the war.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: New Jersey passed a similar ban,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: but the fines were so low that it wasn't really effective at slowing the trade
29:42
SPEAKER_01: at all.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: But before these laws went into effect,
29:45
SPEAKER_01: many escaped slaves were successful in suing their former owners with the help
29:49
SPEAKER_01: of abolitionist lawyers.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: And abolition lawyers were growing in prominence at this time because
29:56
SPEAKER_01: of several cases prior to even the one in 1781 that allowed for these arguments
30:04
SPEAKER_01: to be made in front of a court.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: In 1772,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: for instance,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: James Somerset,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: a slave who had escaped his master in London,
30:12
SPEAKER_01: was captured as a fugitive and forced back to the colonies.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: However,
30:17
SPEAKER_01: after a British court hearing,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: it was determined that there was no place in common law for his enslavement,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: and he was thus not forced to return to bondage nor return to America.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: News of this case specifically spread throughout the colonies to the ears
30:31
SPEAKER_01: of many slaves and lawyers who hoped to use the same ruling themselves.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And with time,
30:37
SPEAKER_01: more and more owners began to be brought to court to fight for the ownership
30:42
SPEAKER_01: of their slaves.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: For many slave owners,
30:44
SPEAKER_01: the growing headache brought about by owning slaves prompted many to slowly leave
30:49
SPEAKER_01: the business altogether.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: This is especially true in the cities as we saw previously.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Which transitioned heavily to wage labor with the influx of immigrants.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: After achieving their freedom,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: free blacks often took on a life that resembled the previous life that they had as
31:05
SPEAKER_01: a slave.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Mostly out of necessity.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Many would be forced to become indentured servants for years
31:13
SPEAKER_01: before they were actually fully freed.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Because slavery was also slow to die,
31:18
SPEAKER_01: families would remain separated and free blacks would have to remain protected.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Close to their old plantation or old house to ensure that they did not abandon them.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: They also would often live with their old owner,
31:30
SPEAKER_01: now employer, who may or may not offer beds to their family.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: These troubles were especially true of rural slaves who did not have the opportunity
31:39
SPEAKER_01: to take up a trade or find work at all like those in the cities.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: To attempt to escape the drudgery they would be forced to migrate towards the cities
31:49
SPEAKER_01: and join the flock.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: So the black population of many of these cities grew far faster than the rest of the state.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: To survive,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: free blacks would have to work together to find work,
32:01
SPEAKER_01: even with these very limited options.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: These men and women often worked in unskilled trades such as coachmen,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: cooks, seamstresses, or gardeners.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Women were also prominent as domestic servants,
32:13
SPEAKER_01: and men would often find their way on the docks or on ships.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: There were some who were able to find their way into skilled trades, though.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: Or would find their way into brothels.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Despite these many challenges, this was still preferable to life in bondage.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: new black communities within the cities began to emerge where rents were
32:53
SPEAKER_01: A few clusters of a few families at first,
32:56
SPEAKER_01: but with time,
32:58
SPEAKER_01: associations like the Free African Society in Philadelphia,
33:02
SPEAKER_01: which also pointed to a growing quote unquote African identity,
33:06
SPEAKER_01: which completely superseded individual tribes,
33:08
SPEAKER_01: which started earlier as we saw in Arrow 2.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: These would facilitate weddings and funerals and generally act as a cultural center.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Similarly,
33:17
SPEAKER_01: new churches and fraternal orders also grew in these states
33:20
SPEAKER_01: as vital community organizations to help free blacks in times of need.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: These groups would also venture into politics to try to bring the many thoughts
33:29
SPEAKER_01: and misgivings free blacks had into a single voice.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: This ensured that their complaints were compiled and put forward with civility and
33:37
SPEAKER_01: In order to try to erode the image and concern of slave riots.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: Regardless, they were ignored.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Now while the northern colonies in New England and
33:53
SPEAKER_01: the middle colonies did have slaves and there were slave laws and the relations
34:01
SPEAKER_01: that were built within both the white planters versus the slaves and
34:06
SPEAKER_01: the slaves versus the slaves and the free black communities and all of
34:10
SPEAKER_01: that are important to talk about.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: The number of slaves that existed there were far smaller than especially
34:20
SPEAKER_01: the next region, the Chesapeake.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: Now Virginia and Maryland had enslaved populations that were north of 40% of the total.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Virginia was also the most populous colony then state,
34:33
SPEAKER_01: so that was where the largest slave population in the entire British colonies in
34:37
SPEAKER_01: the early American Republic were located.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: The plantation culture was also deeply regimented with a strict hierarchy,
34:47
SPEAKER_01: as opposed to the more fungible relationships that you saw to the north.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: The richest 10% owned a near majority of the property, land and slaves.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Another 30% were yeoman farmers with small farms and maybe one or two slaves or servants.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: And the other 60% owned no property as servants later on.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: The slaves in these southern colonies,
35:12
SPEAKER_01: just as those in the north,
35:13
SPEAKER_01: tried to break bonds using the principles of their masters.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: However, unlike in the north, the chains did not break.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: They barely even weakened.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: By the end of the war, they were even stronger in many places.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Some slaves were able to find their freedom,
35:32
SPEAKER_01: but the expansion of the institution overwhelmed any of these achievements by far.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Now the first opportunities for slaves to find their way
35:39
SPEAKER_01: towards freedom opened up several months after the revolution,
35:43
SPEAKER_01: similar to the northern colonies, but this time it was a little bit more pointed.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: In November 1775,
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Lord Dunmore,
35:51
SPEAKER_01: the royal governor of Virginia,
35:53
SPEAKER_01: declared that any slave that took up arms for the British cause against
35:56
SPEAKER_01: the rebels...
