Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery (1998–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Revolution: 1750-1805 - full transcript
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Woman: ♪ your country ♪
♪ how came it yours? ♪
♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪
♪ we were here. ♪
♪ Your country ♪
♪ how came it yours? ♪
♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪
♪ we were here. ♪
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Man: "When you make men slaves
"you deprive them of
half their virtue.
"You set them, in
your own conduct
"an example of fraud and cruelty
and compel them to live with
you in a state of war."
Olaudah equiano,
enslaved African.
Narrator: The promise of
britain's American colonies
lay bound up in notions
of what a man could own.
In search of that promise
Scottish immigrant
William dunbar traveled
to the American
frontier in 1771.
In the Mississippi delta
he laid claim to a
large tract of land
then set sail for the Caribbean.
Dunbar returned with
25 African slaves
to clear trees, plant indigo
and carve a plantation out
of the black delta earth.
July of 1776 would find
the scotsman writing
not about the newly declared
American independence
but of a suspected slave
revolt on his own plantation.
Dunbar: "Judge my surprise.
"They informed me
"that a conspiracy among the
negroes had been discovered
and that it had taken
place at my house."
Narrator: Dunbar was
quick to take action.
Within 24 hours, he
hanged four men.
A fifth committed suicide.
But the idea of
freedom did not die.
In the languages of
hausa, ja and wolof
africans continued to conspire.
And just eight days before,
Americans had declared
that "all men are created equal"
that "life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness"
were "inalienable rights."
How long then, in a
land of such promise
could one American
continue to own another?
He was born in west Africa.
He is buried in a small
new england graveyard.
On one side of the Atlantic
ocean his name was broteer.
On the other, he was
known as venture Smith.
He was brought to the
colonies as a child...
Prideful, headstrong.
He was an individual of
immense size and strength...
A slave who was not
easily controlled.
Shrewd, relentless
he was one of thousands who
would gain their freedom
in the violent years that led
to American independence.
In his life is a story
of America becoming.
Man: "We were put on a vessel
belonging to Rhode Island
"and told to appear to the
best advantage for sale.
"On board, I was bought
by one robertson mumford
"for four gallons of rum and
a piece of calico cloth
"and called 'venture'
"on account of him
having purchased me
"with his own private venture.
Thus I came by my name."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: Venture Smith
was one of 86,000 people
who traveled to north
America in the 1730s.
Nearly 41,000 were africans
brought to the
colonies as slaves.
They were to be slaves for
life, as were their children
and their children's children.
During those same years
45,000 Europeans
made the journey
in search of opportunity.
Most were poor.
They paid for their passage
with five to seven years of
unpaid labor in the colonies.
It was a hard bargain,
but people came.
Man: The American colonies develop
as an area of opportunity.
You were not confined by
who your grandfather was
who your father was,
what their trades were.
You could become whatever
it was you chose to be...
Whatever your talents
allowed you to be
but that notion of
opportunity is premised
on an unconfined freedom
that, in fact, does not exist
for the entire population
that exists for only a
part of the population.
Narrator: By the late 1730s
one out of every six people
living in the colonies
was a slave.
While less than a quarter of the
white population owned slaves
the African trade created
an economy that gave rise
to other flourishing
industries in the north:
Shipbuilding, iron
foundries, sawmills
rum distilleries
and sail making.
And among the well-to-do
families of the south
slave labor was a way of life
that began at the cradle
and ended at the grave.
Man: "I, augustine Washington,
being sick and weak
"but of perfect sense and memory
"do make my last
will and testament
"in the manner following:
"I give unto my son Lawrence
Washington and his heirs forever
"all that plantation and tract
of land at hunnington creek
"all the slaves, cattle and
stock of all kinds whatsoever.
"I give unto my daughter Betty
"a negro child named
Betty, daughter of Judy.
"I give unto my son George
Washington and his heirs
"the land I now live
on, which I purchased
"and ten negro slaves.
In the name of god, amen."
Man: Well, Washington, from
the time he was 11 years old
owned human beings.
That's something that he
grew up with, certainly
and it all revolved
in his family
as most families in the
chesapeake, around agriculture
and the labor required to grow
large quantities of tobacco
which is a very
labor-intensive crop.
So from a very early age
Washington was
surrounded by slaves.
His parents owned slaves
his grandparents had
been slave owners
his older brothers
were slave owners.
Slave owning was common in the
northern neck of Virginia
where Washington grew up.
It was just an
accustomed part of life.
Narrator: George
Washington grew up
among Virginia's
slaveholding aristocracy.
Though he was a
fourth-generation American
he fashioned himself in the
mold of an english gentleman
with dancing lessons
and fencing lessons.
Like most wealthy virginians,
Washington looked to england
for social custom,
architecture, music and taste.
The book he studied most was
rules of civility and
decent beha vior
in companyand conversation...
A self-improvement manual
compiled for
16th-century noblemen.
But 3,000 miles of ocean
separated the
colonies from britain
and Americans were moving
towards an identity
that was all their own.
Ambitious men like Washington's
father had married into wealth
bought slaves, cleared the
land and farmed it for profit.
Their sons would do the same.
Man: "Dear sir, I will
take six or more negroes
"if you can spare such
"upon the terms offered
in your letter.
"If you agree to it and
will appoint a time
"I would send for them
"relying on your word that
the whole are healthy
"and none of them
addicted to running away.
"The latter I abominate
"and unhealthy negroes,
women or children
would not suit my
purpose on any terms."
George Washington.
Narrator: In colonial America, the
acquisition of land and slaves
served as a crucial step
towards power and influence.
Only men of property
held the right to vote.
They were the statesmen,
they were the magistrates.
Wives and daughters
were expected to live
under the authority of a
male head of household.
It was a society in which
everyone, free or un-free
was expected to know his place.
Smith: "I was pretty much
employed in the house
"carding wool and other
household business.
"My behavior had been as yet
obedient and submissive.
"I then began to have
hard tasks imposed on me
"or be rigorously punished.
I was about nine years old."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: As a boy, venture Smith
was learning the place of a slave
on a small farm in Rhode Island.
Like most children who
were slaves in the north
he was growing up in the
house of a white family
laboring under the
supervision of his owners.
Woman: Children were more likely
to be employed in the household.
You're helping someone, so
you can learn how to do
whatever that thing, that
task is, that artisan trade.
You're more likely to be
used in the household
because, you know,
you're not a threat.
You're a child.
Um, you're seen as more educable
in the ways of the
slave society.
Some people, some
slaveholders think
that children will
be more passive.
Narrator: As he
came into his teens
venture grew large for his age...
A boy in a man's body.
At six foot one and
upwards of 230 pounds
he began to test those who
tried to control him.
Smith: "My master's son James would
come to me, big with authority
"and order me to do this
business and that business
"different from what my
master had directed.
These burdens were
very grievous to me."
"One particular day,
I cast a deaf ear."
"He broke out into a great rage
and went to lay me over the
head with a pitchfork."
"I defended myself..."
"Otherwise he might have
murdered me in his outrage.
"He immediately
called some people
"to take a rope and
bind me with it.
In vain they all tried."
Narrator: As the fight raged on
James mumford ran from the
barn to call for more help.
Smith: "As I recovered
my temper, I was bound
"and was carried
before my young master
that he might do what
he pleased with me."
Narrator: A whip was fashioned from
the branches of a nearby peach tree
and brought to his
would-be young master
but James mumford dared not raise
his hand to venture again.
The whip was never used.
Davis: We have innumerable
examples of slaveholders
making protestations about a
particular slave not behaving
recognizing the personality
of the individuals
who are enslaved.
They do have their own minds.
They will exercise
their own wills.
Although the individual
exercise of their own minds
the individual exercise
of their own wills
does not release them
from that social stratum
that slavery has imposed,
that the society has imposed
by declaring those
persons to be slaves.
Narrator: In 1750, venture turned
22 and married a woman named Meg.
Tradition has it that on the
occasion of their marriage
a rope was thrown over
their master's house.
Venture pulled at one end while
Meg pulled at the other.
After both had tugged for a
while, Meg joined venture
and together, they pulled
the rope over with ease.
"If we pull in life
against each other
we shall fail," he said
"but if we pull together
we shall succeed."
At year's end, Meg gave
birth to a baby girl.
They named her Hannah.
Woman: This generation
won't know Africa
in the same way that their
parents knew Africa.
The child also won't know
freedom in the same way
that a parent knew freedom.
Because a child sees daily
the whippings, the
brutality of the system
sees their parents coming
under the authority
coming under the rule of the
whip of the overseer even
so it's very difficult.
But at the same time, I think
parents teach children
what is to be cherished
about the slave community
and that's family,
that's religion
and that's togetherness.
Narrator: By the year
of Hannah's birth
nearly two-thirds of
the slave population
had been born on American soil.
Africans were slowly becoming
a new people in a new place.
Men's choir: ♪ I heard
the voice of Jesus ♪
♪ say come unto me and rest. ♪
Man: "Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden
"and I will give you rest.
"Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me
"for I am meek and
lowly in heart:
"And ye shall find
rest unto your souls
for my yoke is easy and
my burden is light."
The book of Matthew.
Narrator: During the
middle of the 18th century
a movement of white,
Evangelical ministers
made their way through Virginia,
the carolinas, Georgia
and parts of new england.
Their sermons were
a direct challenge
to an established
religious order
in which god spoke
only through a priest
a bishop, or a church official.
These traveling ministers
sought to remove christianity
from the elevated
hands of the clergy
and place it in the
hearts and minds
of farmhands, laborers,
and servants.
Man: This was not a
distant, far away god
in some kind of
institutional church
but it was a god,
said the Evangelicals
involved in the daily
lives of people
involved in every thought and
every deed of your life.
Narrator: Themes of tyranny,
slavery and spiritual communion
struck a chord in poor
whites and slaves alike.
Thousands flocked to
hear the new gospel
and the movement became known
as "the great awakening."
Blight: There'd never
been anything like it.
Here's a meeting of 3,000
people out in a field
blacks and whites together,
listening to a preacher
who says, "here in my message
and here in my stories
"is a new life for you.
"Here's a new chance for you.
"Here's a god who has
your interest at heart.
Here's a god who
may deliver you."
Narrator: Though most black
people in the colonies
held on to traditional
African beliefs
that they or their parents
had carried across the ocean
the great awakening
produced a small group of
black, Christian ministers.
These men fused
protestant christianity
with west African ritual
to take a gospel of liberation
to their fellow slaves.
Over a period of years,
their numbers would grow.
Man: "I lived a bad life and had
no serious thought about my soul.
"I saw myself as a mass of sin.
"I was sin.
"I could not read and
had no scriptures.
"Then I heard brother
George liele...
"A man of my own color...
Preach.
"His sermon was very suitable
"on 'come unto me all ye that
labor and I will give you rest.'
indeed, his whole
discourse seemed for me."
David George.
Slaveholders were very
wary of missionaries
going amongst the africans
and baptizing them
because for africans
that represented a rite
of passage, a transition.
Something had to change.
Narrator: The renowned presbyterian
minister Samuel Davies
sought to calm
slaveholder's anxieties
by stating that "there was
never a good Christian yet
who was a bad servant."
But talk of natural rights
and spiritual fellowship
would charge people to step
forward and question authority.
One such confrontation
occurred in 1752
in the kitchen of a small
Rhode Island farmhouse.
It was an argument between a
white woman and her slaves.
Smith: "I was then
at work in the barn.
"The quarrel began between
my wife and my mistress.
"This happened when
my master was gone.
"When I entered the house,
I found my mistress
in a violent passion
with my wife."
Venture Smith.
Ruffins: Many, many people
whether they were black or white
whether they were rich or poor
were questioning the
limits of authority.
So venture's wife is
living during this era
in which questioning
is more possible
than at some other times.
What we see here is an argument
between the mistress and a slave
and one might say, "well, what
could they be arguing about?"
Clearly the mistress
says, "do so"
and the slave meekly,
humbly does so.
Well, that was not the case.
Smith: "I earnestly
requested my wife
"to beg pardon of her mistress
for the sake of peace.
"But whilst I was thus saying,
my mistress turned the blows
"which she was repeating
on my wife to me.
I immediately committed the
whip to the devouring fire."
Narrator: When venture's
owner returned home
he sought to punish his slave
by sneaking up on
him from behind
and striking him with a club.
