Note (return) — Chapter II

Generally then, in the South, in the colonial period, the free Negro could not vote, could not hold civil office, could not give testimony in cases involving white men, and could be employed only for fatigue duty in the militia. He could not purchase white servants, could not intermarry with white people, and had to be very circumspect in his relations with slaves. No deprivation of privilege, however, relieved him of the obligation to pay taxes. Such advantages as he possessed were mainly economic. The money gained from his labor was his own; he might become skilled at a trade; he might buy land; he might buy slaves;33 he might even buy his wife and child if, as most frequently happened, they were slaves; and he might have one gun with which to protect his home.34 Once in a long while he might even find some opportunity for education, as when the church became the legal warden of Negro apprentices. Frequently he found a place in such a trade as that of the barber or in other personal service, and such work accounted very largely for the fact that he was generally permitted to remain in communities where technically he had no right to be. In the North his situation was little better than in the South, and along economic lines even harder. Everywhere his position was a difficult one. He was most frequently regarded as idle and shiftless, and as a breeder of mischief; but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave his home and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the free Negro did not possess. For all the finer things of life—the things that make life worth living—the lot that was his was only less hard than that of the slave.