welcome to the Future PBS digital tonight America's thriving colonies are heavily dependent on slave labor slavery was an extraordinary Goose that laid the golden egg the war for independence brings the enslaved New Hope for them the revolution really was a freedom struggle is Liberty in the air the country that says to the world we bring ourselves into existence on the principle of human freedom is founded on slavery at New York Life we know that learning from the past helps create a better future we support this PBS program as part of our commitment to understanding the stories that shaped our nation Guided by our values Financial strength integrity and Humanity New York life has been part of America's story since 1845 join us in exploring the defining moments of our nation history for 100 years the enslaved had been trapped in a brutal system resistance was always dangerous at the outbreak of the American Revolution Liberty was in the air but black people both enslaved and free learned that for their voices to be heard they would have to ignite their own Freedom struggle New York City 1741 quack enslaved to a house painter approached Fort George the seat of British colonial rule in New York and home to the governor quack was married to the governor's cook a slave the governor did not like quack's behavior and did not like like uh when quack came visiting and the governor gave orders to the fourth centuries that if quack should appear he should not be allowed entering quack uttered certain imprecations that he would burn the place down but he would be with his wife when the Fort did subsequently burn down quack was a prime suspect when fires erupted in a number of other buildings warehouses and stores it was clear that this was more than romance thwarted the cry went up the Negroes are rising the Negroes are rising rumors of slaves organizing Rebellion traveled the Atlantic Seaboard 2 years earlier in an uprising of slaves in Stono South Carol Ina some whites were murdered now white New Yorkers panicked almost every adult black male who was over 14 years of age was picked up by the city constables by the militia and placed in jail as the inquiries began Caesar slave of a baker was the first to be marched to The Gallows his body would hang in a public space while a conspiracy trial accused dozens of slaves and a few whites of plotting to burn down New York City and forment slave rebellion the trial revealed bitter details about the lives of the enslaved in New York home to the second largest slave population after Charleston South Carolina there was a sense among all of these slaves that they were trapped into a system that offered no yield at all that there was nothing that they could do if they wanted to be free except to revolt slaves complained about being overworked and that they weren't supplied with enough clothing or fuel to keep warm they lashed out at the laws that prohibited them from gathering together but their most common complaint was not being allowed to visit their loved ones in the mid 18th century African-Americans in New York knew that Liberty existed for others they knew it was denied to them deliberate and systematical as slaves faced the court they were confronted by all the laws that had accumulated over the past 100 years restricting and degrading their lives this to be admitted the law of slavery deemed that persons who were patently human beings were not in fact persons they were not persons at loss rather they would deem property well that is a Payton fiction anyone can look at Caesar at Quack and say well yes these are persons and much of slaves existence was geared to the fact of demonstrating their Humanity early in the proceedings quack was accused of burning down Fort George he and 12 other black men were burned at the stake 17 were hanged four whites were also hanged after each Rebellion what the society seeks to do is pass a more repressive set of laws and so we have a continually upward cycling of violence because the violence of slaveholder repression produces the violence of slavery action by the 1750s some 5,000 Africans a year were brought to American ducks in crowded filthy stinking ships and for weeks they are confined to these places people being chained together people dying and being chained to dead people for periods of time until somebody decides to take the dead people above decks and throw them into the ocean some people didn't last 2 weeks but for other people they began mustering the human resources that it would take to figure out the predicament they had been thrown into the Planters the exploiters have rationalized what they're doing they've worked it out with the law they've worked it out with their God one way or another and they've begun the long trk into American racism that is to say they have reduced these people to less than human beings and that's the way they're going to make it work 100 years after the first Africans arrived most colonies were heavily dependent upon slave labor by 1750 a qu million enslaved blacks now made vast wealth possible for their master slavery it seems to me was an extraordinary Goose that laid the golden egg you had workers that you didn't have to pay and you owned their children as soon as they were born it's a Preposterous system all you have to do is visit one of the huge plantations in Virginia or South Carolina to see the wealth that flowed at Shadwell a tobacco Plantation in the pedmont region of Virginia two young boys are growing up together Jupiter was born a slave the other Thomas Jefferson would one day be president of a new Republic Jupiter was one of more than 60 slaves who sustained Jefferson's family a new generation of black people of slaves is coming of age these are people who are born on this side of the Atlantic the these are people who know how to operate within the society when Thomas Jefferson went off to study the classics Jupiter was trained to be Jefferson's personal valet that training would include sophisticated lessons in Psychology and power certainly as he grew up one