Were some U.S. slave owners black?
October 31, 2008
Dear Cecil:
Some time ago, I heard an African-American author talk on NPR about a fact that had inspired him to write his book: During the 1800s, some slave owners in the U.S. were black. Simply put, blacks owned blacks. Afterward a historian said she'd never heard of such a thing and dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Who's right?
— Raina S., via e-mail
Cecil replies:
This is definitely a concept that takes some getting used to, but yeah, it happened. I offer just a couple observations in mitigation: (1) Slave ownership by blacks was unusual, so it's no surprise many people refuse to believe it existed. However, at one time or another, free black slaveholders could be found in every slave state. (2) In most cases the situation wasn't quite as bizarre as it seems. Let me explain the concept of benevolent slavery.
Free blacks were fairly common in the antebellum south, constituting 8 percent of southern blacks in 1840. Most had gained their freedom through manumission (especially common just after the Revolutionary War) or been born free to a free mother. Slaves who'd been permitted to earn money in their spare time sometimes made enough to buy their freedom. Another route was being bought and freed by free relatives or friends. But some who bought slaves in this way didn't formally free them for years, partly because freedmen paid higher taxes than slaves or whites. Courts since colonial times had recognized the right of free blacks to own slaves. This gave rise to an odd arrangement in which people lived as free but were legally someone else's property. This was benevolent slavery.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2821/before-the-civil-war-were-some-slave-owners-black