Introduction
During the Market Revolution, slaveholders and the commodity crops of the South had a strong influence on U.S. politics and the country's economy; for example, New York City's economy was closely tied to the South through shipping and manufacturing. Though this period saw a rising number of slaves freed in the North and to a much lesser extent the South, African Americans experienced barriers that prevented their full participation in the economy.
Background
As the United States grew, the institution of slavery became more entrenched in the Southern states, even as Northern states began to abolish it. Vermont was the first state to outlaw slavery in its constitution of 1777, and other Northern states followed suit. Either through the language of their state constitutions, court decisions, or gradual emancipation acts, all states north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line had outlawed slavery by 1804.
By 1810, 75 percent of African Americans in the North and 13.5 percent of all African Americans in the United States were free. Following this period, fewer slaves were freed as a result of the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 triggered a huge demand for slave labor to develop new cotton plantations. During a 20-year period, there was a 70 percent increase in the number of slaves in the United States, mostly concentrated in the Deep South. The abolition of the international slave trade in 1808 also increased the demand for domestic slaves.
By 1819, there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism in the United States. Fears of an imbalance in Congress led to the 1820 Missouri Compromise that divided the Territories along the 36°30′ parallel. Territories seeking statehood above the line would become free states, and those below the line would become slave states. Many politicians believed that this would provide a permanent solution to the vexing question of slavery in the expanding American nation.
African Americans in the North
By 1830, there were 319,000 free African Americans in the United States, 150,000 of whom lived in the Northern states. While virtually all African Americans in the North were free by 1840, they were subject to racial segregation and discrimination, including the institutionalized racism that characterized the majority of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The system of white supremacy that provided cultural justification of slavery also affected the status of free African Americans, who were perceived as members of an inferior race. Free African Americans could not enter many professional occupations, such as medicine and law, because they were barred from the necessary education. This was also true of occupations that required firearm possession, elective office, or a liquor license. Many of these careers required large capital investments that most free African Americans could not afford. The 1830s saw a significant effort by white communities to oppose black education, coinciding with the emergence of public schooling in northern American society. Public schooling and citizenship were linked together, and because of the ambiguity that surrounded African American citizenship status, African Americans were effectively excluded from public access to universal education.
Free African American males enjoyed wider employment opportunities than free African American females, who were largely confined to domestic occupations. While free African American boys could become apprentices to carpenters, coopers, barbers, and blacksmiths, girls'—whose options were much more limited—were confined to domestic work such as being cooks, cleaning women, seamstresses, and caregivers.
African Americans attempted to combat discrimination and strengthen their communities by forming organizations such as the American Society of Free People of Color. Other active abolitionist bodies advocating reforms in the North were the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, formed in 1775, and the New York Manumission Society, formed in 1785. These organizations provided social aid to African Americans in poverty and organized responses to political issues. The African American community also established schools for African American children, who were often barred from entering public schools.
While the majority of free African Americans lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that catered to the African American community. Doctors, lawyers, and other businessmen were the foundation of the early African American middle class.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott, born a slave in Virginia in 1795, had been one of the thousands forced to relocate as a result of the massive internal slave trade and taken to the slave state of Missouri. In 1820, Scott’s owner took him first to Illinois and then to the Wisconsin territory. However, both of those regions were part of the Northwest Territory, where the 1787 Northwest Ordinance had prohibited slavery. When Scott returned to Missouri, he attempted to buy his freedom. After his owner refused, he sought relief in the state courts, arguing that by virtue of having lived in areas where slavery was banned, he should be free.
In a complicated set of legal decisions, a jury found that Scott, along with his wife and two children, were free. However, on appeal from Scott’s owner, the state Superior Court reversed the decision, and the Scotts remained slaves. Scott then became the property of John Sanford , who lived in New York. He continued his legal battle, and the case was brought to the federal court in 1854 (where Scott lost) and the Supreme Court in 1857.
The Supreme Court—led by Chief Justice Roger Taney—decided Scott remained a slave. The court then went beyond the specific issue of Scott’s freedom to make a sweeping and momentous judgment about the status of African Americans, both free and slave. Per the court, African Americans could never be citizens of the United States. Further, the court ruled that Congress had no authority to stop or limit the spread of slavery into American territories. This proslavery ruling struck a major blow to the African American community and would not be reversed until the Civil Rights Act of 1865.
Dred Scott portrait by Louis Schultze
Dred Scott (1795–1858), plaintiff in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) case at the Supreme Court of the United States.