- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, we revisit the colonial era to examine race, power, and survival at America's founding.

We explore how enslaved and free black people navigated the revolutionary era while exploring how race and freedom were constructed and how the past continues to shape the present.

Coming up next, stay with us.

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(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

As PBS North Carolina joins the national recognition of America's 250th anniversary with Ken Burns' American Revolution, we wanted to take a look at the founding of this nation through the lens of the black experience.

We talk about colonial America.

We often hear about freedom.

We hear about independence and the birthright of democracy.

But for African Americans, many of them enslaved at the time, those ideals existed alongside bondage and oppression.

Joining me is assistant professor of history at UNC Chapel Hill and author, Dr.

Antwain Hunter.

He's here to help explore how we see America 250 today.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- This is going to be a great conversation because I think we sometimes kind of maybe overlook, you know, the black experience during that time.

And there, I think, maybe some confusion.

So we're hopefully here to clear some of that up.

When we think about 250 years since the founding of this country, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there were African Americans living here, colonial North Carolina.

But some of those ideals didn't look like what we may know as far as history books have shown us.

What did it actually look like for African Americans?

- Yeah.

So in the colonial era, sort of heading into this revolutionary era, things are complicated for black North Carolinians and black folks throughout the colonies and soon to be young country.

And so thinking about the way that people are able to embrace and enjoy freedom and independence is complicated.

And it varies a great deal on a couple of factors.

And so one of the chief pieces of that is their condition of servitude, right?

And so we're thinking about free black folks in the colonial era.

There actually are a lot of things they're able to do that people might not automatically assume, right?

So they are free people, right?

And that comes with certain rights, being able to own property, for instance, being able to head a household, right?

Being able to, in some instances, serve in the militia or to vote even in some places, right?

Including North Carolina for a period in the colonial era, it's cut off.

And then they will again, in the revolutionary era, it'll again be cut off in the 19th century.

But it's possible, right?

- Okay.

Was that a small percent?

Was that a large?

- It's a small percentage, right?

Like a small percentage, like?

I couldn't tell you the numbers off the top of my head, but it's an important percentage, right?

And it's an important right for those people.

This is true also in the early 19th century.

It's cut off with a constitutional revision in the 1830s.

But for people who were able to influence politics, who were able to voice their opinions, who were able to get folks in office who support their interests, right?

And have political parties who rely on their vote, particularly in some places like in the eastern part of the state, in Craven County, there's a sizable free black population.

But for enslaved folks, it's a very different dynamic, of course, right?

And I would add too, with free people of color, we'll see this throughout the colonial era and into the early republic and sort of in the young nation.

There are rights that people have or have access to, but we might think about them in terms of sort of privileges, because the state at various points will cut them off or change legislation or the communities in which they're in may create barriers to exercising those rights.

- You say free people of color, I had read, we'll get to your book soon, but there are a couple parts of your book that reference that.

That could also lump in Native Americans, that that wasn't just black people, correct?

- Yes, and so thinking about free people of color and African descended peoples or black people, there's some overlap between the two groups, but there also are people who are in one, but all black folks are people of color, but not all people of color are black.

And so there are a host of reasons for this.

Some of them are people who are mixed race, they may be of African descent and also European or indigenous, or they might be indigenous or they might be indigenous and European or of African descent.

And so it can be complicated sort of looking back on the past, especially as a historian or someone doing research or even someone doing family history, because you might find the same person who's identified in multiple ways in the same document.

People's identity is also something that the state may project onto them or their neighbors may project onto them, but not be how they understand themselves or their family.

Lineages are contested.

And even in court records, I've seen things where someone might be listed as a mixed race person on one document and then just black on another document.

And so you kind of have to try and piece together the best image that you can, but it can be a little bit tricky.

- A little tricky.

Now you've written a book, A Precarious Balance, which kind of documents some of the tension that was happening during that time.

Tell us about your title choice.

Why did you choose that?

- So the book is really centered on race and firearm use in North Carolina.

And so I'm really interested in how black people, both freed and slave, were able to access firearms and use firearms within this slave society.

It's a phenomenon that's happening more often than people would think, but it's something that we are still doing more research on.

And there's been some great historians who are also doing similar work.

But it's one of those things that we really, really weren't giving this full justice.

And so the title, A Precarious Balance, sort of plays with this idea that when we think about armed black folks in a slave society, many folks would say that seems like a wild idea, right?

