On Borrowed Ground:Free African American-Life in Charleston, South Carolina

Free blacks and slaves organized in 1791.

The free mulatto elite had the most tools to court such an attitude from white aristocrats. The source of these tools lay in the development of Charleston's free African-American community. Free African Americans had grown mainly from selective manumissions, interracial sexual relations in which the mother was white, and immigration. Those slaves whom masters manumitted were typically past their usefulness or in special favor with the master. Masters commonly manumitted their mulatto children and mistresses in their last will and testament. Immigrants from Santo-Domingo in the 1790s were also a source of Charleston's free African-American population. In each case most African Americans who gained freedom were mulatto. Thus, while the slave population of Charleston's district was less than one-quarter mulatto, Charleston's free African-American community developed and maintained a mulatto majority (73% in 1860) and were even known in the city as free people of color.7 Lighter skin color served as a noticeable difference between most free African Americans and their slave counterparts, a difference white Charlestonians recognized and free mulattoes exploited. In addition, the mulattoes from Santo-Domingo and those who gained freedom because of blood or sexual relationship with an ex-master tended to be educated and have some skill with which to make a living. Many also inherited money or property from an ex-master. Thus, not only did free mulattoes have light skin color to differentiate themselves from Charleston slaves, they also had money and/or property.
Mulatto elites most clearly employed the symbols of freedom through establishment of exclusive societies. Free mulattoes established the Brown Fellowship Society, the first of its kind, in 1790. It later became the most exclusive of many mulatto benevolent societies in Charleston. It accepted only elite (wealthy and respected) mulattoes into its ranks, excluding blacks, slaves, and the poor. The society worked hard to Page 7improve the lives of its members. It operated as a credit union for its constituents, pooled money to buy expensive property in the city, and educated the society's children.8 The members of the society made a conscious effort to push themselves away from what they considered to he the lesser elements of Charleston's African- American community, and they did so to raise themselves up in their own eyes and in the eyes of white aristocrats -- for with white respect came privilege and safety. These mulatto elites took full advantage of their lighter skin color and affluence to gain this respect.
With the Brown Fellowship society free African Americans began to borrow the social ground which distinguished them from Charleston slaves. But these rich mulattoes did not create space for themselves alone. Other free African Americans and slaves who worked out, giving the appearance of freedom, gained space as well.
Free black elites followed the lead of free mulatto elites, establishing their own space on borrowed ground -- space which mulatto elites had made available. Free blacks reacted quickly to the formation of the Brown Fellowship Society, forming the Free Dark Men of Color in 1791.9 The society served a similar purpose for the free dark elite as the Brown Fellowship Society did for the mulatto elite. It gave free black men an organized social outlet, allowing them to embrace their darkness. It gave them an identity, just as the Brown society gave to mulattoes. These dark men were defining themselves as different from both slaves and free mulattoes. The dark elite lacked the numbers and thus the resources to form a status group comparable to that of the mulatto elite, but in the face of both white and mulatto discrimination, free black elites had little choice but to close ranks and defend their portion of borrowed ground.
Page 8Both the mulatto and black elite defined themselves in opposition to slaves, the single largest social group in Charleston. This slavery was much different from the slavery of cotton, rice and indigo plantations of rural South Carolina. Urban slavery provided much more mobility and many more work opportunities than rural slavery. Many slaves worked as skilled or semiskilled artisans, as did free African Americans. Often these artisans had as much independence and autonomy as their free African-American counterparts. A full 15 percent of the slave population lived away from their masters. These slaves hired themselves out in the city and only saw their masters once a week to collect their earnings. They had the opportunity to live away from the eye of whites and develop their own social groups with other slaves and free African Americans.1O Another group of slaves served free African-American family members and lived as de facto free. Thus, Charleston slaves were far from being a homogeneous social group. Both slaves who worked out and those owned by free African-American family members helped to blur the line between slave and free in Charleston. It was precisely this blurring that required free African-American elites to use class and color as well as status to create their social space.
Poor free African Americans and slaves had regular contact, further obscuring social distinctions between the two. These African Americans, slave and free, went to the same churches, which "served as educational forums, involved slaves [and free African Americans] in leadership roles and provided the basis for a modest organizational life."11 Slaves and free African Americans married amongst themselves and across the lines of social status, color and sometimes class. Slaves and free blacks also met at the race tracks, drank and gambled together.
In addition, slaves and free blacks faced similar discrimination form whites. Night patrols harassed both groups, and neither slaves nor free Page 9African Americans could stay at white hotels, go to white restaurants or to the theater.12 The push of white oppression economically and socially limited most free blacks and slaves who worked out. Thus, pieces of each African-American status group merged to create a new social group.
Ironically, the blurring of the lower levels of the free African-American community with privileged slaves gave free African-American elites the opportunity to establish a distinctive place in Charleston society. White aristocrats recognized and protected free African-American elite social space as a buffer between whites and slaves who passed for lower class free African Americans.