Table Of ContentThe African American Years
The African American Years
CHRONOLOGIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE
GABRIEL BURNS STEPTO
The African American Years
Gabriel Burns Stepto
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Stepto, Gabriel.
The African American years / Gabriel Burns Stepto.
p. cm. -- (Chronologies of American history and experience)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
ISBN 0-684-31257-3 (alk. paper)
1. African Americans--History--Chronology. 2. African Americans--History--
Sources. I. Title. II. Series.
E185.S797 2003
973'.0496073--dc21
2002012869
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Bold headings indicate new sections.Each section begins The Education ofAfrican Americans................274
with a listing ofmain entries,as seen below,plus primary The Ongoing Effort for Inclusion in
source documents included in that section.See separate the Military.....................................294
index for further access to the primary source documents.
African Americans in the Modern Era..............313
Chronology............................................1
Migration,Industrialization,and the City...........315
The Colonial Period The History ofAfrican American Music.............322
and the Revolutionary War ..........................67
African American Folklore and Folkways............333
The First Africans to Arrive in the New World........70
The African American Literary Experience..........336
Free African Americans in the United States..........89
The African American Family................... 353
African American Soldiers in the
The African American Religious Experience.........368
Colonial Period ..................................99
The Debate over Slavery in the United States........108
African Americans Coming to
the Fore ofAmerican Identity ......................397
The Civil War .......................................151
The Civil Rights Struggle:From Nonviolence
The Final Century ofSlavery in the
to Black Power..................................398
United States....................................153
The African American Intellectual Experience.......403
African Americans and the Civil War................169
African Americans in the Sciences...................419
African American Labor History ....................426
Reconstruction .....................................191
The Art ofAfrican Americans .......................433
Reconstruction and the Rise ofJim Crow............192
The Close ofthe Twentieth Century
African Americans in Political Office................203
and Beyond.....................................442
African Americans on the Frontier ..................213
African American Newspapers and Periodicals......228
List ofContributors ................................451
The Long Journey Index................................................453
Toward Integration.................................245
African Americans and the Law......................246 Primary Source Document Index...................473
v
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vii
Preface
History is a set ofinterpretations ofpast events that his- These elements are meant to offer not another shared,
torians and the reading public come to agree upon.It is a fixed conclusion,but rather a set of tools enabling the
process in which we look back and try to give a name to student,the researcher,and the general reader to engage
what happened.These shared conclusions do not stay in his or her own construction and reconstruction.The
fixed through time;they change as people change. timeline included at the front of this book intends to
capture the sweep ofAfrican American history by pin-
Nowhere is flux and the reinterpretation ofthe past
pointing its key years and,within those years,recording
more alive,or for that matter,more critical,than in the his-
significant events.The essays and sidebars in the second
tory ofthe African peoples in the Americas.This history
part ofthe book provide the context,the background for
mixes widely accepted stories,wishful thinking,plain old
understanding the significance of events and relating
ignorance (ofboth an active and a passive nature),and a
them to the larger story ofAfrican American history.The
propensity for error—for it is the history ofa people whose
primary sources constitute historical evidence.Think of
arrival in the New World was marked by an attempt to
these elements not as forming a monolith,telling an offi-
erase the linguistic and cultural traces ofits past.
cial story,but rather as a weave ofdistinct threads that,as
Writing and reading the history ofAfrican Ameri- a whole,provides an image ofthe African American past
cans in the Americas,then,present a unique challenge. open to many readings and further investigations.
They are,in a sense,acts ofinterpreting an anti-history,
At the outset ofthe twenty-first century,it is a bold
an un-history,a history that was not meant to be told,a
but altogether fair statement to say that African Ameri-
past that was forbidden to be named.
cans have either created or been an integral part in the
To write and read the story ofAfrican Americans, conception of most of the great literature,music,art,
who for large parts of their experience in the United and culture the United States has produced.Regardless
States were not treated even as human beings,much less of how we judge the cultural or the technological
citizens or people ofrecord,we must turn to a wealth of impact of the United States on world culture, black
sources.Memoirs,letters,family histories,newspapers, Americans are a part ofthat impact.African American
oral histories,city directories—these are just a few ofthe years are therefore America’s years and these,at least to
types ofmaterials writers and readers must draw upon some extent,are the twenty-first century world’s years.
both to construct the past and to reconstruct prior inter- Critical interpretation and reexamination ofthe tran-
pretations ofthat past. formations ofthese years can only enhance our under-
standing ofour global community.