This could be dangerous.

And there is an element of that, but it's kind of twofold.

So on the one hand, there is this real threat that enslaved people who have firearms are able to kind of track their own course a little bit more than they are without it.

They're able to resist in ways they couldn't otherwise, right?

If they are maroons, people who have fled and are living in North Carolina's swamps or in the forest areas, if they're armed, they're harder to get out, right?

And so it gives them a measure of autonomy, right?

And of course, the state is trying to check them.

So there is a tension there.

But the other piece of it is that some of this threat or perceived threat is imaginary, right?

That the state of North Carolina and white North Carolinians are just nervous about armed black folks in this regard.

And so that's what we have on the one hand.

But on the other hand, like the balance part of it is that it's also incredibly, one of the central arguments I make in the book is that thinking about firearm uses as labor, right?

It's also incredibly useful for black folks to have firearms where they can do farm work, they can hunt to feed themselves and their family, they can guard things.

They're able to do, perform labor with their firearms.

And also, enslavers in the state of North Carolina as well are able to harness that labor or to try and exploit black people's labor through their firearm use.

And so you have this balance where on the one hand, the state is, and white folks are nervous about black, armed black folks.

But on the other hand, there's a utility in sort of like black people's gun use.

Yeah.

And that's the tension that's there.

- Wow.

So when we look at the documents that were being created at that time, right?

Verbiage that was used, you know, all men, what is it?

All men are created equal, no taxation without representation.

Were black people being considered in that verbiage during that time?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

And it's one of those, you know, there are so many questions that come out of the revolutionary era that are worth continuing to talk about and for us to continue to grapple with.

It's one of the reasons I love, you know, teaching this period and also reading about this period, doing a little bit of writing about this period.

And so to what extent are black folks included in sort of the, we, the people or the all men are created equal, right?

These, these sort of foundational American texts, right?

And I think that the answer is complicated, right?

But I'm going to give you, I'm going to get there.

But I think that there's a, you know, you can, you can pull 50 people, right?

And you're going to get a host of different answers.

Yes, they're included.

No, they're absolutely not included.

Well, of course they're included.

Let me throw out a couple of things here.

So one, one of the, one of the folks who believes that they are in fact included, ironically enough is Alexander Stevens, who was the vice president of the Confederacy.

He's a politician from Georgia, he becomes vice president of the Confederacy.

And he gives this speech in 1861, it's called, we refer to it as the Cornerstone speech.

And in it, he basically says that, I mean, not basically, he says that slavery is the cornerstone of the, of the Confederacy, right?

The nation is built, the Confederate nation is built upon that, that, that truth as he calls it, right?

And so one of the other things that he says in there is that the, the, the leaders in that revolutionary generation, they got it wrong.

It's like, what do you mean they got it wrong?

He thinks that they thought that in fact, all men are created equal.

And he's, he's saying that they were wrong there.

They're not.

And I think it's interesting that he sort of sets up Jefferson and the other founding fathers in this way to then sort of like knock them over and sort of proclaim that the Confederacy is in fact the first nation built on sort of like white supremacy as its cornerstone.

And so he believes that, that they are, they are included.

The other thing that I would add is that I, I tend to think that they are also included, right?

That we are included.

And the reason for that to me is, is pretty simple.

And it's that the founding fathers in some ways are brilliant men, right?

You think like a Jefferson, right?

But they're complicated men, especially Jefferson, right?

And they also are smart enough to know that they don't have the answers for everything.

And so how do they solve that?

Well, the way they manage it is that they decide that they're going to build a mechanism in for the, I'm thinking about the constitution here, for it to be changed, right?

They recognize that this is the thing that we're setting up.

This is what the government looks like, but the future will be different, right?

People in other generations will need to be able to manage this and make it fit the space that they're in.

And so they, they set those mechanisms in place for those changes to occur.

The last thing I'll sort of throw out about this is that it's oftentimes used as a way of undercutting black people's claims for, for, for justice, right?

Or, or, or claims for, for equality, right?

And people will say, well, you know, they were never included in the beginning.

And so why are we having this conversation?

The thing that I would sort of push back with that is like, I think people have this view of like what the Declaration of Independence and the constitution, who they were intended for at the beginning, right?

And so if we're going to throw black folks out, then you also have to throw women off completely.

And then also those founding fathers, it's not really until the rise of Jacksonian democracy that you get a, even sort of a more inclusive, like white democracy at that point in time.