Venture threw his master to the
floor and beat him soundly.
The town constable was summoned
and venture was taken
to a blacksmith's shop
where he was fitted for a
pair of iron shackles.
Smith: "I continued to wear the chain
peaceably for two or three days.
"Not anyone said much to me
"until one hempstead
miner of stonington
"asked me if I would
live with him
"and that in return he would
give me a good chance
"to gain my freedom.
I said that I would."
Ruffins: Selling a slave off
is a major form of control.
One person might say, I know
I can't control this person
so I'm going to sell them to,
you know, Joe Smith next door
because he's bigger,
he's stronger
he's more willing to be
brutal, he's whatever it is.
I can, sort of,
basically cash out.
I can get my money
out of the situation
and leave the problematic issue
of controlling this person
to someone else.
Narrator: Despite his
promise, venture's new owner
had no intention of ever
granting him freedom.
Because venture had fought
violently with whites
on more than one occasion
his new owner quickly
sold him again
to an unsuspecting buyer
from Connecticut.
Smith: "I left my wife...
And children.
"This was the third
time of my being sold.
"To this place I brought with
me three old Spanish dollars
"2,000 of coppers
"and five pounds
of my wife's money
"which I buried in the earth.
I was then 31 years old."
Venture Smith.
Man: "A plantation
with 70 slaves on it
"is esteemed as good property.
"When a man marries
off his daughter
"he never talks of
the fortune in money
but 20 or 30 or 40 slaves."
Royal governor William tryon.
Narrator: On her wedding
day, a woman in the colonies
could expect to relinquish
control of any property
that she owned to her husband.
At the time of her
second marriage
Martha dandridge custis
was rumored to be
the wealthiest
widow in Virginia.
Her intended was a military hero
with a promising
career in politics.
The two had spent fewer
than three weeks together
in all of their lives.
On a bitterly cold day
in January of 1759
Martha dandridge custis and
George Washington were wed.
Ferling: Washington was
an up-and-coming member
of the Virginia aristocracy.
He was not a terribly wealthy
planter or aristocrat
but an individual who
certainly had the potential
for being a wealthy planter.
So he'd made a name for himself
but he never had
that kind of money
that this marriage
brought to him.
Narrator: The average planter
owned two or three slaves
and farmed 200 acres of tobacco.
With his marriage
to Martha custis
Washington increased his
slaveholdings nine times over
adding 286 slaves to the
30 he already owned.
In addition, he gained control
of 17,000 acres of farmland
placing him among
the ten wealthiest
planters in Virginia.
It was a fortune he
guarded closely.
To clothe each adult slave
Washington spent less
than a dollar a year.
Children often went naked.
In the fall of 1759
Washington's slaves harvested
his first tobacco crop.
With great hopes, he shipped
the goods to england
but Washington soon
received bad news.
His tobacco could not
command a decent price
on the British market.
Within two years, he
was deeply in debt.
He was not alone.
There was a growing
pattern of debt
throughout the British
empire, and within ten years
its effects would help
turn American colonists
against their king.
In march of 1765, parliament
passed the stamp act.
It was the first direct tax
levied against the colonies.
British politicians reasoned
that Americans had
grown prosperous
under the king's protection.
Now it was time to
pay the crown back.
Colonists protested violently
and refused to buy the
government stamps.
In New York, a howling mob
attacked the British fort
and forced the officer in charge
to burn the stamped paper.
In Boston, the stamp distributor
was hanged in effigy.
The houses of tax collectors
were pillaged and destroyed.
In Charleston... a city
that was 60% black...
White tradesmen
took to the streets
with the cry of
"Liberty, Liberty."
Black men and women
gathered publicly
and began to shout "Liberty,
Liberty" themselves.
Frightened city officials
called for armed patrols
throughout the province.
Man: If you're a black
resident in Charleston
seeing the sons of Liberty
march down broad street
with flags that say "Liberty,
Liberty" across them
you can identify with that,
you can relate to that
you can see that as an opening
through which you can push your
desire for Liberty as well.
Narrator: The year
of the stamp act
venture bought himself
out of slavery.
He paid his master l71
and two shillings...
The cost of roughly
4,000 acres of land.
It was a rare achievement
for a slave anywhere.
In all of these narratives
venture Smith's and other
narratives that we have
from this era and from later
the... the emotional, the
psychological, the spiritual
the religious import of being
free cannot be overstated.
Smith: "Being 36 years old, I left
colonel Smith once more for all.
"I had already been sold
three different times
"had been cheated out
of a large sum of money
"lost much by misfortunes
and paid an enormous
sum for my freedom."
Narrator: The coming of freedom
was a moment so profound
that the newly free often
attributed their good fortune
to divine intervention
and committed their lives to
Christ from that moment on.
Emancipation was rebirth.
Like many former slaves, venture
soon sought to free his family.
He began his new
life by cutting wood
and hauling goods along
the Connecticut river.
Ruffins: They're hearing
around them all the time
ideas about freedom and
Liberty and equality
because this is the
revolutionary era
in American life.
So they are...
Their own individual
freedom begins to parallel
this larger national
rhetoric of freedom
that leads to the establishment
of the United States.
So for people, particularly
in new england
particularly in this era
they see their freedom as linked
to the freedom of the nation.
Narrator: 28 years after being
brought to American shores
venture was free.
But by law, free negroes
could not walk the streets
or travel the waters after 9:00 P.M.
without a pass.
Connecticut's black codes
prohibited free negroes
from inviting a slave or an
Indian into their homes.
In Boston, a free black person
could not even carry a stick
or a cane unless
they could prove
that it was needed for
actual support of the body.
And there was always the
threat of being kidnapped
and sold into slavery.
Venture had paid l71
for his freedom
but it would cost him
much more to keep it.
In the years following
the stamp act
colonists resisted nearly every
tax that the crown imposed.
In 1768, a British fleet dropped
anchor in Boston harbor.
4,000 troops came ashore
to enforce english law.
In march of 1770, occupying
British troops shot and killed
five men during a confrontation
in the streets of Boston.
The first to fall was a runaway
slave named crispus attucks.
A former dock worker
who was known for not
being afraid of a fight
attucks was shot twice through
the chest and died on the spot.
Samuel Adams, a
savvy pamphleteer
seized upon the killings
to turn his fellow colonists
against the crown.
Throughout the colonies
march 5, 1770 came to be known
as "the Boston massacre."
Man: These men became instant martyrs
in the revolutionary movement.
These people were eulogized year
after year on the anniversary
and the terms in which
they were utilized
became more and more
sympathetic to them.
These were, um... noble
men, it came out.
They were fathers and sons...
Not one of them was married.
They were all bachelors.
They had no children
but all of the orphans
that were left from them.
This became a cause celebre.
Man: "I speak it with grief,
I speak it with anguish:
"Britons are our oppressors.
"I speak it with shame, I
speak it with indignation:
We are slaves."
Josiah Quincy, Boston,
Massachusetts.
Quite naturally, the real slaves
are going to pick up on this
and as a reaction to that
African Americans began
to protest themselves
and began to assess, as
they have always done
a situation that might be
an opportunity for Liberty.
There'll be petition
after petition
to the Massachusetts
colonial assembly
and then later to the
continental congress...
Petitions sent by African
slaves themselves
saying that we are demanding
that you give us the
same kind of freedom
that you are demanding
from england.
Man 1: "The humble
petition of many slaves
living in the town of
Boston is this..."
Man 2: "We expect great things from
men who have made such a noble stand
against the designs of their
fellow men to enslave them."
Man 3: "We have no property!
We have no city! No country!"
Man 4: "The divine spirit
of freedom seems to fire
every humane breast
on the continent."
Narrator: In 1772, a
British judge ruled
that slavery was illegal
on england's home soil.
It was a decision
that granted immediate freedom
to more than 14,000 people.
Though the ruling did not
apply to the British colonies
it was a spark of hope
for black Americans.
Wood: Word of that
court decision
filters very quickly
to north America.
And we have runaway ads in
the Virginia gazette saying
"my slave disappeared last
week heading for the coast
"hoping to get on
a ship to england
where he can establish
his freedom."
That's how far word had spread.
Narrator: The following year, a
London publisher released a book
by a 20-year-old American
poet named phillis wheatley.
She had been born in Africa
and abducted into slavery
during her childhood.
She was purchased as a house
servant by a Boston family
who taught her to read and write
while introducing
her to the Bible.
Phillis learned english quickly
and soon advanced
to Latin and Greek.
Her owners took
great pride in her.
They spoke of their phillis as
if she were one of the family
and they invited the leading
intellectuals of Boston
to come and meet this
most unusual slave.
Man: It can be very confusing
talking about human beings
the humor, the acts of kindness
that we know slaves had
for particular owners
and we know that particular
owners had for groups of slaves.
What's most important, however
is the big picture.
Did ever any of those acts or
instances of kindness change
the thinking of a slave
to make him or her accept
their collective bondage
and enslavement?
Washington: "Should you, my
lord, while you pursue my song
"wonder from whence my
love of freedom sprung
"once flowed these wishes
for the common good
by feeling hearts alone
best understood."
Wheatley: "I, young in life,
by seeming cruel fate
"was snatched from
afric's fancy happy seat
"what pain excruciating
must molest
"what sorrows labor
in my parents' breast
"steeled was that soul,
and by no misery moved
that from a father seized
his babe beloved."
"Such, such was my case.
And can I then but pray others
may never feel tyrannic sway."
Narrator: The
publication of her book
made wheatley a
literary sensation
but it did not make her free.
On the Eve of the
American revolution
she was one of 500,000 slaves
living in the colonies.
Man: "The die is now cast.
"The colonies must either
submit or triumph.
"I do not wish to come
to severer measures
but we must not retreat."
King George III to lord
north, September 1774.
Narrator: On April 19, 1775
a decade of tension between
crown and colonies erupted
into full-scale warfare
20 miles from Boston.
That day, nine black
new englanders fought
alongside their white neighbors
to stop an advancing
column of British troops.
In the town of Lexington
a small band of militiamen faced
a hail of British bullets
leaving eight colonists dead.
The news traveled quickly.
At the town of Concord
Americans stopped the
British advance.
And on the road back to Boston
nearly 2,000 Americans
ambushed the British soldiers.
Hundreds were killed and wounded
and the American
revolution had begun.
Ferling: The colonists still looked
upon themselves as colonists
as englishmen who
lived in America
so there was a great
deal of attachment
to one's particular province
and no real attachment
at this point
to a notion of a United States
or even united colonies.
Narrator: In June of 1775, colonial
leaders named George Washington
to command the army that
was rapidly forming
on the outskirts of Boston.
As a virginian
it was hoped that he would
inspire southerners
to fight in a new england war.
As a rich man, it was thought
that his willingness
to risk life and limb
might serve as an
example to others.
Washington guessed that the
conflict would be short
six months at the most.
Colonial leaders
wanted to secure
their rights as englishmen
but they had no intention of
leaving the British empire.
George Washington: "We
must assert our rights
"or submit to every imposition
"that shall make us
tame and abject slaves
as the blacks which we rule
over with such arbitrary sway."
George Washington.
Narrator: As Washington inspected his
troops, he was surprised to find
that slaves and free black
men had mustered in
among the white American
soldiers outside of Boston.
Within weeks after
taking command
Washington ruled against
recruiting slaves
under any conditions.
On the subject of free black
soldiers, he was undecided.
Washington was also a
politician as well as a general
and he felt that the
sight of former slaves
or of African Americans
bearing arms
might have an adverse effect
in deep Southern states.
George Washington and
his counsel of war
did not want blacks in the
war, perhaps because, um...
It was felt that if
they served in the war
that they would be
entitled to their freedom
and that this would be a war
for the freedom of all
people in the colonies.
Wheatley: "In every human breast
god has implanted a principle
"which we call love of freedom.
"It is impatient of oppression
and pants for deliverance.
I will assert that the same
principle lives in us."
"God Grant deliverance."
Phillis wheatley.
Narrator: In October of 1775,
George Washington ordered
his recruiting officers to bar
black Americans, slave or free
from further enlistment
in the continental army.
The Americans would have to
find manpower elsewhere.
Quietly, the British governor of
Virginia put a plan in motion
to strike fear in the hearts
of American sympathizers.
His strategy was to incite an
enemy from within their midst.
