Finding Charity's Folk by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Discrimination & Race Relations, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century
ISBN: 9780820348797
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2015-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

Property, Economic Mobility, and Class Development

African American women also had a multiplicity of experiences in the free labor market. For the most part, manumitted women and the members of their households worked hard to survive. Some manumitted women received small allowances from their former owners, providing a bit of a cushion against financial hardship. In his will, John Ridout directed his heirs to care for Charity Folks and to pay her twelve Spanish silver dollars and other “aspects of his estate.”53 Ridout drafted a separate legal document binding his sons, Horatio and Samuel, to comply with the terms of his will and its codicils.54 Ridout also asked his wife to honor his wishes: Mary Ridout wrote to her mother that “he said Ruth and Charity had been two such faithful servants that he desired more might be done for them than the rest. That if I survived him he requested me if they were living to leave them a small annuity to maintain them comfortably.”55 In 1808, when Mary Ridout died, she bequeathed to Folks her “wearing apparel and feather bed” as well as one hundred dollars.56

Manumitted women entered a society that was quickly developing a class divide. Free women who lacked pensions or other beneficial relationships with patrons supported themselves in a variety of ways, including renting out rooms to boarders, taking in laundry, and selling goods. Despite the fact that she owned property, Charity Folks continued to work for the Ridout family. Both Charity Bishop and her niece, Elizabeth Folks, earned wages by working as domestics or doing piecework.57 According to Rockman, a small minority of free black women also worked as prostitutes, thereby continuing their sexual exploitation to survive.58

Manumitted blacks encountered economic barriers and white racism that limited wealth to just a few dozen families.59 Free blacks frequently pursued the same occupations they had performed in slavery, but working for wages meant competing with whites for employment. Free blacks often encountered aggression from whites who objected to black competitors or who found them too “uppity.”60 Many manumitted slaves, like Charity Folks, returned to their former owners as wage laborers. After Hercules Brice was freed, he continued to work at Hampton Plantation, cradling grain and doing other related jobs.61

During the early nineteenth century, African Americans were denied the right to put their savings in homesteads and building associations.62 According to Jeffrey Brackett, lawmakers in Maryland attempted to pass legislation denying slaves emancipated after 1831 the right to purchase real estate.63 As Dorsey points out, the Maryland government legislated dependency by denying African Americans the means to pursue economic self-sufficiency.64

Black men achieved the most prosperity in occupations that required specialized training, such as blacksmith, bricklayer, or builder.65 Other free blacks did well by opening shops and offering their services as shoemakers, barbers, or bakers.66 Others built their fortune in service professions. William Bishop, for example, inherited a carting business from his father and built it into a well-respected establishment.67 Dr. John Ridout, the grandson of John Ridout, hired Bishop to carry goods from his home and office.

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