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Article

Adams, John, On African Americans  

Robert H. Gudmestad

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

John Adams was born in Massachusetts in 1735 and grew up in relatively humble circumstances. After graduating from Harvard, he passed the bar and began his legal career. Adams's law practice was steady but unspectacular at a time of growing tension with England. He was a reluctant Revolutionary, even defending the British troops who fired on the crowd for unclear reasons in the Boston Massacre, but served faithfully in the First and Second Continental Congresses. Adams is well known for his insistence on a formal declaration of independence.

He remained in public service as a wartime diplomat to France and Holland and was instrumental in negotiating the treaty that ended the American Revolution. Adams continued his work overseas as ambassador to the English court before returning to the United States, where he was chosen as George Washington s vice president Adams then succeeded Washington as president and faced a ...

Article

African Methodist Episcopal Church  

Sylvia Frey and Thomas E. Carney

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

[This entry contains two subentries dealing with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, from its founding in the mid-eighteenth century through1895. The first article provides a discussion of its relationship with its parent church and reasons for its breakaway while the second article also includes discussion of the ...

Article

Allen, Richard  

Aaron Myers

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Born a slave in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Allen grew up during the American Revolution (1775–1783), an era characterized by the advocacy of individual rights, the growth of denominational Christianity, and the inception of the antislavery movement. Around 1768 Allen's owner, a Philadelphia lawyer named Benjamin Chew, sold him, his three siblings, and his parents to Stokely Sturgis, a plantation owner in Delaware.

With the permission of Sturgis, Allen began to attend Methodist meetings, and around 1777 he converted to Methodism. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Methodism proliferated in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. This Christian denomination emphasized a simple set of virtues that included honesty, modesty, and sobriety. Following Allen's conversion, in 1780 Sturgis agreed to let Allen hire himself out in order to earn money to purchase his freedom for $2 000 In addition to doing manual labor Allen began to preach ...

Article

Allen, Richard  

Frederick V. Mills

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

AmericanMethodist preacher and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal church, was born into slavery to parents who were the property of Benjamin Chew of Philadelphia. He and his parents and three additional children were sold in 1777 to Stokely Sturgis, who lived near Dover, Delaware. There he attended Methodist preaching events and experienced a spiritual awakening. Allen, his older brother, and a sister were retained by Sturgis, but his parents and younger siblings were sold. Through the ministry of Freeborn Garretson, a Methodist itinerant preacher, Sturgis was converted to Methodism and became convinced that slavery was wrong. Subsequently, Allen and his brother were permitted to work to purchase their freedom, which they did in 1780.For the next six years Allen worked as a wagon driver woodcutter and bricklayer while serving as a Methodist preacher to both blacks and whites in towns and rural areas in Maryland ...

Article

Allen, Richard  

Scott A. Miltenberger

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

Richard Allen was born a slave into Philadelphia's noted Chew family, whose patriarch Benjamin Chew was a prominent lawyer and served as Pennsylvania's chief justice from 1774 to 1777. In 1767 the family sold Richard to Stokeley Sturgis, a farmer in Kent County, Delaware. There Richard met a Methodist circuit rider, an encounter that transformed his life.

Unlike all other Protestant groups at the time, the Methodists made no distinctions based on color; moreover, they opposed slavery. Sometime around 1780, after attending a revival held by an itinerant Methodist preacher, Richard had a profound religious conversion. He began to attend Methodist prayer meetings, learned to read and write, and eventually presided over the local meetings. Soon after, inspired by a sermon given at his home by the charismatic Methodist preacher Freeborn Garrettson Sturgis became convinced that slaveholding was wrong He drafted a gradual manumission contract with ...

Article

Anti-Slavery Literature  

John Sekora and Donald A. Petesch

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 March 1998
Published online:
30 September 2010

[This entry comprises two articles. The first is an overview of the major figures and currents of thought associated with anti-slavery literature in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The second is an expanded discussion of African-American perspectives from the eighteenth century to the present day. ...

Article

Arts and Crafts  

Rebekah Presson Mosby

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

The colonial period in America was not noted for its fine arts there was little in the way of sculpture and most of the paintings that were made were stiff portraits in the manner of European mostly British art The puritanical spirit that dominated America at the time was not one that nurtured the arts in general Very little if any experimentation went on in any of the arts as most art was regarded as frivolous and a distraction from what was held to be the serious and important business of religion and work Within this context there is evidence that fine art in the form of portraits was made by Africans in colonial America However most of the known artifacts from both slave and free blacks are the work of artisans Some of this work is of exceptionally high quality and it includes just about every imaginable practical and ...

