The Two Worlds of Race: A Historical View John Hope Franklin Measured by universal standards the history of the United States is indeed brief. But during the brief span of three and one-half centuries of colo- nial and national history Americans developed traditions and prejudices which created the two worlds of race in modern America. From the time that Africans were brought as indentured servants to the mainland of English America in 1619, the enormous task of rationalizing and justifying the forced labor of peoples on the basis of racial dif- ferences was begun; and even after legal slavery was ended, the notion of racial differences persist- ed as a basis for maintaining segregation and dis- crimination. At the same time, the effort to estab- lish a more healthy basis for the new world social order was begun, thus launching the continuing battle between the two worlds of race, on the one hand, and the world of equality and complete JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN human fellowship, on the other. (1915– For a century before the American Revolution 2009) was a prominent historian and ardent defender of civil rights. the status of Negroes in the English colonies had His numerous publications include become ½xed at a low point that distinguished the groundbreaking book From them from all other persons who had been held Slavery to Freedom: A History of in temporary bondage. By the middle of the eigh- American Negroes (1947), now in teenth century, laws governing Negroes denied to its eighth edition. He was elected them certain basic rights that were conceded to a Fellow of the American Acad- others. They were permitted no independence of emy in 1964. The essay reprinted here originally appeared in Dæda- thought, no opportunity to improve their minds lus 94 (4) (Fall 1965); that volume or their talents or to worship freely, no right to was the ½rst of two special issues marry and enjoy the conventional family relation- on “The Negro American.” ships, no right to own or dispose of property, and © 1965 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 28 Dædalus Winter 2011 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 no protection against miscarriages of dom. In changing his policy if not his John Hope justice or cruel and unreasonable pun- views, Washington availed himself of Franklin ishments. They were outside the pale the services of more than 5,000 Negroes of the laws that protected ordinary hu- who took up arms against England.1 mans. In most places they were to be Many Americans besides Mrs. Adams governed, as the South Carolina code were struck by the inconsistency of their of 1712 expressed it, by special laws “as stand during the War for Independence, may restrain the disorders, rapines, and and they were not averse to making inhumanity to which they are naturally moves to emancipate the slaves. Quak- prone and inclined.” A separate world ers and other religious groups organized for them had been established by law antislavery societies, while numerous and custom. Its dimensions and the con- individuals manumitted their slaves. In duct of its inhabitants were determined the years following the close of the war by those living in a quite different world. most of the states of the East made pro- By the time that the colonists took up visions for the gradual emancipation of arms against their mother country in slaves. In the South, meanwhile, the order to secure their independence, the antislavery societies were unable to ef- world of Negro slavery had become deep- fect programs of state-wide emancipa- ly entrenched and the idea of Negro in- tion. When the Southerners came to feriority well established. But the dilem- the Constitutional Convention in 1787 mas inherent in such a situation were they succeeded in winning some repre- a source of constant embarrassment. sentation on the basis of slavery, in se- “It always appeared a most iniquitous curing federal support of the capture scheme to me,” Mrs. John Adams wrote and rendition of fugitive slaves, and her husband in 1774, “to ½ght ourselves in preventing the closing of the slave for what we are daily robbing and plun- trade before 1808. dering from those who have as good a Even where the sentiment favoring right to freedom as we have.” There were emancipation was pronounced, it was others who shared her views, but they seldom accompanied by a view that were unable to wield much influence. Negroes were the equals of whites and When the ½ghting began General George should become a part of one family of Washington issued an order to recruit- Americans. Jefferson, for example, was ing of½cers that they were not to enlist opposed to slavery; and if he could have “any deserter from the ministerial army, had his way, he would have condemned nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or it in the Declaration of Independence. person suspected of being an enemy to It did not follow, however, that he be- the liberty of America nor any under lieved Negroes to be the equals of whites. eighteen years of age.” In classifying He did not want to “degrade a whole Negroes with the dregs of society, trai- race of men from the work in the scale tors, and children, Washington made it of beings which their Creator may per- clear that Negroes, slave or free, were haps have given them. I advance it not to enjoy the high privilege of ½ght- therefore, as a suspicion only, that the ing for political independence. He would blacks, whether originally a distinct change that order later, but only after race, or made distinct by time and cir- it became clear that Negroes were en- cumstance, are inferior to the whites listing with the “ministerial army” in in the endowment both of body and droves in order to secure their own free- mind.” It is entirely possible that Jef- Dædalus Winter 2011 29 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two ferson’s later association with the ex- er institutions–schools, newspapers, Worlds of traordinarily able Negro astronomer benevolent societies–to serve those Race: A Historical and mathematician, Benjamin Bannek- who lived in a world apart. View er, resulted in some modi½cation of his Those Americans who conceded the views. After reading a copy of Bannek- importance of education for Negroes er’s almanac, Jefferson told him that it tended to favor some particular type of was “a document to which your whole education that would be in keeping with race had a right for its justi½cations their lowly station in life. In 1794, for against the doubts which have been example, the American Convention of entertained of them.”2 Abolition Societies recommended that In communities such as Philadelphia Negroes be instructed in “those mechan- and New York, where the climate was ic arts which will keep them most con- more favorably disposed to the idea of stantly employed and, of course, which Negro equality than in Jefferson’s Vir- will less subject them to idleness and ginia, few concessions were made, ex- debauchery, and thus prepare them for cept by a limited number of Quakers becoming good citizens of the United and their associates. Indeed, the white States.” When Anthony Benezet, a dedi- citizens in the City of Brotherly Love cated Pennsylvania abolitionist, died in contributed substantially to the perpet- 1784 his will provided that on the death uation of two distinct worlds of race. of his wife the proceeds of his estate In the 1780s, the white Methodists per- should be used to assist in the establish- mitted Negroes to worship with them, ment of a school for Negroes. In 1787 the provided the Negroes sat in a designat- school of which Benezet had dreamed ed place in the balcony. On one occa- was opened in Philadelphia, where the sion, when the Negro worshippers oc- pupils studied reading, writing, arith- cupied the front rows of the balcony, metic, plain accounts, and sewing. from which they had been excluded, Americans who were at all interested the of½cials pulled them from their in the education of Negroes regarded it knees during prayer and evicted them as both natural and normal that Negroes from the church. Thus, in the early days should receive their training in separate of the Republic and in the place where schools. As early as 1773 Newport, Rhode the Republic was founded, Negroes had Island, had a colored school, maintained a de½nite “place” in which they were ex- by a society of benevolent clergymen of pected at all times to remain. The white the Anglican Church. In 1798 a separate Methodists of New York had much the private school for Negro children was same attitude toward their Negro fel- established in Boston; and two decades lows. Soon, there were separate Negro later the city opened its ½rst public pri- churches in these and other communi- mary school for the education of Negro ties. Baptists were very much the same. children. Meanwhile, New York had es- In 1809 thirteen Negro members of a tablished separate schools, the ½rst one white Baptist church in Philadelphia opening its doors in 1790. By 1814 there were dismissed, and they formed a were several such institutions that were church of their own. Thus, the earliest generally designated as the New York Negro religious institutions emerged African Free Schools.3 as the result of the rejection by white Thus, in the most liberal section of communicants of their darker fellow the country, the general view was that worshippers.