This enemy worked in their
shops, lived in their homes
and put their children to bed.
Wood: The British governor, lord
dunmore, hints to his barber
that he might free the
slaves if it comes to that.
He's leaking a rumor to send
a message to white planters
but also to send a message to
black slaves to test the water.
Lo and behold, 24 hours later
there are half a dozen African
Americans at the back door
of the... I don't know if it's
the back door or the front door
that show up at the
mansion in williamsburg
to say, "we're ready.
"If we can fight for our
freedom, we'll do it.
If we can join..."
Within six months,
in the fall of 1775
dunmore actually issues a formal
proclamation to that effect.
Man: "And I hereby declare
"all indented servants
and negroes free
"that are able and
willing to bear arms
"joining his majesty's
troops as soon as may be
"for speedily
reducing the colony
to a proper sense of their
duty to his majesty's crown."
Lord dunmore, royal
governor of Virginia.
Narrator: As a liberation fever
traveled throughout Virginia and beyond
black mothers named their
newborn babies dunmore.
As far away as Philadelphia
a newspaper reported the
story of a black man
who refused to step off the
sidewalk for a white woman
shouting, "wait
till lord dunmore
and his black regiment come."
Slaves in the
colonies, it seemed
would soon have their day.
Woman: "Hell itself could not
have vomited anything more black
"than his design of
emancipating our slaves.
"We know not how far the
contagion may spread.
"The flame runs like
wildfire through the slaves.
I know not where these
troubles may lead us."
The morning chronicle, 1776.
Narrator: In New York, angry
farmers on long island
burned dunmore in effigy
and worried about slaves "being
too fond of British troops."
In the face of
dunmore's proclamation
southerners who had
been loyal to the crown
became American
patriots overnight.
The Virginia gazette
urged slaves
to cling to their kind masters
citing the fact that dunmore
himself was a slaveholder.
Wood: Obviously
dunmore's proclamation
raises the ante for everybody.
It creates the possibility
of a serious slave
uprising for freedom.
Narrator: Hundreds of
slaves left their masters
to join the British ranks.
Those who reached dunmore
were made royal soldiers
in what he called his
"Ethiopian regiment."
They were given
guns and uniforms
that were inscribed with the
motto "Liberty to slaves."
George Washington: "If that man
is not crushed before spring
"he will become the most
formidable enemy America has.
"His strength will increase
as a snowball by rolling
"and faster, if some
expedient cannot be hit upon
"to convince the
slaves and servants
of the impotency
of his designs."
George Washington.
Narrator: Across the colonies
restrictions were tightened
on meetings of servants
slaves and free blacks.
To discourage what one south
Carolina official described
as "high notions of Liberty"
blacks were subjected to
curfews and beatings.
Some were murdered to
serve as public examples.
Yet accounts circulated
of slaves stealing
their masters' horses
and riding to late
night meetings.
Still others stole weapons
and food, destroyed tools
and ran off to live
among the Indians.
African Americans
don't sit idly by
while the whites are murdering
and doing all kinds of things
to curtail their freedom.
They know that the
colonies are in turmoil
and that the situation
of enslavement
is somewhat insecure.
Narrator: With the onset of war,
thousands of black Americans sought
to loosen the chains
that bound them.
David George: "When the
American war was coming on
"the ministers were not
allowed to come amongst us
"lest they should furnish
us with too much knowledge.
"I used to go to the
little white children
"to teach me a-b-c.
"The reading ran in my mind
"that I think I
learned in my sleep
"as readily as when I was awake.
"I can now read the Bible,
so what I have in my heart
"I can see again
in the scriptures.
"I went to the swamp and poured
my heart out before the lord.
"I then came back to brother
liele and told him my case.
"It gave me great relief
"and I went home with a
desire for nothing else
but to talk to the brothers
and sisters about the lord."
David George.
Narrator: By 1775, David
George was preaching
in silver bluff, south Carolina.
Despite laws against assembly
Christian conversion was
beginning to take hold
in the lives of enslaved women
and men as never before.
Man: "The lord Jesus, the same
night in which he was betrayed
"took bread.
"And when he had given
thanks, he broke it and said
"'take, eat: This is my body
which is broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.'"
narrator: In little
over ten years' time
black christians in Savannah,
Georgia, would establish
the first African baptist church
a place of their own
to meet and worship.
It was the first black
baptist church in America.
Many among them were
the daughters and sons of those
who had come from Africa.
Most of their parents had
rejected christianity
but they would
choose differently.
Man: They can relate to
Daniel in the lions' den.
They can relate to Moses
and this crossing the river
into a promised land
because in their own
experience of life
they are in a wilderness,
in this bondage
and... and life, Liberty,
uh, joy are within reach.
It's not impossible
and that's why they have hope
because this life is
just beyond the river.
It's right there,
we can get there.
Man: "This cup is the new
testament in my blood.
Do this, ye, as oft as ye drink
it, in remembrance of me."
First corinthians, 11th
chapter, 25th verse.
Narrator: On April 6, 1776,
the continental congress
called for a wartime
halt to the slave trade.
Their motives were
largely economic
but the political
implications were clear:
If this were to be a war
for "the rights of man"
the slave trade
should play no part.
Woman: "I wish most sincerely there
was not a slave in the province.
"It has always seemed to me
"a most iniquitous scheme
to fight ourselves
"for what we are daily
robbing and plundering
from those who have as good
a right to freedom as we."
Abigail Adams.
Narrator: The events
of a decade had caused
a number of white Americans
to speak out against
oppression of any kind.
As colonists dug in to fight
their war for Liberty
moral indignation
against slavery soared.
Man: "Blush ye trifling patriots
"ye pretended
votaries for freedom!
"For while you are
fasting and praying
"non-importing, non-exporting
"resolving and pleading
for your rights
"you are continuing
"this lawless, cruel, inhuman
and abominable practice
of enslaving your
fellow creatures."
John Allen, preacher.
Narrator: In the words of one
colonist, "the conflict with england
"had set people
a-thinking in six months
more than they had done in
their whole lives before."
Man: "When in the
course of human events
"it becomes necessary
for one people
"to dissolve the
political bonds which...
Narrator: On July 4 of 1776
the colonies published
a formal declaration
of their independence
from britain.
In it, they railed
against George III
and the english monarchy.
They stated a belief
that government should represent
the people and not a king.
Their reasoning was
forceful and eloquent
and at the heart
of their argument
lay the assertion that all
men are created equal.
Man: And in just a few words,
it captures the essence:
Inalienable rights...
Rights not given to
you by the state
but given to you by god.
"We hold these truths
to be self-evident."
In other words, don't try to...
You don't have to prove them.
It's self-evident.
Why is it self-evident?
It came from god.
They're inalienable.
Government secures them.
Remarkable document.
It didn't apply to black folks.
Narrator: The principal author
was a 33-year-old virginian
named Thomas Jefferson.
He was a wealthy aristocrat who
possessed a tireless intellect.
As a student of politics,
Jefferson sought
to define a distinctly
American view of freedom.
He borrowed from ancient Greek
democracy, Roman republicanism
and english doctrines
of individual rights
to shape what would become
this new American ideal.
Yet, at the time he
wrote the declaration
Thomas Jefferson held title
to 202 human beings as his
own personal property.
While he wrote the very words
"all men are created equal"
a slave named Bob
hemings waited nearby
to attend to Jefferson's
every need.
Thomas Jefferson kept slaves
but Thomas Jefferson
nevertheless
wrote those marvelous words
and he understood the
inconsistency of this all
because he also wrote some
time later to a friend:
"If there is a just god, we're
going to pay for this."
Narrator: With his pen,
Jefferson helped create
the intellectual foundation
of American Liberty.
Through his slave dealings, he
would violate those principles
almost every day of his life.
Ferling: Many people would write
Jefferson during his lifetime
asking him what he meant by
"all men are created equal"
and I don't think he ever gave
a very satisfactory
explanation to it.
But what really
mattered, I think
was what other people thought.
Man: "From what authority
do our masters assume
"the power to dispose
of our lives?
"Freedom is the inherent
right of the human species.
"We feel the dignity
of human nature.
"We feel the passions and
desires of other men.
"Give us an opportunity
"of evincing to the world
our love of freedom
"by exerting ourselves in
the cause of the country
"in which we ourselves have
been so in juriously oppressed.
"For the sake of in jured
Liberty, for the sake of justice
"and the rights of mankind
"may the name of 'slave'
be heard no more
in a land gloriously contending
for the sweets of freedom."
Signed, natives of Africa,
now detained in slavery.
It's almost as if the
first principles
of the declaration
of independence
were not only natural rights
but they were like
natural resources.
They were like precious ore.
They were like clean
air you could breathe
and now they were written up
in a formal document that said
these belong to all men,
that they're inalienable
they belong to everybody.
Narrator: George Washington learned
of the declaration on July 9, 1776.
He assembled his troops
on an open parade ground
to hear the document read aloud.
His hope was that the
notion of independence
would inspire his
men to fight on.
Within a year and a half
hundreds of those men
would desert him.
The pay was low, infectious
disease was rampant
and a large number
of poor whites
still did not see this
conflict as their revolution.
At the end of 1777
George Washington went to his
winter camp at valley forge
with 23,000 men.
By march, only 18,000 remained.
In early 1778, a reluctant
but desperate Washington
endorsed a plan to
raise a regiment
of free blacks and
slaves in Rhode Island.
Congress approved.
For slaves, freedom
was the prize.
Across the former colonies
slaves would come
ready to bear arms
in exchange for their freedom.
Many changed their names to
reflect their aspirations...
Pomp Liberty, dick freedom,
Jupiter free, Jeffrey Liberty.
In all, some 5,000 black
soldiers would serve
alongside whites in
America's army and Navy.
Powell: For a slave to suddenly
be promised freedom... freedom!
You would be given a uniform,
you would be given rations
you would be reasonably
well fed and well cared for
and you would be part
of something greater
than a plantation existence.
You were part of a
national effort.
And so it was uplifting
in so many ways.
It took you out of this
horrible situation you were in.
It put you at a different
level of abstraction.
It gave you a purpose in life...
You're serving something.
That something was a nation
that might not be serving you
in the proper way,
but nevertheless
you can make a contribution
to the future.
Smith: "My wife and children
"were yet in bondage to Mr.
Thomas Stanton.
"I pursued various methods
to redeem my family.
"In four years, I cut several
thousand cords of wood
"I raised watermelons
and performed many other
singular labors."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: In the years
after his emancipation
venture and Meg Smith pooled
any money they could earn
towards the freedom
of their children.
Smith: "I shunned all
kinds of luxuries.
"I bought nothing that I
absolutely did not want.
"At 40 years of age, I
purchased Solomon and cuff
"two sons of mine,
for $200 each.
The rest of my money
I laid out in land."
Narrator: At a time when a
free black person could expect
little protection under the law
venture sought to
undergird his freedom
with land and laborers.
Here in Connecticut
he built the foundation
for his family's home.
But before he freed his wife,
before he freed his daughter
venture entered into a bargain
with the first of
several slaves.
Smith: "I bought a negro man for
no other reason than to oblige him
"and gave l60 for him
"but a short time after,
he ran away from me
"and I lost all
that I gave for him
except for the l20 he paid me
previous to his absconding."
Venture Smith.
In seeking to acquire more
labor, he purchases slaves.
He attests to treating
them very well
and then also
attests to surprise
when they get up and leave him
seeking their own freedom.
Narrator: Feeling cheated and
betrayed, venture turned to his sons.
Smith: "Solomon, my eldest son
"and all my hope and
dependence for help.
"I hired him out to one Charles
church of Rhode Island
"for one year.
"Church induced my son to
go on a whaling voyage.
"As soon as I heard
of his going to sea
"I immediately set
out to prevent it
"but on my arrival,
to my great grief
"the vessel was out of sight.
"My son died of scurvy
in this voyage.
"Besides the loss of his
life, I lost equal to l75
as church has never yet
paid me his wages."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: With the death of Solomon,
venture worked to free his wife.
Smith: "I purchased my wife
"and thereby prevented
having another child to buy
"as she was then pregnant.
I gave l40 for her."
Narrator: Soon after
her emancipation
Meg Smith gave birth to
their fourth child, a boy.
This baby marked a new
beginning for venture and Meg.
