How free were the free slaves in the North?

“This is a paper on how free the free blacks really were in the North in the 1800’s, In this essay it will explain how free they actually were from examples of Economics, Education, Politics, and their social freedoms.”


Have you ever wondered how free the free blacks were in the northern states? They had some freedoms, but they actually had a lot of restrictions in the end. Many blacks didn’t have real freedoms until the late 1800’s. The blacks had many restrictions, so I wouldn’t consider them completely free, because if they were they could do whatever they wanted just as the white man would.

In the Northern states the blacks were restricted from many things that had to do with the government. For instance out of the 16 northern states only 5 were allowed the right to vote and in 1860 only one allowed blacks to be on jury duty. Even the few states that allowed them to do so, they even had restrictions on the free blacks. When the blacks were permitted to have political freedom in some of the northern states, many of the times the blacks wanted to file lawsuits, sit on jury duty, or vote the whites would say no and not let them do it even though the state said they could. Another thing is that many poor free blacks that got released by their owners they didn’t get the right to do any of those things in politics because of them having less money than the other whites, or blacks. In consideration the blacks were somewhat free in politics but in only a few of the northern states.

Many of the northern blacks had the right once freed they could own their own property, get their own job, and even get an education. The only problem about this is that there was a catch, a tricky one. Most of the white men that owned stores or places that would allow people to get an employment there would not accept blacks to their working. People of white did not feel that the blacks could work hard enough, or would make them look bad when hiring a black man. Now about the education, even if you graduated college top of your class with a 4.0 gpa, some white men wouldn’t even hire you even if you were that smart. They would still think you are not good enough of doing the tasks that they needed. Many blacks could also own their own land but that was only if the white would sell them the land to build it on. So this just proves that most blacks were restricted from many things in the economic and education world.

The black man wasn’t permitted to do a lot of things with the white man, because most of the white society did not accept the black man just yet. They could not do many things in the northern states, the only true thing they could do was to live on their own and if they were able, to pay taxes. In most states, the blacks could not dine, marry of their daughters, join them in the courtroom, or even go to church with the whites. The blacks got their own church to do their worshiping, and most of their politics and beliefs about the government happened in the church. It was like their town hall, the church was probably the most important place to a black in the mid to late 1800’s. In conclusion to the black’s social freedoms they were restricted from many of the regular things in life just as usual.

In conclusion the blacks were in fact restricted from many things in the northern states. They were restricted from living the normal life, including being restricted from politics, social, and economic/education freedoms. In the 1800’s it was a hard and painful life for the blacks in the north.