of the things that he was going to have to learn is that a boy who is his same age Thomas Jefferson is going to grow up to be his owner is going to grow up to be his master he came to understand something about the politics of that world the word liberty of course would come to be used much in the years that followed and his own owner Thomas Jefferson became a great Merchant of the language of Liberty Jupiter understood that as well Jupiter's status and work conditions were privileged compared to most other slaves at Shadwell but for all of them including Jupiter it would be endless work from sun up to sun down and beyond all of them also would have experienced uh a punishment the cutting off of ears the kind of Contraptions that are placed around people to prevent running away all of these t torturous weapons are realities that enslave people everywhere would have experienced Jupiter like any child would also have to deal with the fact that while his parents have authority over him their Authority is secondary to the authority of the slave owner he might have to witness his mother being schooled by her owner he would have to watch his mother being punished being whipped or being raped in this lopsided balance of power slaves found ingenious ways to resist the master some subtle some overt some suicidal arson was one of the primary forms of resistance because it was hard to track poisoning was another running away was another because you were literally stealing property from the master if you ran away a runaway ad in 1746 describes 16-year-old Steven dley he has been much whipped which his back will show another ad describes Peter as Virginia born running away with iron Shackles on his legs day after day slaves are refusing to obey they are saying listen we have our own lives we will not go that far we will not not submit totally slave and master knew each other well using this familiarity slaves constantly tested the boundaries they negotiated with their masters for more time to work on their own Gardens or to sell and trade produce they cultivated it would seem that somebody who's a slave would have no power and had would have nothing to negotiate but slaves found that they could negotiate they danced the dance of domination and subordination one of the most profound forms of resistance was the preservation of African religions values and beliefs what it did is create an internal Universe which is separate and apart from and Beyond the control of a white Master yeah yet something else was emerging the first generation of American Born descendants of Africans are really in the process of creating something that has a very strong link to Africa but which is really quite new on plantations new African arrivals mixed with American Born slaves to shape a new culture the Jefferson family may have a violin from Europe you know and someone plays that fiddle Jupiter's family from Africa knows how to make banjos in fact Thomas Jefferson himself writes about how the banjo is an African instrument originally in Africa they often made it using a big Gorge so this this complicated coming together of different cultures not just Europe and Africa but varieties of West African cultures On Any Given Plantation any given young person like Jupiter is experiencing all these forces for Jupiter growing to adulthood it was a double life when Jefferson went off to college in Williamsburg Jupiter accompanied him at his Valley when Jefferson went to court his future wife at her father's Plantation Jupiter would find his future wife enslaved there they would all end up at Montello Jefferson's mansion in rural Virginia and the slaves began forming extended families the slave quarter became the center of family life they like any other human beings free or unfree um a thousand years ago or today uh have the emotions of any other people they fall in love they they hate others they develop friendships and how to do this within the muu of slavery simply made those very human realities more difficult and more challenging but they existed networks of love and affection and connection between the enslaved have got to be um really crucial to surviving the experience of Slavery to surv surviving it on an emotional level as well as a physical level but in the creation of those families it gave their owners yet another weapon to force them to behave in the ways that they wanted what this community then becomes is the foundation for an internal slave trade where these children and these families will be separated in the future it's almost unimaginable the tragedy of seeing next of kin simply removed disappeared shipped somewhere else the sheer mindboggling excruciating situation of dealing with arbitrary power on a daily basis not knowing when you wake up in the morning whether the family will be complete eat when you go to bed at night if you look at the runaway advertisements in the colonial newspapers what striking is that roughly half of the people are running away to see kin folk to see loved ones slave saes and cross Plantation marriages meant that families were strewn across the landscape a web of well-worn foot paths soon connected plantations and Farms creating a kinship map of a region those paths also functioned as trading and news networks the complex waterways of the Atlantic Seaboard extended these contacts they would become key for a young slave named Titus coming of age on the eve of the American Revolution during the early 1770s in Monmouth County New Jersey Titus worked alongside his quick tempered owner John Coy's it was a time when some colonists were beginning to protest British restrictions on their freedom Titus was alert to the Gathering stor he knew that one Protestant group the Quakers had begun to free their slaves John coris was a Quaker when Titus turns 21 he knows this is the age in which other Quakers are freeing their their enslaved people cores refuses to do so unlike other Quakers Kus also refused to teach Titus to to read and write but he did send his young slav to Market alone Titus would