This baby was free.
In a gesture of remembrance,
they named him Solomon
after the son they
had lost at sea.
In 1778, France signed a
formal treaty of alliance
with the Americans.
By the end of that year, the
British high command knew
that if they were to win the war
they would have to
invade the south.
They began in Georgia
and moved up the coast to
Charleston, south Carolina.
Thousands of slaves joined them.
Washington: The situation
was essentially upheaval.
The whites were fleeing
their plantations
as the British began
to move into the south
sometimes trying to take
their bondpeople with them
other times just leaving them.
When they left them
many of the African Americans
took over the plantation homes
looted them, took all
kinds of clothing
so there was a tremendous
amount of elation.
There was also a question
of where were they going.
Narrator: Those who ran into
the woods risked everything.
Capture by the Americans meant
certain punishment, even death
and the way to the
British was not clear
but they gathered their
children, their parents
and their courage.
It was a chance at a new life.
Man: "I determined
to go to charlestown
"and throw myself into the
hands of the english.
"They received me readily
"and I began to feel the
happiness of Liberty
"of which I knew nothing before,
although I was most grieved
"to be obliged to
leave my friends
and remain among strangers."
Boston king, charlestown,
south Carolina.
A modern conception of war
does not begin to understand
what was happening in this war
with this large
train of africans
of all different descriptions
in all kinds of transportation
following the British.
The idea that the British
are a safe haven
is in and of itself problematic.
The British are deeply
implicated in the slave trade.
Uh, slavery, at the
time of the revolution
slavery is still legal
in the British colonies.
So the idea that you...
One would be safer
being with the British than
being with the Americans
is not necessarily clear.
Narrator: While serving
with the British
thousands of fugitive
slaves contracted smallpox.
British policy was that the
sick be taken away from camp
where untold numbers perished.
Nevertheless, in south Carolina
more than 20,000 people
risked life and limb
to reach the British lines.
In the spring of 1781
a small British fleet made
its way up the potomac river
and dropped anchor in the waters
off George Washington's estate.
The soldiers departed
with food, supplies
18 mount Vernon slaves,
and the knowledge
that the commander of
the continental army
could not protect his own house.
The British army had
wreaked havoc in the south
but their string of victories
was coming to an end.
For most of the war, George
Washington and his generals
had waited for the moment
when a major offensive might
cripple the British army
and change American
fortunes for good.
That moment came in
the fall of 1781
at a small Virginia tobacco port...
Yorktown.
Man: "October 16, 1781.
"Today there was
stupendous cannonading
"on both sides.
"During these 24 hours
"3,600 shots were
counted from the enemy
"which they fired at
the town, our line
"and the ships in the harbor.
"The bombs hit many inhabitants
and negroes of the city.
"One saw men lying
nearly everywhere
whose heads, arms and
legs had been shot off."
Johann Conrad doehla, soldier
with the British forces
yorktown, Virginia.
Narrator: At yorktown, the
Americans were joined
by a French naval fleet
from the west indies
and several detachments
from the French army.
For days, warships
bombarded the British army
with constant Cannon fire.
As food and medical supplies
began to run low in
the British ranks
hundreds of black refugees
were driven from their camp.
Half-starved men and
women hid in the woods
caught between the winning
and losing armies.
Man: "We had used them to good
advantage and set them free.
"And now with fear and trembling
they had to face the reward
of their cruel masters."
Johan ewald, soldier
with the British forces
yorktown, Virginia.
Narrator: On October 17, 1781
22 days after the siege
at yorktown had begun
cornwallis, the British
commander, surrendered.
The same day, the
Americans placed guards
all along the beach to
prevent fugitive slaves
from escaping with the British.
George Washington: "Many
negroes and mulattos
"have concealed themselves
"on board the ships
in the harbor.
"Others have attempted to
impose themselves as freemen
"to make their escapes.
"In order to prevent
their succeeding
"such negroes are to be
delivered to the guards
which will be established
for their reception."
General George Washington.
Narrator: The defeat at yorktown broke
the back of the British resolve.
Seven years of war
had grown costly
and lost support in London.
For english generals
and politicians alike
time was running out.
For more than a year
as the British retreated
across the south
escaped slaves followed
the ground forces
and crowded into seaports.
There they fought
to gain passage
on ships bound for the British
headquarters in New York City.
Boston king: "Peace was restored
between America and Great Britain
"which diffused universal joy
among all parties except us.
"A report prevailed that all
the slaves, 2,000 in number
"were to be delivered
up to their masters.
"This dreadful rumor filled
us with inexpressible anguish
"and terror.
"We saw our old masters coming
from Virginia, north Carolina
"and other parts, and seizing
upon their former slaves
"in the streets of New York
"or even dragging them
out of their beds.
"For days, we lost our
appetite for food
and sleep departed
from our eyes."
Boston king, fugitive slave.
Wood: Imagine the situation
you have in New York City
at the end of the
American revolution.
Thousands of African Americans
who have made their choice
to join the British
have watched the British
fail to win the war
have realized they've
bet on the wrong side
and find themselves huddled with
these defeated British forces
in Manhattan.
The British are about to depart.
They're going to take many
of these people with them.
Who's going to go?
Who's going to stay?
Narrator: In eight years' time
as many as 100,000 slaves
had escaped bondage.
In New York, english officials
compiled a "book of negroes"...
An inventory of every woman,
man and child in the city
who could prove the length of
their time with the British.
3,000 names are recorded in all.
6,000 former slaves boarded
British ships in Charleston.
Another 4,000 gained passage
at the port of Savannah.
Thousands went to
Spanish Florida.
Others sailed to
the west indies.
The women and men who
left from New York
elected to settle in Nova Scotia
where they were promised
freedom and a farm
by British officials.
It was not to be.
Within four years,
people were starving.
Washington: Many thousands of African
Americans who aided the British
lost their freedom anyway.
Many of them ended up in
slavery in the Caribbean.
Others, when they attempted
to leave with the British
in places like Charleston and
Savannah, were prevented.
And there are incredible
letters written by southerners
of africans after the
siege of Charleston
swimming out to boats
and the British hacking away
at their arms with cutlasses
to keep them from following them
so it was a very
tragic situation
and of the many
thousands of africans
who left the plantations
not many of them actually
got their freedom.
Man: "I am a poor negro who
with myself and my children
"have had the good fortune
to get my freedom.
"I am told that they are
going to pass a law
"to send us all back
to our masters.
"This would be the cruelest act.
To make a law to hang
us would be merciful."
Cato, a former slave.
Narrator: The years following the war
were times of unrest and uncertainty.
Slave owners in the deep south
sought to recover wartime losses
by importing African slaves
at an ever-increasing rate.
Angry war veterans
protested in public
for moratoriums on their debts
and equal distribution
of the land.
Individual states took up
arms against each other
in border disputes
and there was
constant speculation
about splitting the new nation
up into 13 separate countries.
In 1787, representatives
from 12 of the 13 states
met in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
for a constitutional convention.
They were there to restore
order to a nation in turmoil.
George Washington was summoned
from his Virginia plantation
to preside over the convention.
Riley: By the end
of the revolution
Washington is the revolution
to a lot of people.
He has an enormous amount
of pride in the revolution
and knows that it is far
from being complete
knows from his study of history
that very easily this could...
A counterrevolution
could take place
and they would lose all
they had fought for.
Narrator: There was no greater
division in the nation than the one
that lay between the states that
had begun to abolish slavery
and those that had not.
In 1780, Pennsylvania lawmakers
ruled that in keeping
with the revolution's
principles of equality
they would extend their
freedom to others.
As a result, all black
children born in Pennsylvania
from that year forward were
to be freed at age 28.
In 1783, Massachusetts
outlawed slavery entirely
based on a state
constitution that declared
"all men are born
free and equal."
Connecticut and Rhode
island soon followed
with gradual emancipation acts.
As the tide began to turn
against slaveholders
in the north
the nation's founders laid
the groundwork for a society
that could grow while both
espousing ideals of Liberty
and endorsing the
practice of slavery.
Blight: Every time a new state
was brought into the union
the test was, was there a
slave state to bring in
with a free state
so we've got a
nation now growing
with the interest of free
states and the slave states
kind of trying to
grow in tandem.
It's a dispute between
two different systems
one system of slavery,
based upon slavery
and the other system
based upon free labor.
And so virtually every
issue that was discussed
in the constitutional convention
had an impact from slavery.
Narrator: Delegates
voiced great concern
over the protection of
individual liberties
and personal property.
For Southern delegates, one of
the most important liberties was
the right to own slaves.
While they wanted a
federal government
that would protect their rights
they did not want
a governing body
that would emancipate
their slaves.
The problem with the
libertarian ideology
of the entire revolutionary
and constitutional period
is this notion that the
pursuit of happiness
is tied to property.
So even though Thomas
Jefferson is able to say
"all men are created equal
and endowed by their creator
with inalienable rights"
these rights include
the right of property.
As strongly as
people might adhere
to the notion of
Liberty and freedom
they adhere just as strongly
to the notion of property.
Narrator: In the course of
six months, the 55 delegates
drafted the foundation of
American law and government.
Neither the words
"slave" nor "slavery"
appear in the constitution
but the fate of enslaved
men, women and children
was carefully inscribed
within its pages.
The U.S. constitution
prevented congress
from voting to end the
African slave trade
for a minimum of 20 years.
Free states were required
by law to return fugitives
to the slave states
and slave states were
permitted to count
three-fifths of their
slave population
in determining the number
of representatives
they would send to congress.
Slaveholders won an
enormous political victory.
Owning slaves would be part
of the American freedom
and in the process,
a union was forged.
The federal constitution
was ratified in 1788.
The following year, George
Washington was sworn in
as the nation's first president.
During the course of his
two administrations
Washington, like a growing
number of Americans
began to feel that
slavery was evil
and an unsound economic
system for the future
yet he kept his
thoughts confined
to private correspondence
with close friends
and never took a public
stand against slavery.
During his presidency, he and his
wife owned 317 human beings.
George Washington: "Upon
the decease of my wife
"it is my will and desire
"that all the slaves which
I hold in my own right
shall receive their freedom."
Narrator: In his final will,
George Washington stipulated
that upon his wife's death
the 125 slaves that he owned
outright would be free.
His wife's slaves would be
parceled out to her heirs
according to the
terms of her will.
He had sought to
reconcile in death
what he could not come
to terms with in life.
On a cold December night in
1799, George Washington died.
Following her husband's death
Martha Washington moved
out of the bedroom
she had shared with him
and took up residence
in a small guest room.
Her last years were troubled
filled with melancholy,
loneliness and a growing fear
of the slaves who lived
at mount Vernon.
Riley: There were 125 people
who knew that when she died
they were free.
She feared for her life.
And so Martha actually went
to court in Fairfax county
and freed those slaves a
year after her husband died.
She did not wait
and so she was clearly
uncomfortable.
And you must think that
Washington thought
that she might be
in that situation
and I think that he didn't
want to put her in harm's way
but he just didn't
know what else to do.
Smith: "I am bowed down
with age and hardship.
"While I am now looking
to the grave as my home
"I have many consolations:
"Meg, the wife of my youth
whom I married for love
"is still alive.
"I am now possessed of more
than 100 acres of land
"and three houses
but my freedom is a privilege
which nothing else can equal."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: Venture
Smith died in 1805
as the practice of slavery
began its slow demise
in the part of the country
that he called home.
The census of 1800
recorded the presence
of over 100,000
free black people
living in the United States.
By contrast, there
were 800,000 slaves.
America had won its war,
but for black Americans
the revolution would
remain a fight unfinished.
To learn more about
africans in America
and to see the teachers'
guide for the series
Next time on africans
in America...
Religion inspires freedom,
but rage makes it possible.
Woman: You can feel the anger
and you can wonder whether
slavery ever would have ended
without that sort of rage.
To purchase the africans
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Soundtrack
call 1-800-255-9424.
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expanding America's
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who we are and who we will be.
A home is more than
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It's safer streets...
Better schools...
Stronger communities...
The American dream.
The fannie Mae foundation...
Helping Americans on the
path to home ownership.
They came to a new world
speaking ancient languages
yet their courage
and perseverance
still speak to us today.
