Delisha Lindsey

ID: 44231263

Blacks in the North

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak , or think as one wants and not having
Consequences. This means that a person can do what they want to do (if legal) and not have to
worry about getting in trouble such as going to jail. One main reason for the division of the north
and south of the United States was because of the different beliefs on free blacks. African
Americans were told to they were free since there wasn’t slavery in the North. I feel that even
though slavery was not allowed in the North, blacks were still not free. Blacks were not free
because of segregation, often getting snacthed to become slaves in South, and how they were
forced to live.
Blacks were treated equal like white people. White people didn’t see blacks as same as
themselves therefore, blacks and whites were separated. In document F it says, “Negro
children, whether free or slave, shall not attend the same schools as white students” This was
one way Blacks and whites were separated, This was called segregation. Many rules were
forced upon Blacks and not white. Such as having a curfew of ten pm, and not being allowed to
buy any strong liquor according to document F. Another example of segregation in the North
was in document, “Churches as Agents of Change”. In this document it said, “But church
officials had grown uneasy at the large amount of African Americans attending service. On that
November Sunday, the met African Americans at the Door and forced them to climb the stairs to
the gallery instead.” White people felt uncomfortable for Blacks in their churches, that they made
them use a different entrance just to not be seen. This is separating whites and blacks. The
whites were allowed to go through the front door, not blacks.
It was very obvious why the South supported slavery and the North didn’t. The south had
many plantations. Many blacks moved to the North, thinking they were free just whites were.
Things changed when free blacks were getting kidnapped and sold to the South to work as
slaves, especially women and children. In document entitled, “Ambiguity of Freedom” stated, “In
the 1820’s a gang known as the Blackbirders operated in the Five Points, seizing both fugitives
and free blacks living there.” The same document said,”an interracial gang based in Delaware
that had lured nearly fifty black men, women, and children onto ships in Philadelphia and
transported them to be sold in the South.” This is not what being free is. It’s not free to be taken
against your will and sold back into slavery. Some people might say that Blacks were warned
and that a government can not control what every individual does. I do agree that some states
would try and help and warn blacks of kidnappers. Since in the caution poster document it says,
“Colored people of Boston, one and all. You are hereby cautioned and advised to avoid
conversing with the Watchmen and Police officers of Boston.” It also says, “Keep a sharp look
for Kidnappers, and have top eye open.” But, any white person who was either caught
kidnapping blacks or was known to doing it did not have consequences. Kidnapping is a crime
everywhere and if blacks were free in the North then the kidnappers would have been in trouble.
Like, if it was the other way around and whites were getting kidnapped by blacks then the blacks
would be hanged.
 African Americans were forced to live in horrible living conditions and was not allowed to
achieve the things that whites were allowed to in life. In “Economic Freedom” it states, “Black
men and women found themselves confined to the lowest rungs of the economic ladder,
working as domestic servants and unskilled laborers.” Since blacks were given low paid jobs,
they could only afford to live by the dock or in the Five Points. The Five Points was “a
multiethnic neighborhood notorious for crime, overcrowding, and poverty.” Many Blacks were
not given the opportunity to get a good education. In document G, it states that only apprentices
under the age of 16 who was learning a craft was allowed to be taught reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Even though almost 16 blacks were given the chance to vote. But, this was out of
thousands of Blacks and was clearly unfair and the blacks able to vote had to pay hundreds of
dollars.
In conclusion, despite the North claiming that Blacks were free in the North, because of
not having slavery, they were not. They were not treated the same and were not looked as
equal to whites. Just because there was no slavery doesn’t mean blacks were free. They
weren’t free to live their life and do what they want and because of this they were not given
freedom in the North. I feel that the authors were a little bias only because most of the authors
were black. Each document showed the cruel treatment of whites towards blacks.