And so there are landless white men in North Carolina, in New Hampshire and other places who are not there.

The founders are not thinking about them, right?

They're thinking about sort of landholding folks who they believe are, are better suited to sort of like to govern and to make decisions about government.

And so if we're really going to start sort of thinking about, well, they only meant go back to and try to have some sort of like originalist view on this, you're throwing off a lot of people.

And it's really been just sort of like this, this sort of landed aristocrats are the people who get to make decisions.

And the rest of us are just sort of retired to, to stay out of politics and stay out of conversations.

And so it's, it feels to me oftentimes like a disingenuous effort to remove black folks from conversations or in arguing from people who don't understand the history.

- Interesting.

Well, when we look at North Carolina's role in any of it, all of it, did we play a significant role or were we just kind of...?

- I think in the, in the grand scheme of the American revolution, I think that the North Carolina of course plays a role like the other states.

I don't know that I would sort of, sort of market as particularly exceptional and I could be you know, people can, can disagree with this.

But for me, I think there are a couple of highlights, right?

And so we can think about the Edenton Tea Party, which I think is fantastic, right?

These women who get together and sort of engage in the, in the craft of, of revolutionary documents like many men did in other places.

We have people who fight, right?

Both black and white and indigenous who fight for the Patriot side, who also fight for the Loyalist side.

We have a great deal of, of, of friction between neighbors, right?

Loyalists and, and, and Patriots.

And so I think that there, there, there are stories here and they're interesting stories.

I think that for me, I think the, the beauty of the revolution is thinking about the colonies on the whole, right?

The stuff that, that developed in Massachusetts I think are also interesting or in upstate New York or in South Carolina, right?

Or of course in Virginia, right?

Our neighbor to the North.

I think those are, those are equally worth, worth exploring and thinking about.

- You've already kind of mentioned it, but we did have black people who were fighting.

We did have black people who were, who, who had weapons and guns.

How did they in particular, and were those both enslaved black people and free black people?

And then how did they see the war effort?

Were they on board or was it kind of just, we got to pitch in too?

- It's a great question, right?

You know, what are the experiences of these black North Carolinians in this moment?

And the thing that I always, I, you know, I, I, I used to teach the American revolution at my previous institution and I teach it now in parts of some of my other courses.

And one of the things that I think is, is, is, is always worth mentioning, right?

Is that this is a very sort of like complicated political landscape.

And so we think about it as sort of like the American colony sort of separating themselves from England, but what you're really getting is a sort of like civil war within the colonies, right?

There are some loyalists here, right?

There are some patriots here, right?

And then of course the British army is here, right?

Along with their, their German mercenaries and such and indigenous allies.

And so the, for the black folks who are in North Carolina, they are participating in this, right?

And so there are, there are a bunch of them who, who enlist to fight for, for the patriots, right?

Even in small towns like very famously in Harlow, which is out in Eastern North Carolina, there are over a dozen free black men from that community or free men of color from that community who join up with the, with the patriot forces and who, who fight in the war.

There are black men from other parts, free black men from other parts of North Carolina who say that, yes, this is my fight.

This is part of, of, of my responsibility, right?

As a person in this state who wants to see it part of an independent nation that's not under the British crown.

They take up arms for that, right?

I think that history should be remembered.

It should be celebrated.

There also are enslaved men who fight.

Some of them do so with the explicit promise of freedom.

There's a very famous example of Ned Griffin, who I'm sure many folks are familiar with, who his enslaver, you know, promises to free him, tries to renege on it.

The state government enforces it and, and, and ensures that, that, that Griffin is in fact given his freedom after his service.

- So even that, that seems like an indication that perhaps we were considered.

- Yes.

Right.

It's certainly that participation, right?

Right.

And there early in the war, there are some officers who don't want black troops there, but manpower is manpower.

And at a certain point, you know, the necessity sort of drives it.

And we see this again and again in conflicts in the United States.

But there are entire regiments of black men raised in Rhode Island, right?

Who fight in the war, many of whom are also enslaved.

But the other thing that I would sort of throw out there about the black experience within the, within North Carolina is that of course there are also black men who make a pragmatic choice.

And it's not the patriots who they think have the best, offer the best opportunities for them.

It's the British, right?

And so there are a bunch of them who also align themselves with the British.

And they do this for a couple of reasons.

