Free Blacks in the Slave South

1. Early History
   1. The Colonial South
      1. Seventeenth Century--A Sizeable Proportion of a Small Black Population
      2. The Eighteenth Century--Tiny Proportion of Both Slave, Free Populations
   2. The Revolutionary Era
      1. The First Phase--Mass Manumissions
         1. Motives
            1. Ideological--The Revolutionary Conscience
            2. Economic--Decline of Slavery in the Upper South
         2. Result--Expansion in Number, Proportion of Free Blacks
      2. The Second Phase
         1. Arousing White Fears
         2. Crackdown--Restricting Manumission
   3. "Outside" Sources of Free Black Population--Saint-Domingue and Louisiana
2. The Antebellum Free Black Population
   1. Composition
      1. Mass Manumissions
         1. Chiefly in Upper South
         2. Largely Black
         3. Heavily Rural, BUT
         4. Important in Cities
         5. Relatively Unskilled
      2. Individual Emancipations
         1. Scattered, but Proportionately Dominant in Lower South
         2. Heavily Mulatto
         3. Relatively Highly Skilled
         4. Predominately Urban
   2. Social Position and Structure
      1. The "Brown" Elite--Socially Tied to Slaveholders
      2. The "Black" Majority--Marginal and Restive
   3. Regulation
      1. The "Problem"
         1. Blurring the Color Line
         2. Harboring Rebellion
      2. The Solution
         1. The Upper South--The State as Surrogate Master
         2. The Lower South--The "Guardianship" System--Personal Surrogate Masters