That's why africans in America
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Woman: ♪ your country ♪
♪ how came it yours? ♪
♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪
♪ we were here. ♪
♪ Your country ♪
♪ how came it yours? ♪
♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪
♪ we were here. ♪
Africans in America
has been made
possible by a Grant
from the national endowment
for the humanities
expanding America's
understanding of who we were
who we are and who we will be.
A home is more than
four walls and a roof.
It's safer streets...
Better schools...
Stronger communities...
The American dream.
The fannie Mae foundation...
Helping Americans on the
path to home ownership.
They were torn from
homes and families
yet they never let go of their
courage and perseverance
and our nation is
stronger because of it.
That's why africans in America
is proudly brought to you
by bankers trust,
architects of value.
McDonald's is proud to
support this presentation
of africans in America.
Additional funding
is provided by:
And the annual financial support
of pbs viewers like you.
Man: "When you make men slaves
"you deprive them of
half their virtue.
"You set them, in
your own conduct
"an example of fraud and cruelty
and compel them to live with
you in a state of war."
Olaudah equiano,
enslaved African.
Narrator: The promise of
britain's American colonies
lay bound up in notions
of what a man could own.
In search of that promise
Scottish immigrant
William dunbar traveled
to the American
frontier in 1771.
In the Mississippi delta
he laid claim to a
large tract of land
then set sail for the Caribbean.
Dunbar returned with
25 African slaves
to clear trees, plant indigo
and carve a plantation out
of the black delta earth.
July of 1776 would find
the scotsman writing
not about the newly declared
American independence
but of a suspected slave
revolt on his own plantation.
Dunbar: "Judge my surprise.
"They informed me
"that a conspiracy among the
negroes had been discovered
and that it had taken
place at my house."
Narrator: Dunbar was
quick to take action.
Within 24 hours, he
hanged four men.
A fifth committed suicide.
But the idea of
freedom did not die.
In the languages of
hausa, ja and wolof
africans continued to conspire.
And just eight days before,
Americans had declared
that "all men are created equal"
that "life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness"
were "inalienable rights."
How long then, in a
land of such promise
could one American
continue to own another?
He was born in west Africa.
He is buried in a small
new england graveyard.
On one side of the Atlantic
ocean his name was broteer.
On the other, he was
known as venture Smith.
He was brought to the
colonies as a child...
Prideful, headstrong.
He was an individual of
immense size and strength...
A slave who was not
easily controlled.
Shrewd, relentless
he was one of thousands who
would gain their freedom
in the violent years that led
to American independence.
In his life is a story
of America becoming.
Man: "We were put on a vessel
belonging to Rhode Island
"and told to appear to the
best advantage for sale.
"On board, I was bought
by one robertson mumford
"for four gallons of rum and
a piece of calico cloth
"and called 'venture'
"on account of him
having purchased me
"with his own private venture.
Thus I came by my name."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: Venture Smith
was one of 86,000 people
who traveled to north
America in the 1730s.
Nearly 41,000 were africans
brought to the
colonies as slaves.
They were to be slaves for
life, as were their children
and their children's children.
During those same years
45,000 Europeans
made the journey
in search of opportunity.
Most were poor.
They paid for their passage
with five to seven years of
unpaid labor in the colonies.
It was a hard bargain,
but people came.
Man: The American colonies develop
as an area of opportunity.
You were not confined by
who your grandfather was
who your father was,
what their trades were.
You could become whatever
it was you chose to be...
Whatever your talents
allowed you to be
but that notion of
opportunity is premised
on an unconfined freedom
that, in fact, does not exist
for the entire population
that exists for only a
part of the population.
Narrator: By the late 1730s
one out of every six people
living in the colonies
was a slave.
While less than a quarter of the
white population owned slaves
the African trade created
an economy that gave rise
to other flourishing
industries in the north:
Shipbuilding, iron
foundries, sawmills
rum distilleries
and sail making.
And among the well-to-do
families of the south
slave labor was a way of life
that began at the cradle
and ended at the grave.
Man: "I, augustine Washington,
being sick and weak
"but of perfect sense and memory
"do make my last
will and testament
"in the manner following:
"I give unto my son Lawrence
Washington and his heirs forever
"all that plantation and tract
of land at hunnington creek
"all the slaves, cattle and
stock of all kinds whatsoever.
"I give unto my daughter Betty
"a negro child named
Betty, daughter of Judy.
"I give unto my son George
Washington and his heirs
"the land I now live
on, which I purchased
"and ten negro slaves.
In the name of god, amen."
Man: Well, Washington, from
the time he was 11 years old
owned human beings.
That's something that he
grew up with, certainly
and it all revolved
in his family
as most families in the
chesapeake, around agriculture
and the labor required to grow
large quantities of tobacco
which is a very
labor-intensive crop.
So from a very early age
Washington was
surrounded by slaves.
His parents owned slaves
his grandparents had
been slave owners
his older brothers
were slave owners.
Slave owning was common in the
northern neck of Virginia
where Washington grew up.
It was just an
accustomed part of life.
Narrator: George
Washington grew up
among Virginia's
slaveholding aristocracy.
Though he was a
fourth-generation American
he fashioned himself in the
mold of an english gentleman
with dancing lessons
and fencing lessons.
Like most wealthy virginians,
Washington looked to england
for social custom,
architecture, music and taste.
The book he studied most was
rules of civility and
decent beha vior
in companyand conversation...
A self-improvement manual
compiled for
16th-century noblemen.
But 3,000 miles of ocean
separated the
colonies from britain
and Americans were moving
towards an identity
that was all their own.
Ambitious men like Washington's
father had married into wealth
bought slaves, cleared the
land and farmed it for profit.
Their sons would do the same.
Man: "Dear sir, I will
take six or more negroes
"if you can spare such
"upon the terms offered
in your letter.
"If you agree to it and
will appoint a time
"I would send for them
"relying on your word that
the whole are healthy
"and none of them
addicted to running away.
"The latter I abominate
"and unhealthy negroes,
women or children
would not suit my
purpose on any terms."
George Washington.
Narrator: In colonial America, the
acquisition of land and slaves
served as a crucial step
towards power and influence.
Only men of property
held the right to vote.
They were the statesmen,
they were the magistrates.
Wives and daughters
were expected to live
under the authority of a
male head of household.
It was a society in which
everyone, free or un-free
was expected to know his place.
Smith: "I was pretty much
employed in the house
"carding wool and other
household business.
"My behavior had been as yet
obedient and submissive.
"I then began to have
hard tasks imposed on me
"or be rigorously punished.
I was about nine years old."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: As a boy, venture Smith
was learning the place of a slave
on a small farm in Rhode Island.
Like most children who
were slaves in the north
he was growing up in the
house of a white family
laboring under the
supervision of his owners.
Woman: Children were more likely
to be employed in the household.
You're helping someone, so
you can learn how to do
whatever that thing, that
task is, that artisan trade.
You're more likely to be
used in the household
because, you know,
you're not a threat.
You're a child.
Um, you're seen as more educable
in the ways of the
slave society.
Some people, some
slaveholders think
that children will
be more passive.
Narrator: As he
came into his teens
venture grew large for his age...
A boy in a man's body.
At six foot one and
upwards of 230 pounds
he began to test those who
tried to control him.
Smith: "My master's son James would
come to me, big with authority
"and order me to do this
business and that business
"different from what my
master had directed.
These burdens were
very grievous to me."
"One particular day,
I cast a deaf ear."
"He broke out into a great rage
and went to lay me over the
head with a pitchfork."
"I defended myself..."
"Otherwise he might have
murdered me in his outrage.
"He immediately
called some people
"to take a rope and
bind me with it.
In vain they all tried."
Narrator: As the fight raged on
James mumford ran from the
barn to call for more help.
Smith: "As I recovered
my temper, I was bound
"and was carried
before my young master
that he might do what
he pleased with me."
Narrator: A whip was fashioned from
the branches of a nearby peach tree
and brought to his
would-be young master
but James mumford dared not raise
his hand to venture again.
The whip was never used.
Davis: We have innumerable
examples of slaveholders
making protestations about a
particular slave not behaving
recognizing the personality
of the individuals
who are enslaved.
They do have their own minds.
They will exercise
their own wills.
Although the individual
exercise of their own minds
the individual exercise
of their own wills
does not release them
from that social stratum
that slavery has imposed,
that the society has imposed
by declaring those
persons to be slaves.
Narrator: In 1750, venture turned
22 and married a woman named Meg.
Tradition has it that on the
occasion of their marriage
a rope was thrown over
their master's house.
Venture pulled at one end while
Meg pulled at the other.
After both had tugged for a
while, Meg joined venture
and together, they pulled
the rope over with ease.
"If we pull in life
against each other
we shall fail," he said
"but if we pull together
we shall succeed."
At year's end, Meg gave
birth to a baby girl.
They named her Hannah.
Woman: This generation
won't know Africa
in the same way that their
parents knew Africa.
The child also won't know
freedom in the same way
that a parent knew freedom.
Because a child sees daily
the whippings, the
brutality of the system
sees their parents coming
under the authority
coming under the rule of the
whip of the overseer even
so it's very difficult.
But at the same time, I think
parents teach children
what is to be cherished
about the slave community
and that's family,
that's religion
and that's togetherness.
Narrator: By the year
of Hannah's birth
nearly two-thirds of
the slave population
had been born on American soil.
Africans were slowly becoming
a new people in a new place.
Men's choir: ♪ I heard
the voice of Jesus ♪
♪ say come unto me and rest. ♪
Man: "Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden
"and I will give you rest.
"Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me
"for I am meek and
lowly in heart:
"And ye shall find
rest unto your souls
for my yoke is easy and
my burden is light."
The book of Matthew.
Narrator: During the
middle of the 18th century
a movement of white,
Evangelical ministers
made their way through Virginia,
the carolinas, Georgia
and parts of new england.
Their sermons were
a direct challenge
to an established
religious order
in which god spoke
only through a priest
a bishop, or a church official.
These traveling ministers
sought to remove christianity
from the elevated
hands of the clergy
and place it in the
hearts and minds
of farmhands, laborers,
and servants.
Man: This was not a
distant, far away god
in some kind of
institutional church
but it was a god,
said the Evangelicals
involved in the daily
lives of people
involved in every thought and
every deed of your life.
Narrator: Themes of tyranny,
slavery and spiritual communion
struck a chord in poor
whites and slaves alike.
Thousands flocked to
hear the new gospel
and the movement became known
as "the great awakening."
Blight: There'd never
been anything like it.
Here's a meeting of 3,000
people out in a field
blacks and whites together,
listening to a preacher
who says, "here in my message
and here in my stories
"is a new life for you.
"Here's a new chance for you.
"Here's a god who has
your interest at heart.
Here's a god who
may deliver you."
Narrator: Though most black
people in the colonies
held on to traditional
African beliefs
that they or their parents
had carried across the ocean
the great awakening
produced a small group of
black, Christian ministers.
These men fused
protestant christianity
with west African ritual
to take a gospel of liberation
to their fellow slaves.
Over a period of years,
their numbers would grow.
Man: "I lived a bad life and had
no serious thought about my soul.
"I saw myself as a mass of sin.
"I was sin.
"I could not read and
had no scriptures.
"Then I heard brother
George liele...
"A man of my own color...
Preach.
"His sermon was very suitable
"on 'come unto me all ye that
labor and I will give you rest.'
indeed, his whole
discourse seemed for me."
David George.
Slaveholders were very
wary of missionaries
going amongst the africans
and baptizing them
because for africans
that represented a rite
of passage, a transition.
Something had to change.
Narrator: The renowned presbyterian
minister Samuel Davies
sought to calm
slaveholder's anxieties
by stating that "there was
never a good Christian yet
who was a bad servant."
But talk of natural rights
and spiritual fellowship
would charge people to step
forward and question authority.
One such confrontation
occurred in 1752
in the kitchen of a small
Rhode Island farmhouse.
It was an argument between a
white woman and her slaves.
Smith: "I was then
at work in the barn.
"The quarrel began between
my wife and my mistress.
"This happened when
my master was gone.
"When I entered the house,
I found my mistress
in a violent passion
with my wife."
Venture Smith.
Ruffins: Many, many people
whether they were black or white
whether they were rich or poor
were questioning the
limits of authority.
So venture's wife is
living during this era
in which questioning
is more possible
than at some other times.
What we see here is an argument
between the mistress and a slave
and one might say, "well, what
could they be arguing about?"
