[52] Session Laws, 1819, p. 354. R. S., 1833, p. 466.
[53] R. S., 1845, p. 154.
[54] Rev. St. of 1856, p. 780.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NORTHERN NEGROES.
Nominal Rights of Negroes in the Slave States.—Fugitive Slaves seek Refuge in Canada.—Negroes petition against Taxation without Representation.—A Law preventing Negroes from other States from settling in Massachusetts.—Notice to Blacks, Indians, and Mulattoes, warning them to leave the Commonwealth.—The Rights and Privileges of the Negro restricted.—Colored Men turn their Attention to the Education of their own Race.—John V. DeGrasse, the first Colored Man admitted to the Massachusetts Medical Society.—Prominent Colored Men of New York and Philadelphia.—The Organization of the African Methodist Episcopal and Colored Baptist Churches.—Colored Men distinguish themselves in the Pulpit.—Report to the Ohio Anti-slavery Society of Colored People in Cincinnati in 1835.—Many purchase their Freedom.—Henry Boyd, the Mechanic and Builder.—He becomes a Successful Manufacturer in Cincinnati.—Samuel T. Wilcox, the Grocer.—His Success in Business in Cincinnati.—Ball and Thomas, the Photographers.—Colored People of Cincinnati evince a Desire to take Care of themselves.—Lydia P. Mott establishes a Home for Colored Orphans.—The Organization effected in 1844.—Its Success.—Formation of a Colored Military Company called "The Attucks Guards."—Emigration of Negroes to Liberia.—The Colored People live down much Prejudice.
IN 1850 there were 238,187 free Negroes in the slave States. Their freedom was merely nominal. They were despised beneath the slaves, and were watched with suspicious eyes, and disliked by their brethren in bondage.
In 1850 there were 196,016 free Negroes in the Northern States. Their increase came from [chiefly] two sources, viz.: births and emancipated persons from the South. Fugitive slaves generally went to Canada, for in addition to being in danger of arrest under the fugitive-slave law, none of the State governments in the North sympathized with escaped Negroes. The Negroes in the free States were denied the rights of citizenship, and were left to the most destroying ignorance. In 1780, some free Negroes, of the town of Dartmouth, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for relief from taxation, because they were denied the privileges and duties of citizenship. The petition set forth the hardships free Negroes were obliged to endure, even in Massachusetts, and was in itself a proof of the fitness of the petitioners for the duties of citizenship.