State

Free ]\egro of Ante-Bellum Days llis position was anything hut an enviable one. and in many in¬ stances members of his classifi¬ cation petitioned to he placed hack into slavery again. By EDGAR AKERIXETIIY gro’s rights. Unscrupulous indi¬ viduals sometimes attempted to seize such persons, carry them off. and sell them as slaves. In 1799 this was made a felony pun¬ ishable by death, and in 1806 a certain Micajah Johnson was sen¬ tenced to be hanged in Fayette- Legal Restrictions In 1790, when there were few¬ er than 5,000 such individuals in the state, there were few legal restrictions placed upon them, the most important being inability to appear as a witness against a white person. This was a griev¬ ous disadvantage. It made kid¬ naping cases difficult to prove. Debts could not be collected from white debtors by legal process. On numerous occasions free Ne¬ groes petitioned the legislature for a law doing away with this discrimination, but to no avail. Certain towns, among them be¬ ing Wilmington, Washington, Edenton, and Fayetteville, re¬ quired them to register with the town clerk, and to wear a badge upon the left shoulder, bearing the word, “Free." There was at least one statute on the books specifically intended for the protection of the free Ne¬ THE free Negro of ante-bellum days occupied an unenviable position in the South. In a sys¬ tem of society composed of white freemen and black slaves, he was an anomaly, a misfit, a hybrid creature for whom there was no place. His very existence made slave discipline more difficult, for it put ideas of freedom into the minds of discontented slaves, and made it possibly for runaways to secure forged certificates and claim to be free. It is not surprising that the at¬ titude of the white man toward these unfortunate persons was one of suspicion and distrust, be¬ coming more so as slaves became more valuable, free Negroes more numerous, and agitation by Aboli¬ tionists more violent. I «VI ville for selling a free Negro boy in Virginia. As free Negroes became more numerous, and the slavery ques¬ tion more acute, the legislature from time to time enacted laws designed to prevent their increase, and by degrees their rights as citizens also were curtailed. Un¬ der a measure passed in 1795, im¬ migration from other states was restricted, and laws passed in 1826 and 1830 forbade it entirely. Courts Supervised Freedom The right of a master to liber¬ ate a slave was likewise under rigid legal control. Prior to 1830 all such transactions were under the supervision of the county courts; after that date this duty was given to the superior courts. The regulations under which they acted were changed from time to time, but one requirement was constant: the consideration must be “meritorious service." This provision was often evaded. After 1830 it was also required that freedmen leave the state within ninety days, never to return. The free Negro’s civil rights were likewise progressively taken away from him. In 1812 he was forbidden to serve in the militia, "except as a musician"; in 1826 a stringent vagrancy law was passed, applicable only to him; and two years later he was for¬ bidden to remain out of the state more than ninety days, to marry a slave, or to peddle without a license. In 1831 he was forbidden to preach in public, and in 1835 he lost the privilege of the ballot. After 1840 he was no longer per¬ mitted to keep a gun without a license, and a year later he lost the benefits of the bankruptcy laws. In 1844 his children were barred from the common schools. In 1860, when his numbers had increased to 30,000, he was for¬ bidden to have the control or hire of slaves. By this date condi¬ tions had become such that in many cases slavery was prefer¬ able to freedom, and in that year petitions began to reach the leg¬ islature from free Negroes ask¬ ing for the privilege of enslaving themselves “in order to improve their social standing." Right of Habeas Corpus It should be noted, however, that even at this late date, they still had the rights of habeas corpus, trial by jury, and owner-