Clearly the mistress
says, "do so"
and the slave meekly,
humbly does so.
Well, that was not the case.
Smith: "I earnestly
requested my wife
"to beg pardon of her mistress
for the sake of peace.
"But whilst I was thus saying,
my mistress turned the blows
"which she was repeating
on my wife to me.
I immediately committed the
whip to the devouring fire."
Narrator: When venture's
owner returned home
he sought to punish his slave
by sneaking up on
him from behind
and striking him with a club.
Venture threw his master to the
floor and beat him soundly.
The town constable was summoned
and venture was taken
to a blacksmith's shop
where he was fitted for a
pair of iron shackles.
Smith: "I continued to wear the chain
peaceably for two or three days.
"Not anyone said much to me
"until one hempstead
miner of stonington
"asked me if I would
live with him
"and that in return he would
give me a good chance
"to gain my freedom.
I said that I would."
Ruffins: Selling a slave off
is a major form of control.
One person might say, I know
I can't control this person
so I'm going to sell them to,
you know, Joe Smith next door
because he's bigger,
he's stronger
he's more willing to be
brutal, he's whatever it is.
I can, sort of,
basically cash out.
I can get my money
out of the situation
and leave the problematic issue
of controlling this person
to someone else.
Narrator: Despite his
promise, venture's new owner
had no intention of ever
granting him freedom.
Because venture had fought
violently with whites
on more than one occasion
his new owner quickly
sold him again
to an unsuspecting buyer
from Connecticut.
Smith: "I left my wife...
And children.
"This was the third
time of my being sold.
"To this place I brought with
me three old Spanish dollars
"2,000 of coppers
"and five pounds
of my wife's money
"which I buried in the earth.
I was then 31 years old."
Venture Smith.
Man: "A plantation
with 70 slaves on it
"is esteemed as good property.
"When a man marries
off his daughter
"he never talks of
the fortune in money
but 20 or 30 or 40 slaves."
Royal governor William tryon.
Narrator: On her wedding
day, a woman in the colonies
could expect to relinquish
control of any property
that she owned to her husband.
At the time of her
second marriage
Martha dandridge custis
was rumored to be
the wealthiest
widow in Virginia.
Her intended was a military hero
with a promising
career in politics.
The two had spent fewer
than three weeks together
in all of their lives.
On a bitterly cold day
in January of 1759
Martha dandridge custis and
George Washington were wed.
Ferling: Washington was
an up-and-coming member
of the Virginia aristocracy.
He was not a terribly wealthy
planter or aristocrat
but an individual who
certainly had the potential
for being a wealthy planter.
So he'd made a name for himself
but he never had
that kind of money
that this marriage
brought to him.
Narrator: The average planter
owned two or three slaves
and farmed 200 acres of tobacco.
With his marriage
to Martha custis
Washington increased his
slaveholdings nine times over
adding 286 slaves to the
30 he already owned.
In addition, he gained control
of 17,000 acres of farmland
placing him among
the ten wealthiest
planters in Virginia.
It was a fortune he
guarded closely.
To clothe each adult slave
Washington spent less
than a dollar a year.
Children often went naked.
In the fall of 1759
Washington's slaves harvested
his first tobacco crop.
With great hopes, he shipped
the goods to england
but Washington soon
received bad news.
His tobacco could not
command a decent price
on the British market.
Within two years, he
was deeply in debt.
He was not alone.
There was a growing
pattern of debt
throughout the British
empire, and within ten years
its effects would help
turn American colonists
against their king.
In march of 1765, parliament
passed the stamp act.
It was the first direct tax
levied against the colonies.
British politicians reasoned
that Americans had
grown prosperous
under the king's protection.
Now it was time to
pay the crown back.
Colonists protested violently
and refused to buy the
government stamps.
In New York, a howling mob
attacked the British fort
and forced the officer in charge
to burn the stamped paper.
In Boston, the stamp distributor
was hanged in effigy.
The houses of tax collectors
were pillaged and destroyed.
In Charleston... a city
that was 60% black...
White tradesmen
took to the streets
with the cry of
"Liberty, Liberty."
Black men and women
gathered publicly
and began to shout "Liberty,
Liberty" themselves.
Frightened city officials
called for armed patrols
throughout the province.
Man: If you're a black
resident in Charleston
seeing the sons of Liberty
march down broad street
with flags that say "Liberty,
Liberty" across them
you can identify with that,
you can relate to that
you can see that as an opening
through which you can push your
desire for Liberty as well.
Narrator: The year
of the stamp act
venture bought himself
out of slavery.
He paid his master l71
and two shillings...
The cost of roughly
4,000 acres of land.
It was a rare achievement
for a slave anywhere.
In all of these narratives
venture Smith's and other
narratives that we have
from this era and from later
the... the emotional, the
psychological, the spiritual
the religious import of being
free cannot be overstated.
Smith: "Being 36 years old, I left
colonel Smith once more for all.
"I had already been sold
three different times
"had been cheated out
of a large sum of money
"lost much by misfortunes
and paid an enormous
sum for my freedom."
Narrator: The coming of freedom
was a moment so profound
that the newly free often
attributed their good fortune
to divine intervention
and committed their lives to
Christ from that moment on.
Emancipation was rebirth.
Like many former slaves, venture
soon sought to free his family.
He began his new
life by cutting wood
and hauling goods along
the Connecticut river.
Ruffins: They're hearing
around them all the time
ideas about freedom and
Liberty and equality
because this is the
revolutionary era
in American life.
So they are...
Their own individual
freedom begins to parallel
this larger national
rhetoric of freedom
that leads to the establishment
of the United States.
So for people, particularly
in new england
particularly in this era
they see their freedom as linked
to the freedom of the nation.
Narrator: 28 years after being
brought to American shores
venture was free.
But by law, free negroes
could not walk the streets
or travel the waters after 9:00 P.M.
without a pass.
Connecticut's black codes
prohibited free negroes
from inviting a slave or an
Indian into their homes.
In Boston, a free black person
could not even carry a stick
or a cane unless
they could prove
that it was needed for
actual support of the body.
And there was always the
threat of being kidnapped
and sold into slavery.
Venture had paid l71
for his freedom
but it would cost him
much more to keep it.
In the years following
the stamp act
colonists resisted nearly every
tax that the crown imposed.
In 1768, a British fleet dropped
anchor in Boston harbor.
4,000 troops came ashore
to enforce english law.
In march of 1770, occupying
British troops shot and killed
five men during a confrontation
in the streets of Boston.
The first to fall was a runaway
slave named crispus attucks.
A former dock worker
who was known for not
being afraid of a fight
attucks was shot twice through
the chest and died on the spot.
Samuel Adams, a
savvy pamphleteer
seized upon the killings
to turn his fellow colonists
against the crown.
Throughout the colonies
march 5, 1770 came to be known
as "the Boston massacre."
Man: These men became instant martyrs
in the revolutionary movement.
These people were eulogized year
after year on the anniversary
and the terms in which
they were utilized
became more and more
sympathetic to them.
These were, um... noble
men, it came out.
They were fathers and sons...
Not one of them was married.
They were all bachelors.
They had no children
but all of the orphans
that were left from them.
This became a cause celebre.
Man: "I speak it with grief,
I speak it with anguish:
"Britons are our oppressors.
"I speak it with shame, I
speak it with indignation:
We are slaves."
Josiah Quincy, Boston,
Massachusetts.
Quite naturally, the real slaves
are going to pick up on this
and as a reaction to that
African Americans began
to protest themselves
and began to assess, as
they have always done
a situation that might be
an opportunity for Liberty.
There'll be petition
after petition
to the Massachusetts
colonial assembly
and then later to the
continental congress...
Petitions sent by African
slaves themselves
saying that we are demanding
that you give us the
same kind of freedom
that you are demanding
from england.
Man 1: "The humble
petition of many slaves
living in the town of
Boston is this..."
Man 2: "We expect great things from
men who have made such a noble stand
against the designs of their
fellow men to enslave them."
Man 3: "We have no property!
We have no city! No country!"
Man 4: "The divine spirit
of freedom seems to fire
every humane breast
on the continent."
Narrator: In 1772, a
British judge ruled
that slavery was illegal
on england's home soil.
It was a decision
that granted immediate freedom
to more than 14,000 people.
Though the ruling did not
apply to the British colonies
it was a spark of hope
for black Americans.
Wood: Word of that
court decision
filters very quickly
to north America.
And we have runaway ads in
the Virginia gazette saying
"my slave disappeared last
week heading for the coast
"hoping to get on
a ship to england
where he can establish
his freedom."
That's how far word had spread.
Narrator: The following year, a
London publisher released a book
by a 20-year-old American
poet named phillis wheatley.
She had been born in Africa
and abducted into slavery
during her childhood.
She was purchased as a house
servant by a Boston family
who taught her to read and write
while introducing
her to the Bible.
Phillis learned english quickly
and soon advanced
to Latin and Greek.
Her owners took
great pride in her.
They spoke of their phillis as
if she were one of the family
and they invited the leading
intellectuals of Boston
to come and meet this
most unusual slave.
Man: It can be very confusing
talking about human beings
the humor, the acts of kindness
that we know slaves had
for particular owners
and we know that particular
owners had for groups of slaves.
What's most important, however
is the big picture.
Did ever any of those acts or
instances of kindness change
the thinking of a slave
to make him or her accept
their collective bondage
and enslavement?
Washington: "Should you, my
lord, while you pursue my song
"wonder from whence my
love of freedom sprung
"once flowed these wishes
for the common good
by feeling hearts alone
best understood."
Wheatley: "I, young in life,
by seeming cruel fate
"was snatched from
afric's fancy happy seat
"what pain excruciating
must molest
"what sorrows labor
in my parents' breast
"steeled was that soul,
and by no misery moved
that from a father seized
his babe beloved."
"Such, such was my case.
And can I then but pray others
may never feel tyrannic sway."
Narrator: The
publication of her book
made wheatley a
literary sensation
but it did not make her free.
On the Eve of the
American revolution
she was one of 500,000 slaves
living in the colonies.
Man: "The die is now cast.
"The colonies must either
submit or triumph.
"I do not wish to come
to severer measures
but we must not retreat."
King George III to lord
north, September 1774.
Narrator: On April 19, 1775
a decade of tension between
crown and colonies erupted
into full-scale warfare
20 miles from Boston.
That day, nine black
new englanders fought
alongside their white neighbors
to stop an advancing
column of British troops.
In the town of Lexington
a small band of militiamen faced
a hail of British bullets
leaving eight colonists dead.
The news traveled quickly.
At the town of Concord
Americans stopped the
British advance.
And on the road back to Boston
nearly 2,000 Americans
ambushed the British soldiers.
Hundreds were killed and wounded
and the American
revolution had begun.
Ferling: The colonists still looked
upon themselves as colonists
as englishmen who
lived in America
so there was a great
deal of attachment
to one's particular province
and no real attachment
at this point
to a notion of a United States
or even united colonies.
Narrator: In June of 1775, colonial
leaders named George Washington
to command the army that
was rapidly forming
on the outskirts of Boston.
As a virginian
it was hoped that he would
inspire southerners
to fight in a new england war.
As a rich man, it was thought
that his willingness
to risk life and limb
might serve as an
example to others.
Washington guessed that the
conflict would be short
six months at the most.
Colonial leaders
wanted to secure
their rights as englishmen
but they had no intention of
leaving the British empire.
George Washington: "We
must assert our rights
"or submit to every imposition
"that shall make us
tame and abject slaves
as the blacks which we rule
over with such arbitrary sway."
George Washington.
Narrator: As Washington inspected his
troops, he was surprised to find
that slaves and free black
men had mustered in
among the white American
soldiers outside of Boston.
Within weeks after
taking command
Washington ruled against
recruiting slaves
under any conditions.
On the subject of free black
soldiers, he was undecided.
Washington was also a
politician as well as a general
and he felt that the
sight of former slaves
or of African Americans
bearing arms
might have an adverse effect
in deep Southern states.
George Washington and
his counsel of war
did not want blacks in the
war, perhaps because, um...
It was felt that if
they served in the war
that they would be
entitled to their freedom
and that this would be a war
for the freedom of all
people in the colonies.
Wheatley: "In every human breast
god has implanted a principle
"which we call love of freedom.