36:00
SPEAKER_01: There were many attempts to prevent slaves from escaping by the planters,
36:03
SPEAKER_01: even threatening death,
36:05
SPEAKER_01: as Dunmore sailed up and down the coast trying to find them
36:08
SPEAKER_01: and also staying safe himself from the rebels.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: But that did not stop any rush towards potential freedom.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Now this flight started at the coast,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: but as the war deepened into the interior,
36:21
SPEAKER_01: more slaves were able to find their way to British camps and to freedom.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Now it's important to note though, Dunmore was not completely altruistic with this declaration.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: So there is an important caveat.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: The slaves of loyalist planters were not often accepted in the British camps
36:41
SPEAKER_01: if they were found out.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: Dunmore even set up so-called Negro courts to sort through these claims made
36:48
SPEAKER_01: by Loyalist planters and return their slaves.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: So this proclamation was not a moral stance,
36:56
SPEAKER_01: but rather a strategic one,
36:58
SPEAKER_01: to steal the labor from the patriots and harm them economically and militarily,
37:04
SPEAKER_01: And get as many soldiers as possible and labor on his side.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Similarly,
37:09
SPEAKER_01: any calls for manumission or violent uprising in
37:12
SPEAKER_01: the British Parliament brought denunciations by the many members
37:16
SPEAKER_01: with financial entanglements in the slave colonies.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: And there was a strange relationship with slavery and black labor generally in England.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: While there were no slaves there, there were some 5,000 black servants in London.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Some worked for the highest in society,
37:33
SPEAKER_01: but most lived in As the rhetoric from the colonists escalated prior to the war,
37:42
SPEAKER_01: especially their insistence on saying that they were enslaved to King George,
37:46
SPEAKER_01: the British elites,
37:47
SPEAKER_01: even though sympathetic to the colonists, were quick to point out the hypocrisy.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Most notable was the prominent Tory Dr.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: Samuel Johnson, though Johnson himself did have black servants.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore,
37:59
SPEAKER_01: many elites,
38:00
SPEAKER_01: though not owning slaves themselves,
38:02
SPEAKER_01: We're also heavily involved in the trade,
38:05
SPEAKER_01: and most of this was in the Caribbean Sugar Islands,
38:07
SPEAKER_01: which remained the most profitable and also by far the most brutal for those
38:12
SPEAKER_01: who lived there, enslaved or free.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: In his book Death or Liberty, Douglas R. Edgerton describes how brutal this could be.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Quote, If anything, life in Jamaica proved even deadlier for white immigrants than for Africans.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Fully, one-third of all white children born in Kingston died before their first birthday.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Few immigrants lived to celebrate their 40th birthday,
38:35
SPEAKER_01: and white indentured servants, on average, perished by age 33.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Although these grim conditions were well-known in Britain,
38:43
SPEAKER_01: whites continued to arrive on Jamaica's shores.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: For the lucky few who survived this quote-unquote seasoning period...