If you look at just in neighboring Virginia, there's a British officer, John Murray, his Lord Dunmore.

And he issues his proclamation that any enslaved folks or indentured servant who, who rallies around the King's standard, right?

And promises to fight, to help put down what he sees as a rebellion, right?

Those people can be free.

And so there are people who come from the South, from Virginia, from North Carolina, but even as far away as like New York and New Jersey, black men who moved down to join up with Dunmore and his Ethiopian regiment.

And when Charles Gordon Wallace passes, another British officer passes through North Carolina, he ends up going to Virginia.

He's operating in Carolinas though for a while.

He has a group of, he calls them foragers, but they're essentially, they're black auxiliaries who are with his army and they are doing the work of foraging, which in this period is really kind of pillaging the countryside, right?

So they're, they're gathering supplies, food for the horses, food for the British soldiers, firewood, whatever, but he's using them in that regard.

And so for some of those black folks in North Carolina, like that's a better option.

That's a better route towards freedom.

And I don't want to over emphasize or give the British too much credit because Cornwallis also abandoned as a bunch of them when they're sick.

Some of them do end up in slavery in the Caribbean.

There are others who end up free in Nova Scotia.

The British helped them evacuate after the war.

And then there are others who from Nova Scotia end up going to Sierra Leone.

- Well, I kind of want to touch on the duality though of the irony that, you know, we're fighting for freedom.

You have black people who are fighting for freedom for this country yet there, the, the perfection of slavery was also, you know, kind of happening simultaneously.

How, how do those two coexist in this space?

It's a, it's an interesting, I mean, you think about it, it's how did these, those things exist in this country, in this fledgling country?

Also how did it exist in the, in the minds of, of individuals, right?

Who are enslavers, but who are also trying to recruit black soldiers to fight.

Right.

And I think that there's a, there's a, in a lot of ways, the United States is, has, is, and always has been a nation of, of, of contradictions, right?

Where I think that sometimes there are lofty ideals and then there is a, people will sort of take a, what they might see as a practical approach to things.

And I think for some of them, it's easy to sort of talk about, yes, freedom and liberty.

Yes.

And for some of them, I don't think that they are thinking about what that expansiveness means.

I think for others they are, but you're grappling with something that is a big system.

And I think for some folks the, the, the money's good.

Right.

And so it's a, it's a, a huge piece of sort of the American economy, especially in some of the states like North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, Georgia.

Right.

And so I think that that's, that's part of it, but it's a, we are, we're always sort of grappling with these inconsistencies, right?

How is it that we can, even in the present day, right?

Say that freedom and democracy and liberty, we're, we're trying to, in some ways to, to export to other countries.

And then you look at voting rights issues in the United States, right?

All sorts of, of issues with the state and in some instances federal government.

And it's, it's, it's, it's sort of assault on, on, on individual right or individual liberties.

- Well, that kind of brings me to my next question.

Would you consider that freedom was conditional then?

And in what ways might it still be conditional today?

- That's a, it's a really good question.

I would say that I think that freedom is always conditional.

I say with some caution, I'm sort of thinking through this.

I do think that certainly in the colonial era and heading into this revolutionary era, freedom is, is, is a given for some people, right?

But it's not a given for everyone, right?

And so I think that even for, for, for women, right?

There are some things that they are able to do as, as sort of free people, but there are caps on that.

There are limits on that.

Part of it's through law, part of it is through sort of like the social landscape, right?

I think for many free people of color, it also, to me at least, feels somewhat conditional.

They are free people.

And in many instances, as we discussed, there are certain privileges and rights that they lay claim to and are able to engage with.

But you know, we see it in the colonial era, you see it throughout the early republic as well.

There are people who are, their freedom is precarious, right?

They can be kidnapped and sold into slavery.

If they are punished by the state or if they're debtors, they can be forcibly hired out, right, against their will to sort of work off the debt, particularly in some instances where white people would not be sort of treated in the same way.

That freedom is always kind of conditional.

And I think that one of the challenges with it, to me at least, it seems as though one of the challenges is the, who's the guarantor of our rights, right?

And so if we are in fact free, right, who, who, who guarantees that?

Who is the person who backs that up?

And so ideally, right, you would say, well, it's the government, right?

It depends upon the right with state or federal or even local, right?

But part of the question is, well, what if that government doesn't do it or has no interest in doing it or doesn't believe that you're entitled to that right?

