Companion to African American History

A review of work on African Americans through archaeology takes place under diasporic studies and relies on literature that defines the North American black experience. The focus is on the establishment of freedom by the founding of maroon communities and independent settlements of free people, as well as on the use and interpretation of African diasporic history and theory, particularly by archaeologists using knowledge of the diaspora to effect modern political change.

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The archaeology of black americans in recent times

A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891

Paradoxically, in the decades following the Revolution, slavery in Baltimore gained strength even as slaves were being freed in record numbers. The vigorous growth of the city required the exploitation of rural slaves with craft skills. To prevent them from escaping and to spur higher production, owners entered into arrangements with their slaves, promising eventual freedom in return for many years of hard work. This was a practical, not a philanthropic arrangement; following the release of one group of slaves, owners would simply purchase additional ones. This practice of "term slavery" created a labor force affordable to small craftsmen and manufacturers and directly contributed to the urban development of the country's third largest city. Newly freed slaves, driven by debts contracted in purchasing freedom, remained dependent upon their former masters for employment. The freeing of blacks in rural Maryland and their migrations to Baltimore to work and save in order to aid still-enslaved kin supplied the city with even more free black workers.

The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland

In reconstructing the early business history of black America, Professor Walker emphasizes the diversity and complexity of antebellum black entrepreneurship, both slave and free. With few exceptions, prevailing historical assessments have confined their analyses of pre-Civil War black business participation to marginal enterprises, concentrated primarily in craft and service industries. In America's preindustrial mercantile business community, however, blacks established a wide variety of enterprises, some of them remarkably successful. The business activities of antebellum blacks not only offer insights into the multiplicity of responses to the constraints of racism and slavery, but also highlight relatively unexplored areas in the historical development of the free enterprise system in the United States.

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Racism, Slavery, and Free Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship in the United States before the Civil War

Black Liberation in Kentucky: Emancipation and Freedom, 1862-1884@@@Free Frank: A Black Pioneer on the Antebellum Frontier

We first learn details of Frank's life when in 1795 his owner moved to Pulaski County, Kentucky. We know that he married Lucy, a slave on a neighboring farm, in 1799. Later he was allowed to hire out his time, and when his owner moved to Tennessee, Frank was left in charge of the Kentucky farm. During the War of 1812, he set up his own saltpeter works, an enterprise he maintained until he left Kentucky. In 1817 he purchased his wife's freedom for $800; two years later he bought his own liberty for the same price. Now free, he expanded his activities, purchasing land and dealing in livestock.

Self-Emancipation in Kentucky@@@Black Liberation in Kentucky: Emancipation and Freedom, 1862-1884.@@@Free Frank: A Black Pioneer on the Antebellum Frontier.

Victor B. Howard

Papers

Black Liberation in Kentucky: Emancipation and Freedom, 1862-1884@@@Free Frank: A Black Pioneer on the Antebellum Frontier

Self-Emancipation in Kentucky@@@Black Liberation in Kentucky: Emancipation and Freedom, 1862-1884.@@@Free Frank: A Black Pioneer on the Antebellum Frontier.