Was the American Revolution Really a Revolution" essay

Summary, Ira Berlin, “The Revolution in Black Life.”

In this article historian Ira Berlin examines the question of whether the American Revolution led to radical change. He does so, however, through a focus on the impact of the Revolution on black life in the America. By applying this lens, Berlin concludes that the American Revolution radically altered black life in the new United States and, in a larger sense, revolutionized the issue of race in the nation.

The first, and foundational, impact of the Revolution on black life, according to Berlin, was its impact on the size of the free black population. To put it in the simplest terms, the Revolution led to the establishment of a sizeable free black population where one had, essentially, never existed before. This growth came about for a number of reasons: the chaos of war, British and American recruitment of black soldiers, the relatively immediate abolition of slavery in New England after the war, the gradual emancipatory laws passed in the Mid-Atlantic states, and large numbers of manumissions (freeing of slaves) in the Upper South. Regardless of the source of freedom, the growth of a sizeable free black community in the United States had profound impact on both African-Americans and the nation as a whole. It also allowed for continued growth in the number of free blacks, as slaves now had safe places to run away to, and those blacks who had attained their freedom also gained increased opportunity to purchase the freedom of family members.

The growth of the free African-American community had important effects on the emerging society and culture of the new nation. In the broader sense, a free black population fundamentally altered the racial attitudes of the white population of the Northern states, and to a lesser extent those of whites in the Upper South. Here, Berlin does not claim that the emergence of a free black community led to the eradication of racism. He does, however, argue that the presence of so many free blacks eliminated the immediate assumption of whites that black meant slave. By separating racial identity from slavery, whites in the North often found new ways to differentiate themselves from and oppress blacks. At the same time, the newfound reality also forces shifts in white attitudes that allowed for greater opportunities for free blacks.

Unsurprisingly, the growth of the free black community had even greater impact on the still forming African-American culture and society of the Unites States. Slavery did not deter the formation of an African-American culture, but it did place create certain limitations on slaves’ ability to create such forms and traditions independent of white influence. Free blacks, however, were, to a much greater degree, free of such cultural constraints. As a result, the enlarged free black community fueled the development of not only a truly African-American culture, but also a variety of regionally different ones. Increased social and cultural space, along with new economic opportunities, also allowed for the emergence of African-American social institutions and a black elite. These elites and institutions helped pave the way for greater social, cultural, and economic development, and played a crucial role in the emergence of a true abolitionist movement.

Taken together, the emergence of a large, free African-American community and the corresponding shifts in white attitudes about/views of race that it created, had a final radical impact on the new nation. While many whites in the North continued to dislike or even despise African-Americans, they slowly but surely came to see blackness in a manner separated from slavery. With the continuous prodding of the free black community, these shifts in white attitudes, Berlin implies, led to a fundamental divide in the United States: a North opposed to slavery, and a South increasingly dependent on and supportive of it.