38:49
SPEAKER_01: The chance to grow rich beyond the imagination was a real possibility.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: If slave codes and discipline grew harsher in the proportion to the percentage
38:58
SPEAKER_01: of blacks to whites,
39:00
SPEAKER_01: it is hardly surprising that visitors to the islands,
39:02
SPEAKER_01: including those hardened by contact with other slave societies in the West,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Recorded countless horror stories of beatings, tortures, rapes, and murders.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: On some occasions,
39:12
SPEAKER_01: particularly brutal masters recorded their own violations of African bodies,
39:16
SPEAKER_01: a testimony to the barbarous sensibilities common in the colony.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: And all of this was well known to the British at the time.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: All of these stories.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: So even though, yes,
39:29
SPEAKER_01: there was hypocrisy in the British colonies and soon to be American states,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: British hands with regards to slavery were not clean.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: These impure motives, though,
39:42
SPEAKER_01: were of no concern to the many slaves who found potential freedom in
39:47
SPEAKER_01: the British ranks.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, the slaves that made it were also not mere camp bodies.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: They didn't just sit there and do nothing.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: The freed slaves were put to work as servants and laborers, but also used as soldiers.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: The colonies and states did the same and allowed slaves In both
40:14
SPEAKER_01: camps though,
40:15
SPEAKER_01: blacks were seen as little more than bodies to throw at tasks or the enemy.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: So the casualty rates were extremely high even for soldiers.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: This was also not a guarantee to freedom since there wasn't any clear plan by
40:29
SPEAKER_01: the British for what would happen after the war.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: So in the end,
40:34
SPEAKER_01: while allowing blacks and whites to fight side by side was pushing norms,
40:38
SPEAKER_01: the use of black labor was just the status quo in a new environment.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: On top of that,
40:43
SPEAKER_01: as a preventative measure against flight,
40:46
SPEAKER_01: many planters moved their slaves away from the fight,
40:50
SPEAKER_01: even to other colonies or into the Caribbean,
40:54
SPEAKER_01: but sometimes this distance only pressured them even further to escape.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: One common place for these loyalist planters to find refuge was in the Mississippi Valley.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: It was there that they hoped to save their property,
41:07
SPEAKER_01: namely slaves, from either death or confiscation.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: But these southern colonies were also known as a bastion for freedom
41:15
SPEAKER_01: if anyone could find their way there on their own.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: The many maroon colonies in the Mississippi Valley were permanent fixtures
41:22
SPEAKER_01: with alliances formed between escaped slaves and Indians that created
41:27
SPEAKER_01: an entity independent of the British colonies.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: However,
41:31
SPEAKER_01: their reliance on plantation production did not really let them abandon
41:34
SPEAKER_01: the colonial world completely and would often help slaves complete their tasks
41:39
SPEAKER_01: and acted as a secondary market for their goods.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: Now the non-British colonies,
41:44
SPEAKER_01: that is the Spanish colonies,
41:46
SPEAKER_01: already provided a much stronger basis for freedom for blacks.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: So it also became a refuge for the many escapees.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: But these escapees were expected to provide support to their new home.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: So free black militias were organized by the Spanish to help fight wars against the British.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: Now the boom of commercial activity that occurred after the war accelerated
42:10
SPEAKER_01: the already existing primary method of manumission,
42:13
SPEAKER_01: which was self-purchase in these Spanish colonies.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: By the end of the century,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: nearly a third of the black population in New Orleans was freed compared to just 2%
42:22
SPEAKER_01: in Charleston.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: And similar to what we'll see in the Lower South,
42:27
SPEAKER_01: free blacks wished to emerge from the lowest rungs of society by breaking with
42:33
SPEAKER_01: the blacks and joining the realm of whites.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: But they often remained in a strange middle, forced to forge their own path.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: In doing this,
42:43
SPEAKER_01: they were forced to rely on old masters for work,
42:46
SPEAKER_01: but some were able to join the slave-owning class themselves and buy and sell slaves
42:50
SPEAKER_01: on their quest to move upwards.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: There are also others who would work with the slaves rather than buying them
42:57
SPEAKER_01: to provide community and hopefully a way towards freedom,
43:02
SPEAKER_01: with hope for a future completely free of bondage.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Now just as there were all of these external forces pulling slaves away from
43:12
SPEAKER_01: the plantations,
43:14