Or there's a friction between the national and the state on some of those issues.

- In hindsight, when we look back at the revolution, was it really about breaking from Britain?

- It's a good question too.

So I, for me, yes, right.

I think there are folks who may look at some other issues.

To me, the central piece of it is these enlightenment ideals are sort of swirling around and there is this, this desire for political separation.

I think it starts as a, as a small movement.

I think it picks up steam.

And part of that is through, because of British policy, right, that, that, that particularly sort of tax policy that push people a little bit.

And I think the other piece of it is that there are very good people working on sort of spreading a message, right, and sort of encouraging people to sort of, to think this way, right?

So many people familiar with Thomas Paine, right?

I think he gets a lot of credit for this.

But I think that there are, I'm sorry, let me back up.

- In hindsight, was it really about breaking from Britain?

Right.

I'm sorry.

- No, it's fine.

- So, so one of the other things, I was thinking about Thomas Paine.

One of the other things that I would sort of throw out there, I think there are a couple of other factors.

I think they're smaller factors, but they certainly are worth mentioning.

And so one of them is, of course, the British Empire is, is massive.

It's large.

It costs a lot of money.

And it fights a lot of wars in the 18th century, right?

And so for the Americans, one of the, or the British American colonists, right, one of the pieces is that there's a long war with, with France and their allies in North America.

And so at the end of it, one of the things that British are trying to do is keep the American colonists from going, pushing too aggressively further westward, because it creates conflicts with indigenous peoples.

And then the British government has to send the army and build forts and all that costs a bunch of money that they don't want to spend money on.

And so there are people who are Americans who are chomping at the bits so that we would like to go past that 1763 line.

And the British government doesn't like that.

So I don't think that's the cause of the revolution, but I think it is, there are other factors swirling around that aren't just sort of like taxes that I think are worth noting.

- Yeah.

I want to give some time for you to reference maybe stories from your book.

But you know, as we are in a time where we're kind of losing history, right, we're taking down monuments and, and you took the time to write this book.

Why is this important?

And then maybe highlight a story or two from the book.

- To me, I think that there's always, always, always a need to continue to interrogate our past and to think about some of the things that we've take for granted.

To me, I think that one of the things that fascinates me about working on firearms in this particular project, I generally, I describe myself as a historian who works on slavery and emancipation, but in this particular book project, I'm using the lens of firearms to understand it.

And I think that firearms to me are interesting because, you know, we think about rights and privileges.

We talk a lot about guns in our present day.

And a lot of it is very much in this idea that firearms are a, are a right that's enshrined and it's, it's, it's a very individualistic, individualistic kind of approach to it.

And I think that if we look at the past, particularly it's sort of the black experience, it's not always the case.

And so one of the things that fascinated me about this, I started off being really interested in how enslaved people access firearms, but free people of color are a really interesting group of folks.

And there's some great scholars who have written in the past and are continuing to work on free people of color who also need more scholarship on them.

And so one of the dynamics that I thought was really interesting is that for free people of color to access a weapon after 1840, or '41, they have to go through their local, their county court.

And in order to do that, you have to have white folks in the community who are willing to vouch for you.

And you have to go through this process to get a license in order to carry a gun.

And that aspect, that process of like people trying to explain that their families are of good character, they're getting white neighbors to also say their families are of good character, it really is kind of a community oriented approach to gun access and use.

And of course, in this instance, it's a restriction placed on black folks.

But I think that we leave that part of the story out completely when we talk about it.

The other piece is just sort of like the pragmatic labor that black folks are able to do with firearms.

It's one of those things that they're able to feed themselves and their family, for some men to develop a sense of manhood that's cut and undercut in so many different ways by the institution of slavery and just sort of 19th century racism generally.

But all of those things, I think, are worth continuing to explore and to learn about.

- Yeah.

Real quick, where can viewers find your book?

- Yes.

It's through UNC Press.

And so, the UNC Press's website is carrying it.

But it also is sold in other bookstores online.

If you just Google "Precarious Balance Hunter," it should pop up.

But it's a- - Antwain Hunter.

- It's a-in some ways, a labor of love.

A long time coming.

- Thank you so much.

- But thank you for the conversation.

- Of course.

Thank you, Dr.

Antwain Hunter.

And remember, you can still watch Ken Burns' "American Revolution" on PBSNC.

I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on PBSNC.org/BlackIssuesForum.

And on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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