Article

Asia  

James F. Warren and Utsa Patnaik

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 March 1998
Published online:
30 September 2010

[This entry comprises two articles: a general description of slavery and other forms of servitude in the Indian subcontinent, followed by a detailed discussion of these practices throughout Southeast Asia and its environs. For discussion of slavery in East Asia,see ChinaandKorea.]

Article

Askin, Luther B.  

Brian Turner

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

the first African American to integrate baseball, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the second son of Nelson Askin and Sarah Lloyd. In 1844 Nelson Askin moved to Florence, a mill village in Northampton, Massachusetts, to open a livery. Across the road was the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian community whose ideals and practices ensured an integrated membership. Although the association disbanded in 1846, many members stayed in Florence, including Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles; their influence marked the village as a “sanctuary” for all, regardless of religion, class, or race. But in 1849, when Sarah Askin arrived in Florence with her six children, Nelson had already sold off parts of his property, and shortly thereafter the livery was seized by creditors. By 1850 Nelson had abandoned Sarah From then on Sarah took in washing to support her children who at the earliest ...

Article

Autobiography  

Susan J. Hubert

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

Autobiography has been a significant genre throughout the history of African American literature. In documenting the lives of African Americans, autobiographical writing has challenged racist beliefs and racially oppressive institutions—especially slavery—and provided examples of perseverance and resistance. Although they were primarily concerned with their individual thoughts and experiences, African American autobiographers have also helped define the character of African American people as a whole. As a literary form, African American autobiography evolved from its somewhat derivative beginnings into a distinctly African American literary movement.

Authenticity is a central issue in early African American autobiography Although some autobiographers relied on amanuenses the publication of narratives written by African Americans provided concrete evidence against racist claims that people of African descent were incapable of artistic and intellectually sophisticated writing Writing provided a degree of independence that has often been denied black people in racist societies and African American authors gained representation in ...

Article

Banneker, Benjamin  

Frank Towers

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

Benjamin Banneker was born on a farm near Elkridge Landing, Maryland, on the Patapsco River, ten miles southwest of Baltimore. His mother, Mary Banneky, was a freeborn African American. Her parents were Molly Welsh, an English indentured servant, and Bannaka, a Dogon nobleman captured in the slave trade and bought by Molly Welsh. In 1700 Welsh freed Bannaka, and they married. Benjamin's father, was born in Africa and transported to America as a slave, where he was known as Robert. In Maryland, Robert purchased his freedom and married Bannaka and Molly's daughter, Mary Banneky, whose surname he adopted and later changed to Banneker. Robert's success in tobacco farming enabled him to buy enough land (seventy-two acres) to support his son and three younger daughters.

Benjamin Banneker was intellectually curious especially about mathematics and science but he had little formal education Scholars disagree about claims that he attended school for ...

Article

Baptists and African Americans  

Jewel L. Spangler

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

No faith has been more closely associated with the African American community historically than the Baptist Church. In the colonial period sectarian Baptists were some of the first Christians to attract a significant African American following. Black Baptist adherence expanded so dramatically over time that by the end of the twentieth century Baptist churches could claim twice as many African American members as any other religious group.

In the colonial and early national periods Baptists were defined primarily by their practice of administering the rite of baptism only to professed believers by full immersion in water They were also distinguished by their literal interpretation of the Bible rejection of civil authority over religious matters and distaste for church governmental hierarchy African Americans first became Baptists in significant numbers on the eve of the American Revolution but North American Baptists can trace their origins more generally to Britain in the early ...

Article

Beaty, Powhatan  

Marlene L. Daut

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

Medal of Honor recipient, actor, and playwright, was born in Richmond, Virginia, of unknown parentage. Beaty (sometimes spelled Beatty) was born a slave, but little else is known of his early years or how he came to be free. Beaty left Richmond in 1849 for Cincinnati, where he would spend the majority of his life, and became a farmer. Later, Beaty's education consisted of an apprenticeship to a black cabinetmaker in Cincinnati, as well as a tutelage under James E. Murdock, a retired professional actor and dramatic coach.

On 5 September 1862 Powhatan Beaty along with 706 other African American men was forced to join Cincinnati s Black Brigade after Confederate troops repeatedly threatened the city The Black Brigade was one of the earliest but unofficial African American military units organized during the Civil War but it did not engage in any military action since the city was ...

Article

Beauty Culture  

Tiffany M. Gill

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 May 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Black is beautiful This familiar cry of the Black Power movement was revolutionary in its celebration of the culture style politics and physical attributes of peoples of African descent Symbols of the black is beautiful aesthetic most notably the Afro not only conjured up ideas about black beauty but also highlighted its contentious relationship with black politics and identity This tension between beauty standards and black politics and identity however did not first emerge in the late twentieth century with the Afro or the Black Power movement In fact blacks particularly black women have been struggling to navigate the paradoxical political nature of black identity and beauty since their enslavement in the Americas Despite this strained relationship black women have actively sought to define beauty in their lives and in the process created and sustained one of the most resilient and successful black controlled enterprises in America the black beauty ...

