The Trickery Of Free African Americans In The North
1191 Words5 Pages
Trickery. The trickery of words. The trickery of actions. The trickery of the word "free" to describe the liberated African Americans in the North; the word that's sole purpose was to keep the African Americans in order and to trick them into believing that they were actually free. The word free was loosely used back in the 1800's when African Americans were enslaved and looked upon as lower than low. There were degrees of abuse that came to the Blacks. In the South, more blacks were considered free, while in the North, less were. However, in the South, there was an abundance of slaves where slavery was still present. In the North, slavery was diminishing. It was beginning to be abolished in the North in the mid-1860's. Though each day in the North new slaves would become free every day, they weren't really free. Many people today, when learning…show more content… The word free defines to be "not physically restrained, obstructed, or fixed; unimpeded and released from captivity and confinement. I believe that free African Americans who resided in the North were not essentially free because of their limited and restrained social, political, and economic freedoms.
Ordinarily, people would believe that the "free" African Americans in the North would have unrestricted political freedoms. Conversely, African Americans had very limited political freedoms which limited their liberty. In 1961, Leon Litwack, an author, had written a book titled, "North of Slavery." Found in the book, was a chart that showed the voting and jury rights of Blacks in the North