Treatment of Blacks in America

--sterling economic success based in part on slavery and the exploitation and mistreatment of blacks--the state of Virginia serves as a microcosm of the nation in its early years. This study will consider the roles of the three levels of government (local, state, federal) in developing a policy which exploited and brutalized blacks in the past, and ways in which government altered its position on blacks in more recent times. Certainly the treatment of blacks by Virginia has improved in the twentieth century, although the state still has room for betterment in the application of civil rights to all.

Virginia, writes Higginbotham, as a leading force politically and fiscally in the early years of the history of the nation,

was a model of agricultural and economic success as one of the first colonies. It played a major role in precipitating the American Revolution. . . . Yet, tragically, Virginia was also a leader in the gradual debasement of blacks through its ultimate institutionalization of slavery. It pioneered a legal process that assured blacks a uniquely degraded status--one in which the cruelties of s

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slave owner . . . that granted a particular slave freedom. Inspired by ideas of liberty from both the American Revolution and the spread of evangelical Christianity, the Virginia state legislature passed a law in 1782 that made it easier for owners to manumit slaves. Even though the legislature overturned this law in 1806, a great many African Americans had gained their freedom by then. In 1830, just four years after Jefferson's death, more than one out of eleven of Virginia's African Americans, or 47,348 people, were free (Footsteps, 1999, p. 13). In the late seventeenth century, however, manumission was legally eliminated as an option for slaveholders, thereby removing the hope of most slaves for ever achieving freedom, even from a relatively kind slaveholder (Higginbotham, 1978, p. 47). In the 18th century, however, manumission became, at least for a time, such an option: The number of free blacks in Virginia rose dramatically during Jefferson's lifetime, especially after the Revolutionary War. Some slaves won their freedom by fighting against the British in the Continental Army. Others . . . earned money by doing extra work and purchased themselves out of slavery. . . . Unfortunately, there were still many laws that
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Approximate Word count = 2338
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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