In fact, free blacks in urban situations were quite well off before
the Civil War. After emancipation, urban black populations suffered a
terrible decline in wealth and status. The reasons for this decline
are complex, but they include an influx of unskilled rural ex-slaves,
a glutted labor market, and a dilution of black status.

This last phenomenon is quite interesting, because the ante-bellum
black artisans in the cities were approaching stable middle class
status. I am familiar with one study that clearly shows a change in
white attitudes toward blacks as a class that came with emancipation.

In Delaware, the Quaker element in the population was quite strong,
and some major abolitionists were based here. Yet we were a slave
state. Gradual emancipation was built into our laws, and owners were
forbidden to manumit slaves who were no longer productive. Of course
there were ways around the laws, but generally sudden emancipation
was seen as a bad thing, even among some of the less radical Quaker
abolitionists.

Anyone who manumitted elderly or infirm slaves was obliged in
Delaware to provide for them, sometimes by giving a bond.
Manumission was not a simple matter, and any attempt to characterize
it in entirely moral terms is futile.

Manumission, or emancipation, was primarily an economic issue, at
least to the slave owning element of the population. The slaves may
not have considered it an economic issue, but they certainly suffered
economically if manumission was not managed properly. I suspect the
harsh economic effects suffered by antebellum ex-slaves could have
been avoided if more states had adopted manumission systems like
Delaware's that provided for the interests of both owner and slave.

But to characterize emancipation as a universally good thing is
oversimplification I cannot accept.  The evidence certainly does not
support such a sweeping generalization, however politically correct
it may be.

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html