SPEAKER_01: there were also internal effects that changed how planters looked
43:18
SPEAKER_01: at their plantations.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Mostly, it changed their strategy when it came to what they would plant on their farms.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: As the trade with Britain dried up,
43:28
SPEAKER_01: they could not rely on staple crops like tobacco,
43:31
SPEAKER_01: so they converted to mixed farming with wheat taking many of the acres,
43:35
SPEAKER_01: and even started manufacturing goods on their plantations where possible to make up
43:40
SPEAKER_01: for the lack of imports from Britain.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: So this transformation meant that slaves were pushed even harder than ever,
43:47
SPEAKER_01: as these new tasks,
43:48
SPEAKER_01: if they didn't just replace the old ones, stacked on top of them.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: The reduction of imports also reduced the already scant allotments of food
43:55
SPEAKER_01: and clothes,
43:56
SPEAKER_01: so bartering, fishing, and gardening was even more necessary for slave survival.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: The new farming methods and the introduction of plows did bring
44:05
SPEAKER_01: with it new plantation jobs and specialists as new skills were needed to run
44:10
SPEAKER_01: the farming operation.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: And the increase in manufacturing also opened up the slaves to trades.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: So they did work, but they were now working in more interesting fields.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: And it allowed slaves to learn more valuable skills than previously.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Though many times the demands would drive where they would actually work.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't interest.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: It never would be.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: And one other strange thing that started to happen was white laborers,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: having been disrupted because of the war,
44:37
SPEAKER_01: would also join in with these slaves to help them during harvest times or
44:42
SPEAKER_01: during other times when manufacturing was needed.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: So throughout the war,
44:46
SPEAKER_01: there was kind of a constant renegotiation of the slave and servant
44:51
SPEAKER_01: and planter relationship.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: When the threats of the British induced flight, labor was reduced.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: When they became insulated from the fight, labor requirements were increased.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: And as the war progressed,
45:03
SPEAKER_01: transitions would bring complaints from the side losing out,
45:06
SPEAKER_01: and expected hours and outputs were all part of this.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: And it was kind of an ebbing and flowing of this relationship throughout.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: While obviously still, the slaves were losing out in the end.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, by the end of the war,
45:20
SPEAKER_01: some 5,000 slaves were freed due to the Dunmore Camp Proclamation,
45:26
SPEAKER_01: and they were sent to either the West Indies or Canada on retreating British ships.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: But in that same period,
45:33
SPEAKER_01: the total slave population in Maryland and Virginia increased by nearly 30,000 due
45:39
SPEAKER_01: to just natural increase.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: This then allowed more farmers to become slaveholders after the war.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: On the flip side of this though,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: as a way to signal their superior virtue compared to the southern states
45:50
SPEAKER_01: as we'll see, the international slave trade was abandoned.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: This was definitely not true of the internal trade though as economic changes after
46:00
SPEAKER_01: the war as well as the abolition that was starting to happen up north were boons
46:04
SPEAKER_01: for both the buying and selling of slaves in the Chesapeake.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Excess slaves provided quick income and helped jumpstart the fledgling industrial economy.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Now this reinvigorated interstate slave trade brought with it even more uncertainty
46:20
SPEAKER_01: than the war had.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly families and communities were torn apart and many were shipped
46:24
SPEAKER_01: to other states when either they were set up for sale or when planters moved
46:29
SPEAKER_01: for better opportunities.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Now, with this movement,
46:33
SPEAKER_01: the black population was provided the means to learn more about the outside world,
46:39
SPEAKER_01: which was previously impossible with the isolation and plantations.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: These slaves were also able to take advantage,
46:46
SPEAKER_01: just like those in the north,
46:48
SPEAKER_01: of the new labor markets organized around skilled trades.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: These new jobs,
46:53
SPEAKER_01: like those in the forges and foundries,
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Made harsh punishments untenable because they wouldn't be able to work.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: And new incentives like payment for overwork were introduced to get them to produce more.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: And these new trades also brought with it a movement towards the cities,
47:08
SPEAKER_01: which provided even more opportunity.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: As these specialized trades expanded into the creation of new towns throughout the colonies.
