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Racial & Ethnic Relations in America

Free blacks

by Michael H. Burchett

In 1860, an estimated 500,000 free people of African ancestry resided in the United States; of these, approximately half lived in the slaveholding South. Most of these free blacks were former slaves who had purchased their freedom or were freed in their masters’ wills, but a significant minority were freeborn. Their experiences varied by region; those in the northern states, although limited in economic opportunity, enjoyed greater political and social freedom than their counterparts in the South, where demand for black labor was greater but free blacks were regarded with suspicion. The majority of free blacks lived in extreme poverty; however, a small but significant number achieved modest prosperity and a few attained substantial wealth, in some instances purchasing plantations and becoming slaveholders.

Free African Americans of the antebellum period exerted profound influence upon black society in the post-slavery United States. The abolitionist rhetoric of former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and Samuel Ringgold Ward influenced later generations of black activists, and the activities of free southern blacks set precedents for race relations and relations among African Americans after emancipation. The political and legal restrictions placed on free blacks by fearful southern whites in the antebellum period provided a blueprint for racial oppression in the South during the era of segregation.

Bibliography and Further Reading

1 

Callaway, Shelby. “Free Blacks in Antebellum America.” African Americans in the Nineteenth Century: People and Perspectives. Ed. Dixie Ray Haggard. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 17–32. Print.

2 

Copeland, David. The Antebellum Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1820 to 1860. Westport: Greenwood, 2003. Print.

3 

King, Stewart R. Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and People of Color in the Americas. New York: Facts On File, 2012. Print.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Burchett, Michael H. "Free Blacks." Racial & Ethnic Relations in America, edited by Kibibi Mack-Shelton & Michael Shally-Jensen, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=RACE2E_0349.
APA 7th
Burchett, M. H. (2017). Free blacks. In K. Mack-Shelton & M. Shally-Jensen (Eds.), Racial & Ethnic Relations in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Burchett, Michael H. "Free Blacks." Edited by Kibibi Mack-Shelton & Michael Shally-Jensen. Racial & Ethnic Relations in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.