Black AF History summary

With the almost overnight success of the Virginia colonies through kidnapped African knowledge and labor, the Governor got an idea. Instead of luring new English settlers by promising them riches, he could promise them a generous plot of farmland for every laborer they brought with them. The enterprising English worked out that bringing enslaved labor with them could lead to enormous grants of free property. America’s first get-rich-quick scheme was a smashing success – for white people.

By 1662, Virginia made it official: enslaved people’s children would also be enslaved from birth. For the first time in history, slavery was a race-based, multi-generational institution. Colonies further south in the Carolinas adopted this model too. Like the Virginia Colony, the Carolina territory faced a problem: they couldn’t seem to grow anything.

Long before the first shots were fired in the Revolutionary War, individuals enslaved in the colonies were fighting their own war for independence. Because there was no America yet, just a patchwork of colonies with different laws and governments, there were vast differences between the states that enterprising individuals could exploit.

In 1771 James Somerset, an enslaved African, escaped during a customs inspection while traveling through Massachusetts. When he was recaptured, he applied to the British court system there for relief. In Somerset v. Stewart, it was found that laws concerning slavery were not enforceable under British law, and Somerset was re-released. Immediately after, a dozen enslaved individuals applied to the courts for the same relief. Dozens more just took off before the court could change their minds.

By 1860, near the start of the Civil war, over one million enslaved Americans represented the most powerful force in the nation. They were the producers of America’s largest exports, from rice to cotton, and drove the country’s GDP. But nations across Europe, as well as Canada and Mexico, had abolished slavery. In public opinion, slavery had gone from a “necessary” evil to a source of international shame.

The nation faced a crisis. If foreign enemies could mobilize enslaved individuals with no more than the promise of freedom, the country was at risk. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed property owners to chase their escaped workers – even in Abolitionist states – fanned the flames. Any person of color could be grabbed off the street in Massachusetts or New York City and re-enslaved. Northern Abolitionists were outraged, southern enslavers were indignant at the world’s condemnation.

After the civil war, things were looking up.  Southern landowners had forfeited their property with their treasonous secession, and their formerly enslaved workers were being granted plots of land on these plantations as payment for their services fighting the war. Education programs were introduced in Congress, to integrate the new citizens into society through a process known as Reconstruction. Then, a shot rang out.

When Lincoln was assassinated by white supremacist actor John Wilkes Booth, his Southern, former slave-owning vice president, Andrew Johnson, was sworn in. Instead of proceeding with reconstruction and prosecuting Southerners for treason, Johnson gave them their land back, and compensated them for their losses.