The Film: Interview Transcripts: Loren Schweninger

Loren Schweninger, Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, on
three groups of free blacks
On the eve of the Civil War, there were about a quarter of a million free blacks living in the south and about a quarter of a million free blacks living in the north.  There were really three groups of free blacks: those in the lower south, which were overwhelmingly people of mixed racial ancestry; those in the upper south, who had just often recently emerged from slavery; and those in the north, who were free.

Of the three groups, the free blacks in the northern states were the most sympathetic and the most hospitable and the most accepting to runaway slaves.  Free blacks in the lower south often owned slaves themselves and were children of whites, and were kind of a middle tier between slaves and whites, and they were less sympathetic, though sometimes they did assist runaways.  In the upper south, runaways were sometimes comforted in free black communities and cities and towns.  But, it was very dangerous to do so, and the retribution if you were caught could be severe.  Nonetheless, there are examples of free blacks who provided community for runaway slaves and also safe harbor on various plantations, and there were a few so called stations in the underground railroad for runaways in the upper south, but they were mostly in the north.

The Race and Slavery
Petitions Project

rebels on the plantation

obstacles and
heart-wrenching decisions

dramatic slave escapes

slavery’s long shadow