There were Black slave owners during slavery in America.
THE BLACK SLAVE OWNERS
The majority of
Black slave owners were members of the mulatto class and, in some cases, were
the sons and daughters of white slave masters. Many of the mulatto slave owners
separated themselves from the masses of Black people and attempted to establish
a caste system based on colour, wealth, and free status.
According to Martin Delany, the colored community of Charleston City clung to the assumptions of the superiority of white blood and brown skin complexion.
These mulattoes of the old free Black elite did not attend church with the dark-skinned blacks of Charleston City. They not only formed congregations that excluded freedmen of dark complexion, but they also married among other mulattoes to "keep the color in the family."
Large numbers of
free Blacks owned black slaves in numbers disproportionate to their
representation in society. According to the federal census of 1830, free blacks
owned more than 10,000 slaves in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and
Virginia.
The majority of black slave-owners lived in Louisiana and planted sugar cane. Slaveholding among the mulatto class in South Carolina was widespread according to the first census of 1790, which revealed that 36 out of 102, or 35.2 percent of the free Blackheads of families held slaves in Charleston City.
By 1800, one out of
every three free black recorded owning slave property. Between 1820 and 1840, the percentage of slaveholding heads of family ranged from 72.1 to 77.7
percent; however, by 1850, the percentage fell to 42.3 percent. According to the
U.S. Census report in 1860, only a small minority of whites owned slaves.
Out of a population
of 27 million whites, only eight million lived in the South, and out of this
population, fewer than 385,000 owned slaves. In short, the total white
population owned about 1.4 million enslaved Africans, while the southern white population owned about 4.8 million enslaved Africans. On the other hand, the black population in 1860 was 4.5
million, with about 500,000 living in the South.
Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. In New Orleans, over 3,000 free blacks owned slaves, about 28 percent of the free Black population in the city.
Year Owners Slaves 1790 49 277 1800 36 315 1810 17 143 1820 206 1,030 1830 407 2,195 1840 402 2,001 1850 266 1,087 1860 137 544 The following chart shows the free Black slave owners and their slaves in Charleston, 1790-1860.
In 1860, there were at least six
African Americans in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves. The largest number,
152 slaves, were owned by the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who
owned a large sugar cane plantation.
Another Black slave magnate in Louisiana with over 100 slaves was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at $264 000. In North Carolina, 69 free Blacks were slave owners. The majority of urban black slave owners were women.
In 1820,
free black women represented 68 percent of heads of households in the North and
70 percent of slaveholding heads of colored households in the South.
The large percentage of black women, slave owners, is explained by manumission by their white fathers or inheritance from their white fathers or husbands.
Black women were the majority of slaves, emancipated by white slave-owning men with whom they had sexual relations. Thirty-three percent of all the recorded colonial manumissions were mulatto children, and 75 percent of all adult manumissions were of females.
THE FIRST BLACK SLAVE OWNER—AND THE ORIGINS OF SLAVERY
Euro-Americans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and the first large group of Africans arrived in 1619. However, the House of Burgesses records show that Africans were already in the colony before 1619. John Rolfe provides us with an eyewitness account of this first group.
African-Americans under bondage in America
"About the last of August [1619] came a Dutchman of war that sold us twenty negers." Among them was one called Antonio from Angola. Later, we find that Antonio becomes Anthony Johnson. Another listed was Angelo, a Negro woman, and John Pedro, a neger aged 30.
The census of
1624-25 showed that twenty-three Africans living in Jamestown,
Virginia, were listed as servants and not slaves. Africans coming to Jamestown between
1630 and 1640 could expect to be freed after serving their indentured period of
time, about seven to ten years for Africans and Indians.
At this time, there was no system of perpetual servitude or slavery for life, but the system was rapidly evolving. Between 1640 and 1660, slavery was becoming a customary reality. In 1640, three servants of Hugh Gwyn, "a Dutchman called Victor, a Scotchman named James Gregory, and John Punch, a negro," having run away from their master, were overtaken in Maryland and brought back to stand trial for their misbehavior.