The American Revolution and Black Rebellions
During the 18th century, black rebelliousness received a new stimulus from the growing popularity among whites of democratic and egalitarian ideas. Slaves exploited the divisions in white society during the American Revolution. Thousands responded to a royal offer of freedom for those who fought with the British, and after the war several thousand black Loyalists went to Canada, most of them settling in Nova Scotia.

About 5000 blacks served in the Continental Army. After the war, revolutionary ideology and Quaker pietism inspired new antislavery activities by both blacks and whites. Blacks petitioned state legislatures for freedom, better treatment, or repatriation to Africa. The self-trained black scientist Benjamin Banneker argued against black inferiority in a famous correspondence with U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.

The liberalization of white attitudes was reversed in the South as a result of the profits made possible by the invention of the cotton gin. During the 18th century, the spread of cotton cultivation to the Deep South and southwestern states fostered the rise of an archconservative southern political order based on the use of slave labor. Despite this retreat, however, ideas drawn from the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, as well as from Christian idealism and African folk beliefs, remained evident in 19th-century slave resistance, especially the major conspiracies led by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia (1800) and Denmark Vesey in South Carolina (1822). The bloody Nat Turner Rebellion (1831) prompted increased repression of slave activities, although small-scale resistance—running away, tool breaking, sporadic violence—continued to interfere with plantation operations.

Semifree Blacks
Although more than 90 percent of the black population in the U.S. was enslaved at the time of the 1790 census, the small population of freed blacks had already established its own social institutions and had begun efforts to improve the conditions of the race. Most of these efforts were centered in cities, which offered more liberty to black residents than did rural areas. Even black slaves had some freedom of movement in the cities, and they generally possessed greater skills and had better access to information than was common on plantations. By the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia blacks under the leadership of Richard Allen had founded what became (1816) the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and blacks in New York City had formed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. By that time black Baptist churches had also been established in various other communities, mostly in the South. In Boston, Philadelphia, and Providence, R.I., black Masonic lodges had been organized under the leadership of Prince Hall (1748–97).

By the time of the Turner Rebellion, black urban communities sustained a variety of churches, fraternal orders, schools, self-help groups, and political organizations. Although literacy was still uncommon, these institutions fostered self-confidence among black leaders and encouraged them to express their concerns to the general population. The determination of blacks to decide their own destiny was revealed in their newspapers, such as Freedom’s Journal, founded in 1827, and in militant pamphlets, including Appeal (1829) by David Walker (1785–1830). During the 1830s black leaders gathered annually in national conventions to discuss strategies for racial advancement.

Efforts by blacks to improve their conditions ranged from the adoption of prevailing white values to attempts to reform or escape American society. The black shipowner Paul Cuffee (1759–1817), for example, favored a return to Africa and in 1815 succeeded in transporting a small group of free blacks to Sierra Leone. In 1817, however, when whites in the newly formed American Colonization Society (ACS) announced their desire to return free blacks to Africa, black representatives assembled by Richard Allen firmly rejected the idea, arguing that they should not abandon their enslaved fellow blacks. In subsequent years, blacks continued to discuss the option of immigrating to Canada, Latin America, or Africa. Although the ACS established a colony in Liberia in 1822, foreign colonization ventures received little support until the 1850s.

Discrimination against manumitted slaves was intense throughout the U.S. Although blacks could vote in some northern states in the years after the Revolution, the extension of voting rights to propertyless men was accompanied by new restrictions on black political participation, landownership, and social contact with whites. By the 1830s, most southern and some northern states restricted or prohibited the entry of free blacks; Ohio law required entering blacks to post $500 bonds. An attack on the Cincinnati black community by a white mob in 1829 was followed in the next few years by similar riots in other northern cities, where white workers resented competition from blacks for jobs. Although southern free blacks lived in societies that feared and often restricted their presence, they had greater opportunities than northern blacks to work as artisans and even to acquire property. In New Orleans, La., for example, 753 blacks owned slaves, according to the 1830 census. Most urban blacks lived on the margins of society, however, barred from public educational facilities, good housing, and legal protection. For thousands of antebellum blacks, Canada (where slavery was outlawed in 1833) and, to a lesser degree, Mexico became places of refuge.

Abolitionist Movement
Increased discrimination, combined with the growth of black literacy, institutional strength, and economic resources, encouraged a trend toward greater militancy after 1830. Impatience with gradualist plans to end slavery prompted the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to advocate immediate abolition and, with black help, to found the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Many black activists later became disenchanted with Garrison’s notion that slavery could be ended by moralistic arguments; instead they stressed the need for political action and, ultimately, violent resistance. The growing militancy was displayed in 1839, when black communities raised funds to defend Africans in the Amistad Case. Some blacks broke with Garrison to join the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, while others worked within all-black self-help societies and local groups established to help runaway slaves.