47:17
SPEAKER_01: Slaves and free blacks alike could be found working as carpenters and bricklayers,
47:21
SPEAKER_01: or in the shipyards as rope makers,
47:23
SPEAKER_01: or in the foundries, or in the tobacco factories.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: As a whole,
47:26
SPEAKER_01: after the war,
47:26
SPEAKER_01: slaves had been granted many concessions,
47:27
SPEAKER_01: like starting and staying with family,
47:29
SPEAKER_01: better jobs, pay for overwork, and ability to build communities generally.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: Now, this was not a mark for the slaveholders' goodwill,
47:51
SPEAKER_01: but rather the work of the slaves who continuously pressed
47:54
SPEAKER_01: against their oppression throughout this process.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: However,
47:58
SPEAKER_01: these changes were seen as disruptions to the social order in the Chesapeake,
48:03
SPEAKER_01: and many owners lamented the inclusion of slaves in the economy as more
48:07
SPEAKER_01: than mere property.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: There's also concern about the re-emergence of white and black relationships.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: In Many Thousands Gone,
48:15
SPEAKER_01: Ira Berlin states that, quote,
48:17
SPEAKER_01: If competition between white journeymen and skilled slaves kept them apart,
48:21
SPEAKER_01: the alliance of shopkeepers and slaves flourished.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: The interracial camaraderie of the back alley taverns,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: gaming houses,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: and brothels created an atmosphere that subverted plantation discipline.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: For slaves, towns became great emporiums in which everything was for sale.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Now, those few who were able to find freedom did not gain a whole lot from it.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Freedom, for many of them, was filled with anxiety.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: It was possible to change one's name, get new work, and blend in, but it was not foolproof.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: There was some more stability and even potential for eventual real freedom if
49:09
SPEAKER_01: a slave stayed on the plantation and took on extra work or fought in the place
49:14
SPEAKER_01: of their owner.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: But these were not close to guaranteed.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: Now the slow growth of a free black population not only helped provide shielding
49:23
SPEAKER_01: to those escaped slaves, it also proved that freedom was possible.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: And the growing networks and communities also allowed more to find their way out of
49:33
SPEAKER_01: the shackles.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: As a result, in Maryland, the free black population tripled from before the war to after.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, in Virginia, the population increased six-fold after the war.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: However, these relative gains were dwarfed by the increase in slavery.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: Similarly,
49:50
SPEAKER_01: many slaves who had broken their shackles,
49:52
SPEAKER_01: just like in the North,
49:54
SPEAKER_01: remained employed by the planter who had enslaved them in the first place.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore,
49:59
SPEAKER_01: free blacks faced severe discrimination and ostracism and were barred
50:03
SPEAKER_01: from most participation in legal and political life.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: In the end,
50:09
SPEAKER_01: despite some opportunities for freedom,
50:10
SPEAKER_01: some risky,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: others slow and laborious,
50:13
SPEAKER_01: rather than a distinction emerging between free and bonded blacks as was the case in
50:19
SPEAKER_01: the North, they all remained in the same material position in all but name.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: This did provide for a singular African-American culture to emerge as it had started
50:29
SPEAKER_01: to do in the late colonial period,
50:33
SPEAKER_01: but this was little consolation for the long fight for true freedom
50:37
SPEAKER_01: that still remained ahead of all of them.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Now there was a small anti-slavery movement, though it was very short-lived.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: It grew out of the Baptist and Methodist churches throughout the Chesapeake.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: And in general, religion was a pivotal piece of the growth of the liberated afterthoughts.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: This was especially true in the evangelical sects like Baptists and Methodists,
51:12
SPEAKER_01: who were not strictly structured as a singular church,
51:15
SPEAKER_01: so black congregations were able to kind of emerge on their own.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: So the pulpit became a prominent place for blacks
51:22
SPEAKER_01: to make their voice heard These churches,
51:24
SPEAKER_01: where they were allowed to exist,
51:26
SPEAKER_01: were bases of community service and education,
51:27
SPEAKER_01: despite their hands being tied, often literally.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: For the greater black population,
51:48
SPEAKER_01: these churches became their refuge and black preachers grew in prominence
51:52
SPEAKER_01: as they traveled from city to city.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: However, they provided far more community than any sort of path towards freedom.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: The much louder and stronger pro-slavery voices among the planters forced
52:06
SPEAKER_01: the abolition movement to falter as quickly as it arose.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: The plantation owners used these same principles of natural rights to fight
52:15
SPEAKER_01: for stronger property rights and thus stronger protections against manumission.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: They perverted the words of the Declaration and the words of John Locke to get what they wanted.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of the rules surrounding manumission were softened,
52:29
SPEAKER_01: thus there were greater opportunities for true freedom for some,
52:32
SPEAKER_01: but given the glut of new slaves,
52:35
SPEAKER_01: most planters just use this to merely drop the poorly performing or old rather
52:40
SPEAKER_01: than doing it for any altruistic reasons.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: No matter how much consternation the ruling planters felt with the contradiction at
52:48
SPEAKER_01: the heart of this conflict, they were constantly writing about this.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Widespread freedom never emerged.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: And rather than any sort of large-scale emancipation laws,
52:58
SPEAKER_01: even if they were gradual like in the North,
53:00
SPEAKER_01: many of the states in the Upper South merely granted more rights to slave owners.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: There was also an undercurrent throughout these states that slavery was evil
53:09
SPEAKER_01: for what it did to the owners rather than what it did to the slaves.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: It was well known among the many planters,
53:16
SPEAKER_01: many of whom were enlightened thinkers and founding fathers who had claimed
53:21
SPEAKER_01: the king was enslaving them.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And they understood that slavery was a moral stain,
53:26
SPEAKER_01: but hoped that natural progress would eradicate the practice in time
53:30
SPEAKER_01: and save their souls.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Not something that they would do right now.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, an unintended consequence of the manumission being granted to the owners rather
53:39
SPEAKER_01: than being done at a large scale was that the hierarchy
53:46
SPEAKER_01: So
53:50
SPEAKER_01: to
53:52
SPEAKER_01: put all of this together, there were some small routes to freedom.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: Wages from overwork could be used to pay oneself off or another family member,
54:01
SPEAKER_01: and some did actually take their planters to court as well.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: There was also the individual freedom that some could get for good behavior.
