Themes in American History

A free black community of institutional complexity was a particularly new feature of urban life. As free African Americans moved to cities to look for employment opportunity, they also made the society more complexity and influence the urban economy system. New York and Philadelphia are both the city that attracted the free African American came to look for their new lives. Especially in New York City, the free African American population was more than 8 percent of the city’s total. Although the society of the cities were dominated by the white men, there still a group of African Americans fought for their rights and created their own community. In Philadelphia, the Angola Beneficial Society was established in 1808, the African Insurance Company in 1809, the Sons of Africa in 1810, and the African Female and Male Benevolent Societies in the following years. By the 1820s in Philadelphia, African Americans had created an institutional life that was richer and more stable than that of the lower-income whites with whom they shared neighborhoods. As well as in a mixed uptown area in New York City, where small craft shops bordered on larger factories, a group free blacks who were able to purchase cheap house supported two black Methodist churches and a racially mixed Episcopal church, and the “Colored Scholl,” (Chudacoff, P69) These indicated that the social lives of Africa Americans had something changed due to the society and the economy development.

Even both New York City and Philadelphia demanded the labor of free African Americans. But the requirements for the labors were different. In most northern seaports, most free African –American men worked as laborers or mariners, but a few worked as artisans, servile or dirty labor like barbering and butchering. In New York City, free slaves were more than twice as likely to posses a skill than in Philadelphia. (Chudacoff,p68). Because New York City had diversity commerce like manufactory and small business, it needed different kinds of labors. Such as the White New York artisans relied heavily on the skilled labors.

No matter how difference roles the Africa Americans played in the different cities during, they were the import part of the American history and they contribute to the American economy.

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