Article

Black Caribbeans  

Alvin O. Thompson

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 March 1998
Published online:
30 September 2010

Black slavery in the Caribbean was primarily an economic phenomenon although it had important political and social ramifications A large cheap docile labor force was the ideal the Europeans sought for their sugar coffee cocoa cotton and other tropical plantations The sparsity of the indigenous Caribbean populations in most of the islands at the time of the European arrival and their subsequent decimation by inhuman treatment and epidemic diseases introduced from Europe and Africa led to a critical shortage of labor for the new European plantations The geographical location of Africa and the collaboration of the African ruling classes with the European purveyors of the slave trade ensured continuous supply of slaves from that source Over time the introduction of Africans radically changed the demographic economic social and cultural landscape of the Caribbean Peoples of African descent today constitute the largest population groups in most of the islands and are ...

Article

Black Catholic Women  

Diana L. Hayes

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 May 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

The first African women came to the Americas almost five hundred years ago as free settlers and slaves, speaking French and Spanish. They came as Catholics, Muslims, and followers of traditional African religions. All came bearing a deep and abiding faith in a God of creation, justice, and honor, in whatever way they named God. Their sacred worldview enabled them to survive, sustained by their belief in a “wonder working” God who would, in God’s own time, free them from their captivity.

Article

Black Church  

Thomas E. Carney

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

Any discussion of the early black church rightfully begins with an examination of the nature of the church. A debate began in the mid-twentieth century over this question, which centered on the presence or absence in the African American church of Africanisms—that is, indigenous African religious practices. In his seminal work The Myth of the Negro Past Melville J Herskovits argues vehemently for the strong presence of African traditions and practices in the early black Christian experience in North America His argument is an attempt to refute the myth that black Americans roots in Africa were of no consequence and were inferior to European based culture Herskovits s position however has had many critics including E Franklin Frazier a noted black sociologist of the late twentieth century Frazier and others have argued that the enslavement process capture sale the Middle Passage and seasoning almost completely stripped Africans of their ...

Article

Black Codes in the United States  

Gabriel Mendes

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

The Black Codes were instituted by Southern legislative bodies in 1865 and 1866 in response to the emancipation of the 4 million former slaves in the Southern states during and after the American Civil War (1861–1865). The Black Codes recognized the new status of African Americans as freedpeople and offered them some of the basic rights of citizenship. However, the codes also defined the freedpeople as legally subordinate to whites and attempted to manage their labor in a way that would cause minimal disruption to the labor system instituted under slavery.

Faced with a rapidly transformed political and economic structure in the postbellum South, Mississippi and South Carolina began passing laws in 1865 to limit the freedom of African Americans New vagrancy laws placed blacks in jeopardy of imprisonment or forced labor if they could not prove they were employed or self supporting Often the result was ...

Article

Black Family  

Roland Barksdale-Hall and Diane L. Barnes

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
06 April 2006
Published online:
01 December 2006

The television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1976), which traced the history of a black family beginning with its African progenitor, Kunta Kinte, aired to wide public acclaim in the 1970s. The family saga generated considerable attention, as evidenced by a rise in popular interest about the black family and genealogical organizations across the United States. The following decade Dorothy Spruill Redford organized a reunion of more than two thousand descendants of enslaved Africans—including herself—and their masters, then wrote Somerset Homecoming (1988). From the end of the twentieth century, Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family (1998) tells the story of the intertwined lives of slaves and their masters in antebellum South Carolina.

Firsthand slave narratives, while limited in number, are excellent primary sources. Narratives that give accounts of enslaved Africans' introduction to the Americas, such as the two-volume Interesting Narrative of the ...

Article

Black Nationalism  

Jeffrey O. Ogbar and Jeffrey O. G.

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

Black nationalism is the belief system that endorses the creation of a black nation state It also supports the establishment of black controlled institutions to meet the political social educational economic and spiritual needs of black people independent of nonblacks Celebration of African ancestry and territorial separatism are essential components of black nationalism Though not fully developed into a cogent system of beliefs the impulse of black nationalism finds its earliest expression in the resistance of enslaved Africans to the Atlantic slave trade from the sixteenth century Various groups of Africans who felt no particular organic connection as black people were forced into a new racialized identity in a brutal and dehumanizing process of enslavement The transportation and forced amalgamation of hundreds of different African nationalities resulted in Creolized communities in the Americas enslaved Africans revolted and established new societies which functioned autonomously on the outskirts of colonial towns and ...