Race and Revolution: By Gary B. Nash

All the people from the earth are same and human beings are the creation of God then why is it that some of them have been discriminated by the human society on the basis of just complexion. Why the fistful white skinned people take dominance on these people and compel them to be the slave of them? This is really shameful. But this shameful thing was practiced in America before and after the revolutionary period. Slavery is the blatant to every society and during the American Revolution the slavery was practiced in every colony in 1775. Almost all the colonies at that time were involved in slavery either as slave owners or as slave holders.

The consequences of the American Revolution was that the number of slaves were manumitted, thousands of them ran away to get the freedom. The American Revolution was not only the fight between the colonies for getting independence but it was also the fight of African Americans to be free. It was an anti slavery revolt. African Americans were the black people who actually were the citizens of America but their roots were in Africa. The black people’s history started when the first generation of Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. The revolution had a contradictory impact for slavery.

African Americans, born in the colonies were greatly affected by the American Revolution. Here we are going to analysis the book which has put forward the same issue of slavery in America at the time of Revolution. The book is “Race and Revolution,” written by Gary Nash. Gary Nash is a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has been the director of the National Centre for history in the schools since1994.

“Race and Revolution” written by Gary Nash is a thought provoking book which throws light on the collapse of devotion for liberty in America in the early wake of the American Revolution.Gary Nash in this book illuminates on the truth of slavery and the most neglected topic of slavery during American Revolution. He in this book has presented three different chapters. First is “Revolutionary Generation Embraces Abolitionism," second topic is “Failure of Abolitionism,” and third topic is “Black Americans in White Republic.

” In the first essay Gary Nash examines the revolutionary enthusiasm for freedom and the situation which was created for the emancipation of the slaves. The second essay deals with the failure of Americans to offer freedom to thousands of African Americans.While the third essay focuses on the response given by the black community to their retrenched role in the new republic and how they confronted with the hostile of the white community and adjusted themselves and tried to preserve their existence. It was the major contradiction during the revolution that the white people from America wanted the freedom from the British people but at the same time they were involved in enslaving the black people. They could not realize that if they wanted the freedom the black people also deserve freedom from the point of view of humanity.For the White American people the meaning of independence from the British Empire was just the economic and political liberty but they were less cared about the bondage of the black people.

But the black people started getting aware of their freedom and the American Revolution was a great opportunity for them to be free. Early in the revolution the black people fight for the British people. The cunning British people offered the black people the freedom and in return of that they demanded assistance of black people in the war.The black people were very much interested in their freedom rather than helping the British.

This was the reason why they fought for the British. Same policy was then adopted by the American people. They also wooed the black people by promising the black African Americans for giving freedom and demanded their aid in freedom struggle. Thus the black people fought from both sides but at the same time they were indicating that they were neither fighting for British nor for American but they were fighting for their freedom.Unfortunately very few white people came to know the contradiction of American society in behaving with the black people. But these people were very few in numbers and most of the American white people were not aware about the inconsistencies in American ideologies and slavery.

And these white people who were against in offering the freedom to the slaves gave the justification that black people were not the part of socio-political community and hence their privilege of living a free life was denied. American Revolution had many agendas and among them one was the racial discrimination which was a dilemma.Thus this book focuses on the matters dealing with the neglected topic of slavery during the American Revolution. Gary Nash tries to convince by a strong argument that the revolutionary leaders understood the absurdity of slavery with their equalitarian ideology. “Race and Revolution” describes the response of free black community to the failure of the promise given by the revolution, its vigorous and articulate entreaties for justice as well as the achievement of the black community to build its own African American institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenth century America.Gary Nash blamed to the contemporary historians for ignoring the anti-slavery whims.

Here Gary Nash claims that the American Revolution is the representation of the largest slave uprising in the history of America. While mentioning about the study done by various historians Gary Nash debates that even though many historians studied on the topic, antebellum abolitionism, and their assessment of anti slavery did not support the new thought of the revolutionary’s encounter with slavery.The founding fathers knew the problem of slavery and they could have definitely done anything. They knew that it is contradictory to the ideology of the revolutionary cause. Here Nash specifically focuses on the role of the Northern states for their failure to abolish slavery. These states were not willing to from the biracial America.

“It was a willingness that had its source, as we will see, in Northern unwillingness to participate in solving the problem of slavery. ” (Page 29) The process of antislavery movement was going in America but it was very slow and intermittent.Religion was the most influential weapon to awaken the people and to make them realized about the evil deeds which were practiced in those days and accordingly the American people were taught against slavery by taking support of the religion. Particularly in New England the Calvinist clergy argued before the mass that it is wrong to hold slavery. He also tried to teach the mass that if America is striving for liberty then it is not appropriate to reject freedom of the slaves.