"It is impatient of oppression
and pants for deliverance.
I will assert that the same
principle lives in us."
"God Grant deliverance."
Phillis wheatley.
Narrator: In October of 1775,
George Washington ordered
his recruiting officers to bar
black Americans, slave or free
from further enlistment
in the continental army.
The Americans would have to
find manpower elsewhere.
Quietly, the British governor of
Virginia put a plan in motion
to strike fear in the hearts
of American sympathizers.
His strategy was to incite an
enemy from within their midst.
This enemy worked in their
shops, lived in their homes
and put their children to bed.
Wood: The British governor, lord
dunmore, hints to his barber
that he might free the
slaves if it comes to that.
He's leaking a rumor to send
a message to white planters
but also to send a message to
black slaves to test the water.
Lo and behold, 24 hours later
there are half a dozen African
Americans at the back door
of the... I don't know if it's
the back door or the front door
that show up at the
mansion in williamsburg
to say, "we're ready.
"If we can fight for our
freedom, we'll do it.
If we can join..."
Within six months,
in the fall of 1775
dunmore actually issues a formal
proclamation to that effect.
Man: "And I hereby declare
"all indented servants
and negroes free
"that are able and
willing to bear arms
"joining his majesty's
troops as soon as may be
"for speedily
reducing the colony
to a proper sense of their
duty to his majesty's crown."
Lord dunmore, royal
governor of Virginia.
Narrator: As a liberation fever
traveled throughout Virginia and beyond
black mothers named their
newborn babies dunmore.
As far away as Philadelphia
a newspaper reported the
story of a black man
who refused to step off the
sidewalk for a white woman
shouting, "wait
till lord dunmore
and his black regiment come."
Slaves in the
colonies, it seemed
would soon have their day.
Woman: "Hell itself could not
have vomited anything more black
"than his design of
emancipating our slaves.
"We know not how far the
contagion may spread.
"The flame runs like
wildfire through the slaves.
I know not where these
troubles may lead us."
The morning chronicle, 1776.
Narrator: In New York, angry
farmers on long island
burned dunmore in effigy
and worried about slaves "being
too fond of British troops."
In the face of
dunmore's proclamation
southerners who had
been loyal to the crown
became American
patriots overnight.
The Virginia gazette
urged slaves
to cling to their kind masters
citing the fact that dunmore
himself was a slaveholder.
Wood: Obviously
dunmore's proclamation
raises the ante for everybody.
It creates the possibility
of a serious slave
uprising for freedom.
Narrator: Hundreds of
slaves left their masters
to join the British ranks.
Those who reached dunmore
were made royal soldiers
in what he called his
"Ethiopian regiment."
They were given
guns and uniforms
that were inscribed with the
motto "Liberty to slaves."
George Washington: "If that man
is not crushed before spring
"he will become the most
formidable enemy America has.
"His strength will increase
as a snowball by rolling
"and faster, if some
expedient cannot be hit upon
"to convince the
slaves and servants
of the impotency
of his designs."
George Washington.
Narrator: Across the colonies
restrictions were tightened
on meetings of servants
slaves and free blacks.
To discourage what one south
Carolina official described
as "high notions of Liberty"
blacks were subjected to
curfews and beatings.
Some were murdered to
serve as public examples.
Yet accounts circulated
of slaves stealing
their masters' horses
and riding to late
night meetings.
Still others stole weapons
and food, destroyed tools
and ran off to live
among the Indians.
African Americans
don't sit idly by
while the whites are murdering
and doing all kinds of things
to curtail their freedom.
They know that the
colonies are in turmoil
and that the situation
of enslavement
is somewhat insecure.
Narrator: With the onset of war,
thousands of black Americans sought
to loosen the chains
that bound them.
David George: "When the
American war was coming on
"the ministers were not
allowed to come amongst us
"lest they should furnish
us with too much knowledge.
"I used to go to the
little white children
"to teach me a-b-c.
"The reading ran in my mind
"that I think I
learned in my sleep
"as readily as when I was awake.
"I can now read the Bible,
so what I have in my heart
"I can see again
in the scriptures.
"I went to the swamp and poured
my heart out before the lord.
"I then came back to brother
liele and told him my case.
"It gave me great relief
"and I went home with a
desire for nothing else
but to talk to the brothers
and sisters about the lord."
David George.
Narrator: By 1775, David
George was preaching
in silver bluff, south Carolina.
Despite laws against assembly
Christian conversion was
beginning to take hold
in the lives of enslaved women
and men as never before.
Man: "The lord Jesus, the same
night in which he was betrayed
"took bread.
"And when he had given
thanks, he broke it and said
"'take, eat: This is my body
which is broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.'"
narrator: In little
over ten years' time
black christians in Savannah,
Georgia, would establish
the first African baptist church
a place of their own
to meet and worship.
It was the first black
baptist church in America.
Many among them were
the daughters and sons of those
who had come from Africa.
Most of their parents had
rejected christianity
but they would
choose differently.
Man: They can relate to
Daniel in the lions' den.
They can relate to Moses
and this crossing the river
into a promised land
because in their own
experience of life
they are in a wilderness,
in this bondage
and... and life, Liberty,
uh, joy are within reach.
It's not impossible
and that's why they have hope
because this life is
just beyond the river.
It's right there,
we can get there.
Man: "This cup is the new
testament in my blood.
Do this, ye, as oft as ye drink
it, in remembrance of me."
First corinthians, 11th
chapter, 25th verse.
Narrator: On April 6, 1776,
the continental congress
called for a wartime
halt to the slave trade.
Their motives were
largely economic
but the political
implications were clear:
If this were to be a war
for "the rights of man"
the slave trade
should play no part.
Woman: "I wish most sincerely there
was not a slave in the province.
"It has always seemed to me
"a most iniquitous scheme
to fight ourselves
"for what we are daily
robbing and plundering
from those who have as good
a right to freedom as we."
Abigail Adams.
Narrator: The events
of a decade had caused
a number of white Americans
to speak out against
oppression of any kind.
As colonists dug in to fight
their war for Liberty
moral indignation
against slavery soared.
Man: "Blush ye trifling patriots
"ye pretended
votaries for freedom!
"For while you are
fasting and praying
"non-importing, non-exporting
"resolving and pleading
for your rights
"you are continuing
"this lawless, cruel, inhuman
and abominable practice
of enslaving your
fellow creatures."
John Allen, preacher.
Narrator: In the words of one
colonist, "the conflict with england
"had set people
a-thinking in six months
more than they had done in
their whole lives before."
Man: "When in the
course of human events
"it becomes necessary
for one people
"to dissolve the
political bonds which...
Narrator: On July 4 of 1776
the colonies published
a formal declaration
of their independence
from britain.
In it, they railed
against George III
and the english monarchy.
They stated a belief
that government should represent
the people and not a king.
Their reasoning was
forceful and eloquent
and at the heart
of their argument
lay the assertion that all
men are created equal.
Man: And in just a few words,
it captures the essence:
Inalienable rights...
Rights not given to
you by the state
but given to you by god.
"We hold these truths
to be self-evident."
In other words, don't try to...
You don't have to prove them.
It's self-evident.
Why is it self-evident?
It came from god.
They're inalienable.
Government secures them.
Remarkable document.
It didn't apply to black folks.
Narrator: The principal author
was a 33-year-old virginian
named Thomas Jefferson.
He was a wealthy aristocrat who
possessed a tireless intellect.
As a student of politics,
Jefferson sought
to define a distinctly
American view of freedom.
He borrowed from ancient Greek
democracy, Roman republicanism
and english doctrines
of individual rights
to shape what would become
this new American ideal.
Yet, at the time he
wrote the declaration
Thomas Jefferson held title
to 202 human beings as his
own personal property.
While he wrote the very words
"all men are created equal"
a slave named Bob
hemings waited nearby
to attend to Jefferson's
every need.
Thomas Jefferson kept slaves
but Thomas Jefferson
nevertheless
wrote those marvelous words
and he understood the
inconsistency of this all
because he also wrote some
time later to a friend:
"If there is a just god, we're
going to pay for this."
Narrator: With his pen,
Jefferson helped create
the intellectual foundation
of American Liberty.
Through his slave dealings, he
would violate those principles
almost every day of his life.
Ferling: Many people would write
Jefferson during his lifetime
asking him what he meant by
"all men are created equal"
and I don't think he ever gave
a very satisfactory
explanation to it.
But what really
mattered, I think
was what other people thought.
Man: "From what authority
do our masters assume
"the power to dispose
of our lives?
"Freedom is the inherent
right of the human species.
"We feel the dignity
of human nature.
"We feel the passions and
desires of other men.
"Give us an opportunity
"of evincing to the world
our love of freedom
"by exerting ourselves in
the cause of the country
"in which we ourselves have
been so in juriously oppressed.
"For the sake of in jured
Liberty, for the sake of justice
"and the rights of mankind
"may the name of 'slave'
be heard no more
in a land gloriously contending
for the sweets of freedom."
Signed, natives of Africa,
now detained in slavery.
It's almost as if the
first principles
of the declaration
of independence
were not only natural rights
but they were like
natural resources.
They were like precious ore.
They were like clean
air you could breathe
and now they were written up
in a formal document that said
these belong to all men,
that they're inalienable
they belong to everybody.
Narrator: George Washington learned
of the declaration on July 9, 1776.
He assembled his troops
on an open parade ground
to hear the document read aloud.
His hope was that the
notion of independence
would inspire his
men to fight on.
Within a year and a half
hundreds of those men
would desert him.
The pay was low, infectious
disease was rampant
and a large number
of poor whites
still did not see this
conflict as their revolution.
At the end of 1777
George Washington went to his
winter camp at valley forge
with 23,000 men.
By march, only 18,000 remained.
In early 1778, a reluctant
but desperate Washington
endorsed a plan to
raise a regiment
of free blacks and
slaves in Rhode Island.
Congress approved.
For slaves, freedom
was the prize.
Across the former colonies
slaves would come
ready to bear arms
in exchange for their freedom.
Many changed their names to
reflect their aspirations...
Pomp Liberty, dick freedom,
Jupiter free, Jeffrey Liberty.
In all, some 5,000 black
soldiers would serve
alongside whites in
America's army and Navy.
Powell: For a slave to suddenly
be promised freedom... freedom!
You would be given a uniform,
you would be given rations
you would be reasonably
well fed and well cared for
and you would be part
of something greater
than a plantation existence.
You were part of a
national effort.
And so it was uplifting
in so many ways.
It took you out of this
horrible situation you were in.
It put you at a different
level of abstraction.
It gave you a purpose in life...
You're serving something.
That something was a nation
that might not be serving you
in the proper way,
but nevertheless
you can make a contribution
to the future.
Smith: "My wife and children
"were yet in bondage to Mr.
Thomas Stanton.
"I pursued various methods
to redeem my family.
"In four years, I cut several
thousand cords of wood
"I raised watermelons
and performed many other
singular labors."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: In the years
after his emancipation
venture and Meg Smith pooled
any money they could earn
towards the freedom
of their children.
Smith: "I shunned all
kinds of luxuries.
"I bought nothing that I
absolutely did not want.
"At 40 years of age, I
purchased Solomon and cuff
"two sons of mine,
for $200 each.
The rest of my money
I laid out in land."
Narrator: At a time when a
free black person could expect
little protection under the law
venture sought to
undergird his freedom
with land and laborers.
Here in Connecticut
he built the foundation
for his family's home.
But before he freed his wife,
before he freed his daughter
venture entered into a bargain
with the first of
several slaves.
Smith: "I bought a negro man for
no other reason than to oblige him
"and gave l60 for him
"but a short time after,
he ran away from me
"and I lost all
that I gave for him
except for the l20 he paid me
previous to his absconding."
Venture Smith.
In seeking to acquire more
labor, he purchases slaves.
He attests to treating
them very well
and then also
attests to surprise
when they get up and leave him
seeking their own freedom.
Narrator: Feeling cheated and
betrayed, venture turned to his sons.
Smith: "Solomon, my eldest son
"and all my hope and
dependence for help.
"I hired him out to one Charles
church of Rhode Island
"for one year.
"Church induced my son to
go on a whaling voyage.
"As soon as I heard
of his going to sea
"I immediately set
out to prevent it
"but on my arrival,
to my great grief
"the vessel was out of sight.