This volume presents such sources along with essays
and a chronology of the African American experience. —Gabriel Burns Stepto
ix
The African American Years:
Chronology
1444 1619
With the Portuguese advances in shipbuilding and the Twenty Africans arrive in Jamestown Harbor aboard a
explorations of Henry the Navigator, a quantum Dutch slave ship.Statutory slavery does not exist yet,
leap in shipbuilding technology is achieved. This and they are sold as indentured servants,many of
means that the caravels can stay out of port far them gaining their freedom and land in the years that
longer, and can carry a greater cargo—and as a follow.But within twenty-five years,statutory slavery
result,the slave trade explodes in the decades that will be established in Massachusetts,and thereafter
follow. SEE SIDEBAR The European Slave Trade every colony will follow suit,making racial slavery a
Begins,p.77 legal fact throughout the colonies. SEE SIDEBAR
Twenty Africans Arrive in Jamestown Colony,p.71
1492
1628
Christopher Columbus sails west to the Americas with a
Slavery in Canada begins when Olivier Le Jeune,an African
crew that includes one sailor,Pedro Alonso Niño,
child ofsix,is kidnapped and taken to New France,
who may have been black.In the decades that fol-
where he is sold as a slave.Le Jeune serves as a domes-
low,black sailors,soldiers,and explorers take part in
tic slave until his death in 1654.African Canadian
most ofthe Spanish conquests in the New World.
slaves who follow will serve primarily as household
servants like Le Jeune,while native Canadian people,
1539 the Panis,will be used in agricultural slavery.Canadi-
an slavery receives royal sanction in 1689,1709,and
Estevanico,a black explorer,leads an expedition north
again in 1760,when New France falls to the English.
from Mexico to discover for Spain the regions of
present-day Arizona and New Mexico.SEE ENTRY
1634
African Americans on the Frontier,p.213
French Catholic missionaries in Louisiana begin to pro-
1608 vide education for all workers,regardless of their
race or status.
Matthew Da Costa,a black interpreter for the Portuguese
and French courts,is present at the founding ofQue-
1638
bec City, the capital of New France, the fledgling
French colony in North America.A free man in a Virginia passes legislation that requires a servant who
position ofrespect and authority,Da Costa will come escapes for a second time to be branded on the
to be regarded as Canada’s first black immigrant. cheek or shoulder with the letter R.
1
Chronology
1651
Anthony Johnson,probably one ofthe twenty Africans
who arrived in Jamestown in 1619,receives a grant
of250 acres in Northampton County,Virginia,with
the right to import five persons as labor.Other free
blacks receive similar grants in Virginia during this
decade.
1655
Elizabeth Key,a slave since birth,sues for her freedom
and wins.She is born the daughter ofan influential
Virginia planter and a slave woman. Her suit is
based on three arguments:(1) her father was a free
man; (2) she had been baptized, the implication
being that a Christian could not be a slave for life;
and (3) she had been sold to another planter even
after she had served nine years.
1661
The Virginia Assembly passes the Act on Runaways,which
establishes a distinction between English and Negro
servants.Runaway English servants are to have the
Most scholars agree that the first Africans brought to America as time oftheir indentures lengthened as punishment.
slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619. Note the nudity of the captives,
But ifthey run away with “Negroes who are incapable
the Renaissance clothing of the white men, the elaborate
ofmaking satisfaction by addition ofa time”—that
pavilion, and the Dutch ship in the background. Early Virginia
records suggest that at least some of the “twenty negars” of is,who are already slaves for life—then the English
Jamestown went on to become free men and women, with runaways are to be punished by having to serve the
property and slaves of their own. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS extra time for the masters ofthe Negro slaves.This is
the colony’s first legal recognition that some black
servants are actually enslaved for life.SEE PRIMARY
1640
SOURCE DOCUMENT The Runaway Slave Act,p.92
John Punch,an African indentured servant,is made a
“slave for life” as punishment for an attempt to
1662
escape with two other servants. Of the three,
Punch alone is black,and he alone is condemned The Virginia Assembly adopts the first statute making
to lifelong servitude.John Punch is the first per- slavery an inheritable condition based on the moth-
son known to be enslaved in the North American er’s status,according to which all children born of
colonies.This ushers in the age of racial slavery. enslaved women are deemed slaves for life.In the
SEE SIDEBAR Acknowledging Permanent Slavery: following year, Maryland enacts a law that also
The Escape and Capture ofthe Slave John Punch, extends slavery to the children offreeborn English-
p.92 women who marry slaves. SEE PRIMARY SOURCE
DOCUMENT “An Agreement to Deliver 17 Negro
Slaves,”p.79
1641
The first colonial slavery statute is adopted in the Massa- 1663
chusetts colony.Entitled “Liberties ofForreiners and
Black slaves and white indentured servants join in the
Strangers,”it guarantees the liberty ofEnglish set-
first recorded slave conspiracy in Gloucester Coun-
tlers at the same time that it authorizes the enslave-
ty,Virginia,on September 13.Their plan is betrayed
ment ofIndian prisoners ofwar and Africans cap-
by an indentured servant.
tured and sold in the slave trade. SEE PRIMARY
SOURCE DOCUMENT The First Slavery Statute and Maryland enacts a law giving legal recognition to slavery.
First Anti-Literacy Act,p.80 It reduces all Africans to slavery,regardless oftheir
2 The African American Years
Chronology
previous status,as well as white women who marry
black slaves and the children ofsuch marriages.In
1681,a portion ofthis law is repealed when Mary-
land declares that the children ofindentured white
women and enslaved black males are born free.SEE
ENTRY The First Africans to Arrive in the New
World,p.71
1664
The first antimiscegenation law is passed in Maryland
Colony on September 20,banning marriages bet-
ween Englishwomen and blacks. It is followed by
similar laws in Virginia (1691), Massachusetts
(1705), North Carolina (1715), South Carolina
(1717),Delaware (1721),and Pennsylvania (1725).
Such laws remain on the books in several states until
the mid-twentieth century.
1668
The Virginia Assembly adopts an act denying equality
before the law to free blacks.This is the first ofmany
laws passed throughout the colonies that establish
legal and civil distinctions between black and white
freemen.Despite attempts to drive out or enslave
free black people,their numbers continue to grow
slowly in all ofthe colonies.
Much of the early anti-black sentiment was stirred up by the
1669 promise that without legislation banning their interaction, black
males would be involved romantically with whites females. This
The Virginia Assembly passes an act acquitting masters brand of fear-mongering has a storied past and was used
of“felony murder”for the killing of slaves during continually to discourage interracial relationships. THE LIBRARY
the course ofpunishment.It is called “An Act about OF CONGRESS
the Casuall Killing ofSlaves.”SEE PRIMARY SOURCE
DOCUMENT Virginia Passes the “Casual Slave Killing
Act,”p.79 1676
Slaves,indentured servants,and small landowners join
the wealthy planter Nathaniel Bacon in a rebellion
1671
against the policies of tidewater planters and the
As more and more Africans become converts to Chris- royal governor of Virginia, William Berkeley.
tianity,Maryland enacts a law stating that the Chris- Although Bacon’s Rebellion is eventually quelled by
tian conversion ofslaves does not in any way negate English forces,it provides an example of political
their slave status.Prior to this,the terms “Christian” and military cooperation among Virginia’s black
and “free”had been used interchangeably. and white servants.
1672 1680
King Charles II of England charters the Royal African Repealing a 1670 law that made “Indians and others”
Company to trade in slaves. It quickly comes to free,the Virginia Assembly passes an act stating that
dominate the Atlantic slave trade, bringing thou- all nonwhite,non-Christian servants,whether they
sands ofnewly captured Africans to North America come by land (Indians) or by sea (Africans),will be
in the decades that follow. SEE ENTRY The First “adjudged,deemed,and taken to be slaves.”The new
Africans to Arrive in the New World,p.71 law also states that for such persons,conversion to
The African American Years 3