Because democracy equality and freedom was the impulse of America and if the few black people were keeping far away from freedom then the purpose of free nation could never been solved. Thus in the second half of eighteen century, the anti slavery sentiments were growing rapidly especially among the middle colonies as well as in Pennsylvania. Slavery was supposed to be the great sin. In 1776 the bill was passed by Pennsylvania constitution in which they particularly highlighted “that all men are born equally free and independent, and that they have certain natural, inherited, and inalienable rights. (Page 13) The newly American generation was totally opposite of slavery and they were thinking slavery as a “grave national problem. ” (page17) Thus the numbers of manumitters increased remarkably in the upper south According to the author if slavery were to eradicate the efforts basically should have been taken in Virginia and Maryland because these were the regions where almost half of the black people from United States would live in 1776.

Hence it was expected that these regions were expected to take the initiatives to eradicate the slavery.In 1755 Maryland’s free black population was 1817. It reached to 8000 in 1790. and in the beginning of 19th century it reached to nearly 20,000. In Virginia in 1782 the number of the free black slaves was 1800.

This number rapidly increased and became 13,000 in 1800. By 1810 the number became approximately 20,000. In post revolutionary era the African American group emerged and started taking efforts for creating the free institutions for free black people in the North and Upper South and fighting against the slavery and racism.After the revolution thousands of slaves was freed In Philadelphia Richard Allen and Absalom Jones launched the free African Society of Philadelphia. The black people from Philadelphia wanted to be independent in every affair.

So the churches for free black people were taken form Thus Allen became the representative of free African American community whose generations were living a life of slaves. Thus the autonomous churches were established by 1816. The black churches were very important for the black community to preserve their existence.It was the symbol of the freedom of slavery from America. “The desire “to worship God under our own vine and fig tree” was in essence a desire to stand apart from white society, avoiding both the paternalistic benevolence of its racially liberal members and the animosity of its racially intolerant members.

”(Pg 68) The sermons against slavery was preached, schools for black people’s children were formed. It was very necessary for the black people to form their community for cherishing their identity against the white dominating society as the white people also were making their community strong.Some of the black people adopted the cultural norms and the social institutions of the dominant white society in the last two decades of 18th century. Like Allen Olaudah Equiano, Crispus Attucks, Peter Spencer in Wilmington, Delaware; and Peter Williams in New York City were the dominant personalities who had a lion’s share in fighting against the slavery and torture of black community. These became not only apostles to their flocks but political spokespersons, entrepreneurs, and teachers. Gary Nash here refers the town called Newport of Rhode Island which was the center of the slave trade.

Samuel Hopkins, an evangelical Congregationalist who was convinced slavery as a stigma to humanity and society tried to persuade the people from slavery. While informing the readers about the abolition of the slavery Nash has pointed out that Pennsylvania was the first political entity in the Western world to legislate the gradual abolition of slavery. Gary Nash also attacks the hypocrisy of the contemporary white people in treating the black people that in public they would agree that the slavery should be eliminated but in their personal life they were not implementing this principle.He has given the example of Reverend Francis Allison who was the minister of the first Presbyterian Church and a leader in mid Atlantic colonies strongly opposed the slavery and wrote against the slavery but at the same time he owned four slaves and till his death he manumitted none of them. One more example of the hypocrisy in the contemporary American society is given by the author here and that is of Benjamin Rush who was by profession a doctor and he strongly attacked on slavery by stating “National Crimes requires National Punishment,” Indicating that slavery is the national crime which must be punished.The same person after some years purchased the slave called William Grubber.

This type of hypocrisy was prevalent in contemporary American Society. Gary Nash here points out that though many historians have studied the history of revolution very few of them have studied the history of African Americans. These people had been treated as the slaves. It was in 1786 when Philadelphia’s first black organization was formed. A few years later the free people of Philadelphia planned the first independent church.It was the attitude of some of the black people that black American could not have gained the freedom, dignity, and equality in American society unless they cope with the hostile white people of America.

Even though the slavery was abolished by judicial decree, the white dominated society was not ready to accept the black people’s freedom. There was a prejudice against these people. After getting freedom from the slavery the black people were trying to get different opportunities for them. But they were still living in a very disagreeable and disadvantageous situation.

Prince Hall on behalf of African American community declared that they would rather prefer to return back to the native place i. e. Africa where they would be able to live their life in freedom and equality which is not possible for them to live in America. The American Revolution thus gave the Black people an opportunity to gain freedom. The revolution in reality did not give them the freedom but it gave them the strength and awareness and united them with the belief of freedom.

It was definitely the American Revolution which gave them the platform to fight for the abolition of the slavery and to live the life of free citizens of America.