54:09
SPEAKER_01: But mostly this just created an environment in which
54:13
SPEAKER_01: the most motivated could seek freedom if they tried,
54:16
SPEAKER_01: but most were just those that were no longer productive.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: So planters could feel like liberators without losing anything of value.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: So this middle road,
54:26
SPEAKER_01: rather than accelerating any sort of freedom,
54:29
SPEAKER_01: ensured that the institution would not fade away.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: While the revolution started in the northern colonies,
54:41
SPEAKER_01: it was in these southern colonies,
54:42
SPEAKER_01: as we saw at the beginning of this episode,
54:45
SPEAKER_01: that it was fought with the most ferocity.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: Not only was it the most prolonged theater,
54:52
SPEAKER_01: it was the one that presaged what would happen nearly a century later.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: It was a war between neighbors and often family in an endless series of raids
55:04
SPEAKER_01: and non-conventional warfare filled with arson,
55:07
SPEAKER_01: pillaging,
55:07
SPEAKER_01: and plunder that placed all citizens against each other,
55:12
SPEAKER_01: fighting for their preferred future.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: Like in the Chesapeake,
55:15
SPEAKER_01: this maelstrom brought with it the opportunities for slaves to press
55:19
SPEAKER_01: towards freedom, either through fight or flight.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: But as we have seen, it only got harder as we went south.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we move south,
55:29
SPEAKER_01: the overall population decreases, but the proportion of non-whites increases.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: And in South Carolina, it was about 60% black.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: And these colonies had the most regimented and structured slave systems.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: And they also doled out the harshest punishments,
55:44
SPEAKER_01: but also allowed slightly more independence, given the way that they worked.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: Once tasks were completed, they were on their own.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Now Georgia is an interesting case because it had been a free colony until 1751,
55:59
SPEAKER_01: just 25 years before the war.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: But once slavery became legalized,
56:04
SPEAKER_01: it was quickly adopted,
56:06
SPEAKER_01: and in less than 15 years,
56:08
SPEAKER_01: by the time the first rumblings of the Stamp Act occur,
56:12
SPEAKER_01: the slave population boomed to nearly 40% of the total population.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Now after the war started,
56:19
SPEAKER_01: rather than relaxing the laws and regulations,
56:22
SPEAKER_01: as we saw in many of the states north of them,
56:25
SPEAKER_01: the slaveholders in the Carolinas and in Georgia cracked down even harder.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: Rather than using the carrot,
56:32
SPEAKER_01: they Now this did not quell the calls for freedom,
56:39
SPEAKER_01: and slaveholders began to fear that violent uprisings like had just happened
56:43
SPEAKER_01: a few decades prior at the Stono River would break out again.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Now these fears did prove reliable when some ex-slaves,
56:50
SPEAKER_01: now under the protection of the British,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: raided many of the plantations along the coast.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: But these direct conflicts were not the only way that slaves broke their restraints.
57:02
SPEAKER_01: Many others,
57:02
SPEAKER_01: often full plantations,
57:04
SPEAKER_01: would take what they could carry and travel either west,
57:07
SPEAKER_01: to the growing maroon bands that were in the swamps,
57:10
SPEAKER_01: or to the east, to the British camps.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: They would also like their counterparts to the north flee to the cities and fade
57:16
SPEAKER_01: into the existing free black population,
57:19
SPEAKER_01: keeping one eye looking over their shoulder for groups of fugitive slave catchers.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: Now, the flight to the British camps arose similarly to the way it did in Virginia.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: Just like the Dunmore Proclamation,
57:32
SPEAKER_01: General Henry Clinton offered security for any escaped slaves owned by
57:36
SPEAKER_01: a patriot planter if they made it to the British camp in Savannah, Georgia.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, this was not altruistic.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: These fugitive slaves were put to work on fortifications and material gathering for the army.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: And Henry Clinton was very clear.
