THE DIRTY SOUTH: Blacks owned Blacks too in the USA

THE DIRTY SOUTH: Blacks owned Blacks too in the USA By Andre Austin The Godfather of Black History, Carter G. Woodson set out in 1924 to record a stain on blacks participating in the Slave Trade right here in the wilderness of North America. As a researcher I couldn’t walk away from it. I’m doing a book on slavery and you can’t be taken as serious or credible if you don’t come at the subject from all angles. From what I can see these free blacks averaged less than 10 slaves as recorded in the 1830 Census. What we have here is a case of a subjected people being forced to participate in their own destruction. If it wasn’t for one of J.A. rogers books, (100 Amazing facts about the Negro), I would have been unaware of Woodson’s book. The Dean of black history, the Late Doctor Ben, used to ask the Q about what African Kings sold their brothers out to the Whiteman. Henry Louis Gates took him up on that Q and started to name names. Well Woodson also name names in the same way from the 1830 Census. Here are some excerpts from Woodson foreword and introduction to his little but big and explosive book: FREE NEGRO OWNERS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1830 FOREWORD “This statistical report on free Negro ownership of slaves was made possible in 1921 when director of the Association for the study of Negro life and History obtained from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial an appropriation for the support of research into certain neglected aspects of Negro History. This special report, however, was not the objective of the Research department of the Association. It developed rather as a by-product. In compiling statistics for much larger report on FREE NEGRO OWNERS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1830, the investigators found so many cases of Negroes owning slaves that it was decided to take special notice of this phase of the History… Carter G. Woodson Washington, D.C., April 1, 1924 INTRODUCTION “The aim of this report on the free Negro is to facilitate the further study of this neglected group. Most of these people have been forgotten, for persons supposedly well-informed in history are surprised to learn today that about a half million, almost one-seventh of the Negroes of this country, were free prior to the emancipation in 1865. It is hardly believed that a considerable number of Negroes were owners of slaves themselves, and in some cases controlled large plantations. There were several reasons for selecting the census of 1830. I the first place, the earlier reports do not give as much information as the census of 1830. At that time, moreover, the free negroes had about reached their highest mark as a distinct class. The reaction which set in earlier in the century restricted their freedom and in many cases expelled them from the South. This census, then, evidently reports the names of a larger number of representatives free Negroes than any other census prior to their debasement to a lower status or their migration from the South. This trek reached its highest point between 1830 and 1835. Most of the free negroes in the North in 1830, therefore, had been there for some years. The census records show that the majority of the negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa. The slaves belonging to such families were few compared with the large numbers found among the whites on the well-developed plantations. Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he didn’t thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported by the enumerators. Some of these husbands were not anxious to liberate their wives immediately. They considered it advisable to put them on probation for a few years, and if they did not find them satisfactory they would sell their wives as other slaveholders disposed of Negroes…”