Although the vast majority of African Americans were slaves until 1865, the relatively small free black community that began to form during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries played a very important role in African American history. The free black community established institutions such as independent black churches, schools, fraternal organizations, and mutual aid societies. Free blacks were also extremely important in the abolitionist movement. African Americans' post-emancipation hopes for full and equal citizenship were ultimately dashed; nonetheless, the freed people developed their own distinct culture and institutions that would shape black American life in the decades that followed.

Background: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The first African Americans were transported to the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland in the early 1600s in order to work as indentured servants on tobacco farms, similar to many European emigrants. However, throughout the 1600s, the...