57:50
SPEAKER_01: He would only free those slaves who belonged to rebel planters.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: Any Tory planter would have their property returned to them.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: And as I've stated, this was common throughout Britain.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: Douglas Edgerton states that, quote,
58:02
SPEAKER_01: The attitude of most officers resembled the attitude of King and Prime Minister.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: Black liberation was a means to an end, not an end itself.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: By 1778,
58:12
SPEAKER_01: some members of Parliament had concluded that the New England colonies were lost
58:16
SPEAKER_01: to British control,
58:17
SPEAKER_01: but the invasion of the South gave them hope that Britain might resurrect
58:21
SPEAKER_01: a new plantation-based American empire out of colonies stretching from
58:25
SPEAKER_01: the Chesapeake through the Carolinas and across the Caribbean.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: To that extent,
58:30
SPEAKER_01: British policy was fundamentally conservative in that it aimed to restore
58:34
SPEAKER_01: the colonial status quo, and that meant plantation agriculture.
58:39
SPEAKER_01: And we can see this as we've seen throughout this episode,
58:42
SPEAKER_01: that the conditions and treatment of blacks in these camps was not much better than
58:47
SPEAKER_01: on the plantation as supplies ran low and deaths mounted.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Many slave women were forced to sell their bodies to get food in return.
58:56
SPEAKER_01: This was not a utopia for freed blacks whatsoever.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: It was just more of the same.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: The confusion regarding who was part of this protected group kept many slaves
59:06
SPEAKER_01: on their plantation And this desire for slave labor was also not exclusive to
59:15
SPEAKER_01: the British,
59:16
SPEAKER_01: as patriot leaders,
59:17
SPEAKER_01: of course,
59:17
SPEAKER_01: began confiscating plantations and impressing any slaves,
59:21
SPEAKER_01: as in that That is taking them into their armies who stuck behind.
59:25
SPEAKER_01: The slaves who were located on unmolested plantations took the absence
59:30
SPEAKER_01: of their owner who often would end up in the cities on the coast to effectively take
59:35
SPEAKER_01: over the plantation via threats or actual violence against the overseers.
59:39
SPEAKER_01: So many planters returned to their plantations to find that they had lost all authority.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: As a result,
59:46
SPEAKER_01: slaves expanded their own gardens,
59:47
SPEAKER_01: tool supplies, and livestock to fund their own family rather than the plantation.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: For many of the plantations,
59:53
SPEAKER_01: this was an acceptable concession,
59:54
SPEAKER_01: given the British blockade had isolated them from the market for their crops.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: However,
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: the need for slave labor re-emerged with the introduction of a crucial new crop,
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: cotton.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_01: The need for clothes throughout the war drove not only
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: the spinning mentioned previously in the north,
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: but also the cultivation of cotton in the south.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: Planters were quick to provision their farms for this new crop,
1:00:20
SPEAKER_01: and the production of cotton thread disappeared.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_01: Before they departed, though,
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: During the war,
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: two-thirds of the slaves in Georgia and about a quarter,
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: about 25,000 of the slaves in South Carolina, found their way out of slavery.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: Now the devastation to the plantations and the shrinking of the labor pool
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: as opposed to the increase in the Chesapeake made sure that the planters felt a need
1:01:09
SPEAKER_01: to rebuild and replenish by any means possible.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: This was made doubly important as debts needed to be paid.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: Part of this was to try to bring those from the maroon colonies back,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: but it was quickly made apparent that those maroon colonies and the militias
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: that they formed were not going to come back willingly.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: This challenge to white authority brought with it a general crackdown.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: Militias were formed to track down and capture,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: then punish or even kill, the slaves who had escaped.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: The white planters would not be stopped in reinstating the status quo.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: Ira Berlin describes this crackdown, quote,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: Faced by the slaves challenge,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: planters closed ranks and mobilized the newly established state authority.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: They sent the militia,
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: often led by veterans of the Revolutionary Army,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: against the black irregulars and the Maroons,
1:01:59
SPEAKER_01: defeating them in pitched battles,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: beheading their leaders,
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: and driving the Maroons more deeply into the swamps and flushing the bandits from
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: the backcountry.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: For plantations,
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: slaveholders confronted insubordination with the same overwhelming force,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: wielding the lash with special ferocity as they re-established sovereignty
1:02:17
SPEAKER_01: over their estates.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: Slaves resisted the imposition of the new order with ingenuity and determination,
1:02:23
SPEAKER_01: but planters soon revived staple production,
1:02:26
SPEAKER_01: consolidated their control over the low country,
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: and expanded the plantation system to the backcountry.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: End quote.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_01: As stated,
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: the planters returned to staple crop cultivation,
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: but replaced indigo with cotton in much of the Lowcountry, and this crop boomed.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: In just a decade,
