Cleveland State Student Fall 2015

Dr. Conerly (section 2)

HIS 215: History of African-Americans to 1877
20 October 2015

The situation across America in the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s was
the same; Africans and African Americans were attempting to achieve their
freedom that should have been granted to them at the writing of the
governments Declaration of Independence in 1776. In this declaration, it
states that all men are created equal and that these men are endowed with
certain rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The writer
of this document, Thomas Jefferson, shows how hypocritical this line was due
to being a slave holder at the time of the documents writing. In states such
as Ohio, the extreme differences in treatment between free blacks and
caucasian men are a vivid example of the mistreatment of the black
community. Ohio, a border state between the North and South is an example
of southern influence compared to a state such as Massachusetts that is
deep in the North and far away from southern influence. The changing
regulations and views on slavery in Ohio are a good representation of the
legal and social situation of free Africans and African Americans in both the
North and South. Massachusetts and Ohio are both located in the North but
because Ohio is a border state it was directly influenced by southern views
which had an effect on Ohios legal and social role of slavery in the state that
developed through the 18th and 19th century.
The state of Ohio was split with the northern Ohioans siding with the
northern views of slavery and the treatment of African Americans and the
southern Ohioans siding with the southern views of pro-slavery. The southern
part of Ohio was directly connected to trade with the south and was also

populated with a population made up of southerners which had a direct

influence on their views. The city of Cincinnati plays a key role when one
researches the legal and social situation of free southern Ohio blacks.
Cincinnati was once a meeting point where African and African Americans
would converge from both the North and South but came mostly from
Virginia and Kentucky. An increasing percentage of Blacks living in boarding
houses of multiple adults during the early to mid 1800s put a large financial
strain on the Black population in Cincinnati but also caused the development
of free black communities. Having multiple generations living in the same
household lead to a instable dependence on one another to deal with the
increasing issues of poverty, illness, hardship, and white prejudice and this
allowed black institutions to be built. The institutions that developed from
this included black churches, black schools, and black political propaganda.
These institutions led to protests and petitioning to the local governments
against slavery. The common view of whites was that the only way for blacks
to be productive was through slavery and this view caused places like Ohio
and Massachusetts to issue government laws and regulations in an attempt
to rid the state of the blacks that would not be able to provide for
themselves. Massachusetts, similar to Ohio, created a set of legislature that
required the expulsion of all Blacks and Indians that were not citizens of the
state and if they did not leave, these people would be forced into hard
manual labor by the state. Ohio and a few other states issued large
monetary bonds in order to ensure good conduct from the blacks that

choose to migrate to the state. Due to fear of increasing amounts of free

slaves, white Ohioans began legislature in 1804 requiring all blacks to
register with the county clerk or would receive daily hefty fines for living
within the state.