Originally published on June 20, 2022 (Episode 269)
Introduction
By 1861, about 250,000 free people of color lived in the American South. They embodied contradiction: existing within, and often flourishing amidst, a society built on slavery and white supremacy. Laws curtailed nearly every right imaginable, from banning testimony against whites to denying the vote. Whites attempted to classify them with contradictory labels—“negroes,” “mulattoes,” “mustees,” “Indians,” “mixed-bloods”—but the one term they embraced was the simplest: “free people of color.”
Despite systemic efforts to strip them of power and personhood, these men and women built families, established businesses, founded churches, and created communities. Some rose to economic prominence, even earning the respect of white neighbors. As Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr., demonstrates, the story of free people of color is one of both constraint and resilience. His research spans from county-level studies to the entire South, culminating in a body of work that is as comprehensive as it is personal.
About the Guest
Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr. is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of Hertford County, North Carolina’s Free People of Color (History Press, 2010), North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715–1885 (LSU Press, 2020), and Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021).
For Further Investigation
Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr., Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021)
Melvin Patrick Ely, Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004)
Jack D. Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (University of Illinois Press, 1993)
Luther P. Jackson, Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860 (D. Appleton-Century, 1942)
Patricia Phillips Marshall and Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll, Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color (UNC Press, 2010)
A. B. Wilkinson, Blurring the Lines of Race and Freedom: Mulattoes and Mixed Bloods in English Colonial America (UNC Press, 2020)
Suggested Links to Related Episodes
💬 Listen & Discuss
How should we understand the lives of free people of color within a society that sought to erase their existence? Share your reflections in the comments — and pass this episode along to someone who thinks deeply about freedom, race, and resilience.