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: from 1780,
1:02:47
SPEAKER_01: From 1890 to 1800, the cotton export of South Carolina increased some 600 times.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: Now to replenish their enslaved labor pool,
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: many planters also looked north to the Chesapeake who were looking
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: to offload their own labor supply, but also began looking elsewhere.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: They remained active in the African slave trade,
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: with Charleston returning as a major slave port.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: Now the mix between the Creole and the new African slaves allowed planters
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: to disrupt the standards secured by the Creole slaves,
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: by the American-born slaves,
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: by mixing in newcomers that had no understanding of changes that were made
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: to make sure that they could extract more work.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: However,
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: the slaves on the plantation,
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: rather than fighting with these newcomers,
1:03:36
SPEAKER_01: integrated them quickly in order to ensure any previously made gains were not lost
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: and they were spread.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: Some planters realized this quickly and ceded the authority over these new slaves
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: to those already on the plantation and they just lived in the cities on their own.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: Now, the rapid reinforcement of slave labor led to slaves moving from about 60% of
1:03:58
SPEAKER_01: the population to 80% by the end of the century.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: This coincided with the return of gang labor and a reversal from
1:04:06
SPEAKER_01: the less restrictive Now,
1:04:07
SPEAKER_01: where slaves were able to get into a trade,
1:04:09
SPEAKER_01: they were able to join the market themselves,
1:04:11
SPEAKER_01: but they're often undercut by their owner or other white tradesmen and forced
1:04:15
SPEAKER_01: to sell on the plantation alone.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_01: The overall concern of a secondary slave market disrupting
1:04:39
SPEAKER_01: the normal white market led to this opposition,
1:04:42
SPEAKER_01: but with the risk of violence and protest,
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: many of the planters kind of walked back on that and learned how to profit
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: from it themselves rather than banning it.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: Now, the urban slaves,
1:04:53
SPEAKER_01: like the northern counterparts,
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: were also given more independence and were oftentimes free and everything but name
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: with a residence and family completely away from their owner.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: In totality,
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: this created the opportunity for slaves and free blacks to create communities
1:05:09
SPEAKER_01: that were separated almost entirely from whites.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: These communities also provided a path, though it was very limited, towards freedom.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: And as the century closed...
1:05:19
SPEAKER_01: Manumissions allowed thousands to find freedom,
1:05:21
SPEAKER_01: and in Charleston,
1:05:22
SPEAKER_01: the free black population had increased 40-fold,
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: though it still only remained 2% of the population.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_01: But the total population was larger than that in Boston.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_01: This did prove troubling, so at the turn of the century, private manumission was banned.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: So...
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get better.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_01: Those who were freed often kept their old owners' names and remained close to stay
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: in good graces.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: This proved successful for many as many ex-slaves were provided food,
1:05:50
SPEAKER_01: funds, goods, and work to help start their new lives.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_01: Ex-slaves were also insistent on raising their own status and trying to rise up in
1:05:58
SPEAKER_01: the hierarchy however they could.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: They would try to leave the life of slavery as far behind as possible,
1:06:04
SPEAKER_01: which created a kind of three-tiered racial hierarchy.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_01: Once considered quote-unquote brown rather than quote-unquote black,
1:06:12
SPEAKER_01: They would treat those below them just as they were treated from above,
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: and any sort of racial and ethnic unity that was seen,
1:06:19
SPEAKER_01: say, in the Chesapeake was abandoned.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_01: Now there were some, mostly preachers and ex-slaves, who advocated for slavery to end.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_01: But with the rapid expansion to the north of them and within the deep south,
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: their voices were drowned out.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: The pro-slavery side won the day, and any idea of gradual emancipation was completely denied.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_01: Rather, just as in the Chesapeake,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_01: the Lockean ideal of property rights were perverted to include slaves in
1:06:50
SPEAKER_01: that property,
1:06:51
SPEAKER_01: and any denial of that right was seen as abandoning the ideals of
1:06:56
SPEAKER_01: the nation's founding.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: So just like in the Chesapeake, slavery seemed to be here for good.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_01: Even with the slow, gradual emancipation in the North, there was emancipation.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: In the South, there was just reinforcement.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_02: You won't see me passing by Until the healing hands of time begins
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: Make my heart sing again.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: My beating heart goes with the earth, with seas that roar and winds that steam and strain.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: Cries her song once again.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_02: And as they fall, they do not rise again.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm never going to set you up.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: You won't see me
1:09:52
SPEAKER_02: Till the birds sing again