Name several of the soical and economic problems faced by free blacks before the Civil War...?

Question

All answers appreciated! Thank you.

Answer 1

Hmmm, besides slavery (or, more accurately, as a result of slavery)....

1) Not counted as a whole person and considered to be a lesser being
2) Considered as property
3) No personal or civil liberties
4) No representation
5) Limited opportunities
6) Poverty and substandard living
7) Break-up of family units

Answer 2

Free blacks in NY were subject to being kidnapped and "sold South" into slavery.

Answer 3

Perhaps, one could speak of a white working class of the North in the pre-Civil War period of American history and by this mean the formation of the industrial working class of the North on the basis of successive waves of European immigration, although the free black population of the North was roughly 250,000 in 1850 and concentrated in the cities. These blacks were not rural by any stretch or in the sense of Southern agriculture in the 1850s or the post WW I period for that matter.

The European immigrant workers of the industrial North, along with the 250,000 free blacks of the North, would together evolved as part and parcel of the evolving nation of the North, which would later emerge within the multinational state system of America as the oppressing nation.

This point is mentioned because within the industrial North in the pre-Civil War era, the form of the social struggle - against the slave system and Slave Power, was evolving and had birthed roughly 1,350 local chapters or groups of the American Antislavery society by 1838. Northern African Americans were proud and insecure of their freedom, which they understood clearly hinged on the fate of the system of slavery. Many of these blacks - living under Jim Crow conditions worse than that of slaves, supported the Antislavery Society but faced another complex of social problems demanding their own form of organization in seeking redress of their grievances. From day one the working class and indeed all the facets of the laboring classes in American society - North and South, were split on the basis of slavery and the slave population.

This split within the working class on the question of slavery corresponded with the rupture within the bourgeoisie as a class between pro-slavery and antislavery. Why the working class in our country has never been able to exert itself independent of the bourgeoisie as a class is a serious question that merits the closet examination.

The Struggle for Equality by Connecticut Blacks in the 18th and 19th Centuries
1. Slavery existed in Connecticut from the 1640s to 1848.
2. In the beginning blacks enjoyed very few of the social, economic, and political rights of whites.
3. In the early 18th century laws were passed which restricted the activities of slaves and free blacks.
4. Children born of slave mothers after March 1, 1784 could not be held in slavery beyond the age of 25. This age was reduced in 1797 to twenty-one.
5. In 1848 slavery became illegal in Connecticut.
6. As blacks gained freedom, they rarely, if ever, obtained social, economic, or political status equal to that of whites.
7. The desire of blacks to achieve equal rights and status was enthusiastically supported by only a small group of whites. While many of Connecticut’s residents were sympathetic to the idea of ending slavery, there was not a correspondingly strong desire to grant blacks equal rights and status after slavery.
8. The majority of whites were indifferent, intolerant, or vehemently opposed to policies that would improve the position of blacks.

The stories in Escape from Slavery are set in the early to mid 1800s, a period in the American South when slavery had become an institution that white landowners were determined to protect. Enslaved people were forced to work as miners, carpenters, factory workers, and house servants. Many others worked in the fields on large plantations helping to raise and harvest cash crops, including cotton, one of the most lucrative crops for plantation owners. In 1800 there were almost 900,000 slaves in the United States; by 1860 there were 4 million. Many slaves risked their lives to escape from slavery to freedom. The Underground Railroad was the figurative term used to describe the organized system of escape routes and network of people who helped lead slaves to free land. Most routes led from the South to the Northern states and eventually to Canada. The fugitive slave was considered "freight," and the "conductors" were people, white and black, who guided runaway slaves from one hiding place to the next. The "stations" along the way were the places in which slaves hid: barns, attics, storerooms‹any safe spot that would conceal an escaped slave from bounty hunters and law officers. In this pre-Civil War era the nation was fiercely divided on whether to outlaw slavery. Many of the members of the Underground Railroad were abolitionists -- antislavery activists -- who fought and risked imprisonment to end slavery