"My son died of scurvy
in this voyage.
"Besides the loss of his
life, I lost equal to l75
as church has never yet
paid me his wages."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: With the death of Solomon,
venture worked to free his wife.
Smith: "I purchased my wife
"and thereby prevented
having another child to buy
"as she was then pregnant.
I gave l40 for her."
Narrator: Soon after
her emancipation
Meg Smith gave birth to
their fourth child, a boy.
This baby marked a new
beginning for venture and Meg.
This baby was free.
In a gesture of remembrance,
they named him Solomon
after the son they
had lost at sea.
In 1778, France signed a
formal treaty of alliance
with the Americans.
By the end of that year, the
British high command knew
that if they were to win the war
they would have to
invade the south.
They began in Georgia
and moved up the coast to
Charleston, south Carolina.
Thousands of slaves joined them.
Washington: The situation
was essentially upheaval.
The whites were fleeing
their plantations
as the British began
to move into the south
sometimes trying to take
their bondpeople with them
other times just leaving them.
When they left them
many of the African Americans
took over the plantation homes
looted them, took all
kinds of clothing
so there was a tremendous
amount of elation.
There was also a question
of where were they going.
Narrator: Those who ran into
the woods risked everything.
Capture by the Americans meant
certain punishment, even death
and the way to the
British was not clear
but they gathered their
children, their parents
and their courage.
It was a chance at a new life.
Man: "I determined
to go to charlestown
"and throw myself into the
hands of the english.
"They received me readily
"and I began to feel the
happiness of Liberty
"of which I knew nothing before,
although I was most grieved
"to be obliged to
leave my friends
and remain among strangers."
Boston king, charlestown,
south Carolina.
A modern conception of war
does not begin to understand
what was happening in this war
with this large
train of africans
of all different descriptions
in all kinds of transportation
following the British.
The idea that the British
are a safe haven
is in and of itself problematic.
The British are deeply
implicated in the slave trade.
Uh, slavery, at the
time of the revolution
slavery is still legal
in the British colonies.
So the idea that you...
One would be safer
being with the British than
being with the Americans
is not necessarily clear.
Narrator: While serving
with the British
thousands of fugitive
slaves contracted smallpox.
British policy was that the
sick be taken away from camp
where untold numbers perished.
Nevertheless, in south Carolina
more than 20,000 people
risked life and limb
to reach the British lines.
In the spring of 1781
a small British fleet made
its way up the potomac river
and dropped anchor in the waters
off George Washington's estate.
The soldiers departed
with food, supplies
18 mount Vernon slaves,
and the knowledge
that the commander of
the continental army
could not protect his own house.
The British army had
wreaked havoc in the south
but their string of victories
was coming to an end.
For most of the war, George
Washington and his generals
had waited for the moment
when a major offensive might
cripple the British army
and change American
fortunes for good.
That moment came in
the fall of 1781
at a small Virginia tobacco port...
Yorktown.
Man: "October 16, 1781.
"Today there was
stupendous cannonading
"on both sides.
"During these 24 hours
"3,600 shots were
counted from the enemy
"which they fired at
the town, our line
"and the ships in the harbor.
"The bombs hit many inhabitants
and negroes of the city.
"One saw men lying
nearly everywhere
whose heads, arms and
legs had been shot off."
Johann Conrad doehla, soldier
with the British forces
yorktown, Virginia.
Narrator: At yorktown, the
Americans were joined
by a French naval fleet
from the west indies
and several detachments
from the French army.
For days, warships
bombarded the British army
with constant Cannon fire.
As food and medical supplies
began to run low in
the British ranks
hundreds of black refugees
were driven from their camp.
Half-starved men and
women hid in the woods
caught between the winning
and losing armies.
Man: "We had used them to good
advantage and set them free.
"And now with fear and trembling
they had to face the reward
of their cruel masters."
Johan ewald, soldier
with the British forces
yorktown, Virginia.
Narrator: On October 17, 1781
22 days after the siege
at yorktown had begun
cornwallis, the British
commander, surrendered.
The same day, the
Americans placed guards
all along the beach to
prevent fugitive slaves
from escaping with the British.
George Washington: "Many
negroes and mulattos
"have concealed themselves
"on board the ships
in the harbor.
"Others have attempted to
impose themselves as freemen
"to make their escapes.
"In order to prevent
their succeeding
"such negroes are to be
delivered to the guards
which will be established
for their reception."
General George Washington.
Narrator: The defeat at yorktown broke
the back of the British resolve.
Seven years of war
had grown costly
and lost support in London.
For english generals
and politicians alike
time was running out.
For more than a year
as the British retreated
across the south
escaped slaves followed
the ground forces
and crowded into seaports.
There they fought
to gain passage
on ships bound for the British
headquarters in New York City.
Boston king: "Peace was restored
between America and Great Britain
"which diffused universal joy
among all parties except us.
"A report prevailed that all
the slaves, 2,000 in number
"were to be delivered
up to their masters.
"This dreadful rumor filled
us with inexpressible anguish
"and terror.
"We saw our old masters coming
from Virginia, north Carolina
"and other parts, and seizing
upon their former slaves
"in the streets of New York
"or even dragging them
out of their beds.
"For days, we lost our
appetite for food
and sleep departed
from our eyes."
Boston king, fugitive slave.
Wood: Imagine the situation
you have in New York City
at the end of the
American revolution.
Thousands of African Americans
who have made their choice
to join the British
have watched the British
fail to win the war
have realized they've
bet on the wrong side
and find themselves huddled with
these defeated British forces
in Manhattan.
The British are about to depart.
They're going to take many
of these people with them.
Who's going to go?
Who's going to stay?
Narrator: In eight years' time
as many as 100,000 slaves
had escaped bondage.
In New York, english officials
compiled a "book of negroes"...
An inventory of every woman,
man and child in the city
who could prove the length of
their time with the British.
3,000 names are recorded in all.
6,000 former slaves boarded
British ships in Charleston.
Another 4,000 gained passage
at the port of Savannah.
Thousands went to
Spanish Florida.
Others sailed to
the west indies.
The women and men who
left from New York
elected to settle in Nova Scotia
where they were promised
freedom and a farm
by British officials.
It was not to be.
Within four years,
people were starving.
Washington: Many thousands of African
Americans who aided the British
lost their freedom anyway.
Many of them ended up in
slavery in the Caribbean.
Others, when they attempted
to leave with the British
in places like Charleston and
Savannah, were prevented.
And there are incredible
letters written by southerners
of africans after the
siege of Charleston
swimming out to boats
and the British hacking away
at their arms with cutlasses
to keep them from following them
so it was a very
tragic situation
and of the many
thousands of africans
who left the plantations
not many of them actually
got their freedom.
Man: "I am a poor negro who
with myself and my children
"have had the good fortune
to get my freedom.
"I am told that they are
going to pass a law
"to send us all back
to our masters.
"This would be the cruelest act.
To make a law to hang
us would be merciful."
Cato, a former slave.
Narrator: The years following the war
were times of unrest and uncertainty.
Slave owners in the deep south
sought to recover wartime losses
by importing African slaves
at an ever-increasing rate.
Angry war veterans
protested in public
for moratoriums on their debts
and equal distribution
of the land.
Individual states took up
arms against each other
in border disputes
and there was
constant speculation
about splitting the new nation
up into 13 separate countries.
In 1787, representatives
from 12 of the 13 states
met in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
for a constitutional convention.
They were there to restore
order to a nation in turmoil.
George Washington was summoned
from his Virginia plantation
to preside over the convention.
Riley: By the end
of the revolution
Washington is the revolution
to a lot of people.
He has an enormous amount
of pride in the revolution
and knows that it is far
from being complete
knows from his study of history
that very easily this could...
A counterrevolution
could take place
and they would lose all
they had fought for.
Narrator: There was no greater
division in the nation than the one
that lay between the states that
had begun to abolish slavery
and those that had not.
In 1780, Pennsylvania lawmakers
ruled that in keeping
with the revolution's
principles of equality
they would extend their
freedom to others.
As a result, all black
children born in Pennsylvania
from that year forward were
to be freed at age 28.
In 1783, Massachusetts
outlawed slavery entirely
based on a state
constitution that declared
"all men are born
free and equal."
Connecticut and Rhode
island soon followed
with gradual emancipation acts.
As the tide began to turn
against slaveholders
in the north
the nation's founders laid
the groundwork for a society
that could grow while both
espousing ideals of Liberty
and endorsing the
practice of slavery.
Blight: Every time a new state
was brought into the union
the test was, was there a
slave state to bring in
with a free state
so we've got a
nation now growing
with the interest of free
states and the slave states
kind of trying to
grow in tandem.
It's a dispute between
two different systems
one system of slavery,
based upon slavery
and the other system
based upon free labor.
And so virtually every
issue that was discussed
in the constitutional convention
had an impact from slavery.
Narrator: Delegates
voiced great concern
over the protection of
individual liberties
and personal property.
For Southern delegates, one of
the most important liberties was
the right to own slaves.
While they wanted a
federal government
that would protect their rights
they did not want
a governing body
that would emancipate
their slaves.
The problem with the
libertarian ideology
of the entire revolutionary
and constitutional period
is this notion that the
pursuit of happiness
is tied to property.
So even though Thomas
Jefferson is able to say
"all men are created equal
and endowed by their creator
with inalienable rights"
these rights include
the right of property.
As strongly as
people might adhere
to the notion of
Liberty and freedom
they adhere just as strongly
to the notion of property.
Narrator: In the course of
six months, the 55 delegates
drafted the foundation of
American law and government.
Neither the words
"slave" nor "slavery"
appear in the constitution
but the fate of enslaved
men, women and children
was carefully inscribed
within its pages.
The U.S. constitution
prevented congress
from voting to end the
African slave trade
for a minimum of 20 years.
Free states were required
by law to return fugitives
to the slave states
and slave states were
permitted to count
three-fifths of their
slave population
in determining the number
of representatives
they would send to congress.
Slaveholders won an
enormous political victory.
Owning slaves would be part
of the American freedom
and in the process,
a union was forged.
The federal constitution
was ratified in 1788.
The following year, George
Washington was sworn in
as the nation's first president.
During the course of his
two administrations
Washington, like a growing
number of Americans
began to feel that
slavery was evil
and an unsound economic
system for the future
yet he kept his
thoughts confined
to private correspondence
with close friends
and never took a public
stand against slavery.
During his presidency, he and his
wife owned 317 human beings.
George Washington: "Upon
the decease of my wife
"it is my will and desire
"that all the slaves which
I hold in my own right
shall receive their freedom."
Narrator: In his final will,
George Washington stipulated
that upon his wife's death
the 125 slaves that he owned
outright would be free.
His wife's slaves would be
parceled out to her heirs
according to the
terms of her will.
He had sought to
reconcile in death
what he could not come
to terms with in life.
On a cold December night in
1799, George Washington died.
Following her husband's death
Martha Washington moved
out of the bedroom
she had shared with him
and took up residence
in a small guest room.
Her last years were troubled
filled with melancholy,
loneliness and a growing fear
of the slaves who lived
at mount Vernon.
Riley: There were 125 people
who knew that when she died
they were free.
She feared for her life.
And so Martha actually went
to court in Fairfax county
and freed those slaves a
year after her husband died.
She did not wait
and so she was clearly
uncomfortable.
And you must think that
Washington thought
that she might be
in that situation
and I think that he didn't
want to put her in harm's way
but he just didn't
know what else to do.
Smith: "I am bowed down
with age and hardship.
"While I am now looking
to the grave as my home
"I have many consolations:
"Meg, the wife of my youth
whom I married for love
"is still alive.
"I am now possessed of more
than 100 acres of land
"and three houses
but my freedom is a privilege
which nothing else can equal."
Venture Smith.
Narrator: Venture
Smith died in 1805
as the practice of slavery
began its slow demise
in the part of the country
that he called home.
The census of 1800
recorded the presence
of over 100,000
free black people
living in the United States.
By contrast, there
were 800,000 slaves.
America had won its war,
but for black Americans
the revolution would
remain a fight unfinished.
To learn more about
africans in America
and to see the teachers'
guide for the series
Next time on africans
in America...
Religion inspires freedom,
but rage makes it possible.
Woman: You can feel the anger
and you can wonder whether
slavery ever would have ended
without that sort of rage.
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