DBQ: "How Free Were Free Blacks In The North?"

Author's Note: This is a DBQ essay on the question, "How Free Were Free Blacks In The North?" I will be answering the Document Questions, and giving my opinion on how I think how free they really were.

How do you feel when you want to go eat lunch with a friend of even talk to a friend, but your parents won’t let you? Have you ever been given a privilege but it's not really what you want?  This situation relates to blacks in the North around the 1800s. The emancipation announced that the blacks were free from slavery, but, there were a lot of things they couldn’t do. They had many restrictions and would be punished if they didn’t follow them. That’s why my opinion to the question, “How Free Were Free Blacks in the North?” is that they were not allowed barely any freedom; it was not fair at all.

After the emancipation said that the blacks were free from slavery, every black was excited and happy, but I think they expected too much. They had so many boundaries; it wasn’t what they expected at all. The only things they could do were to live and pay taxes. They were ordered to keep to themselves. They couldn’t associate with white people at all. Even though the blacks were free from slavery, that didn’t mean they were on the same level as the white people, they were still the underdogs.  They were forced to build their own churches, schools, and concert halls for the black kids.  The black adults lost the right to vote, which was a huge deal back then. The black woman, although, were treated the worst. The black woman were probably the on the lowest level. In the 1800’s even white woman were treated unfairly. They’re jobs were to clean, cook, and nurse. Nothing else, so imagine a black woman, and how low of a level they are on.  I would not like to be living in the 1800s!

Would you be disappointed if you were good friends with a person of another race and you could not even talk to them? At this time there was a lot of racism going on. The blacks could not do things with the white people. They could not dine and eat at a white man’s table. That was forbidden, even if black and the white family was friends. The blacks could not be in the jury or attend courts even though before free blacks could go be a part of the jury, and attend courts whenever he wanted to. The black men could not marry white woman even if they fell in love. They could not represent the legislature. They couldn’t help white men when they are sick. They couldn’t even talk to the white people in public places! It was completely ridiculous what the blacks couldn’t do. The blacks were human beings too, and they should have been treated equally.

Even though a lot of blacks were treated unequally, there were some states that were generous to the blacks; for example, Massachusetts. They were the only state that allowed black males to be a part of the jury. The black men could vote too but that was the case in a lot of the New England states. Massachusetts was the state most blacks wanted to go to. They would abandon the state that they were living in, and go to Massachusetts where there was more freedom.  They were a lot of states the blacks wouldn’t want to live in. For example, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin were the states that the blacks couldn’t even vote in. They didn’t like the blacks too much. All the other Northern-Eastern states had restricted boundaries if the blacks were to vote or not. The blacks most likely wanted to move to the New England states, that’s where all the freedom was.  

As you can see, the “free” blacks in the north of North America didn’t actually have freedom.  They had boundaries and they could only do a few things without breaking the laws and getting punished. The white people though they were better than the blacks. They thought they were too good to even look at them.  They were suddenly mistaken. This overall situation reminds me of the Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rosa Parks famous events how blacks were not at all on the same level of equality.



 

Bibliography

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072053/posts

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