take advantage of this practical education he had a wide range of survival skills he earned cash by selling animal skins and produce he had grown he also owned a metal map of the area and its extensive waterways as Titus turned 21 it was 1775 the American Revolution had gun he now saw the mounting political conflict as an opportunity he made a dangerous and risky move when Titus ran some half million or one in five people in the colonies were of African descent most were enslaved some were free a few even owned slaves themselves as the relationship between the colonist and the British deteriorated black people in America faced a new challenge how to make their demands for Freedom heard in the growing Caan for Liberty in rural Massachusetts a domestic slave by the name of mom bet was paying close attention to this unfolding crisis she worked alongside her sister Lizzie in the home of John and Hannah and Ashley Colonel John Ashley was probably the most important man in town the Ashley's owned just about everything there was to own including as it turned out mumet herself one day an incident occurred that would strengthen mom BET's resolve Lizzy was making for herself some wheat cakes from the scraps that were left over and Mum is watching from the other side of the room when Mrs Ashley sees this and gets Furious she takes a coal pen from the fireplace a RedHot device that she's ready to bring down on little Lizzy's head well Mom bet of course would never sit for that she gets the uh cold pen on her own forearm and it burns her severely and leaves a nasty scar well for years afterwards mumbet made a point of rolling up her sleeves whenever she was in public so that she would reveal the scar so that when people would ask her why Betty what happened she would say ask madam purchased at the price of chains and slavery mbet would soon take her Destiny into her own hands not only to tax but to us deprived of an opportunity to learn how to read and write mbet was listening in on the growing resentment of the colonists against British taxation and control of our she was present during crucial meetings in the Ashley House when a position paper was written demanding rights for the colonists in it they used the the phrase or something very close to every citizen is entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness these words that come down from the philosopher John Lock and become part of the scriptural language of the Declaration of Independence she would have been right there she would have heard it Revolution and the rhetoric of Liberty were in the air mbet and others like her would soon begin to Exhale this new language the natural Liberty of man is to be free beginning in 1765 with the stamp back crisis the language the rhetoric of natural rights flows throughout the American colonies God who gave us life gave us Liberty at the same time there are continual pamphlets that are coming forward to express views of natural rights slaves hear that conversation slaves some of them read those pamphlets all men are by Nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights of which when they enter into plainly prove a you know when you listen to the Patriots they say we will not be the slaves of England they don't say we will not be the second class citizens they will they don't say we won't be the oppressed people they say we will not be the slaves well when people people who hold slaves say we will not be slaves you know that they know what they're talking about well slaves were saying exactly the same thing and African-Americans were quick to say we will not be the slaves of England nor will we be the slaves of America in early 1773 a petition arrived on the desk of Governor Thomas Hutchinson the British Crown's representative in Massachusetts at a time when most slaves were illiterate this petition was signed by a slave The Humble Petition of many slaves we shall never be able to possess and enjoy anything not even life itself but in a manner as the beasts that perish we have no property we have no City no country sign Felix 3 months later another petition was written and signed by four enslaved men Peter bestus [ __ ] Freeman Jer joy and Felix Holbrook we expect great things from men who had made such a noble stand against the designs of their fellow men to enslave them the petitioners demanded answers how is it that you can talk about Liberty as a fundamental right of human beings when in fact you keep us as slaves how is it that you treat us as beasts when we are human beings more more than that they say how can you call yourself a Christian people a year later yet another petition reached the new Massachusetts governor crafted by slaves the words again would sound like a document that had yet to be written the Declaration of Independence we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without being deprived of them by our fellow men all the petitions were dismissed slaves could see the Paradox Thomas Jefferson still in his early 30s spoke of slavery as a moral evil yet he was a prominent member of the Virginia slaveholding class now he was at work on a document about equality and Liberty we hold these truths to be self-evident if I were Jupiter looking at my childhood friend Thomas Jefferson knowing the world we both grew up in I wouldn't be surprised by the contradictions that emerge in his thinking that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in some ways you know Thomas Jefferson is so like America itself Thomas Jefferson expresses opinions in the Declaration of Independence that are wonderful examples of fair of a belief in human dignity and human Freedom yet Thomas Jefferson is so contradictory because the man who writes the Declaration of Independence is the man that holds at one point almost 250 slaves or more the country that says to the world we bring ourselves into existence on the principle of human freedom is the country that is in many ways founded on the principle of human slavery supported by that principle that's a pretty substantial contradiction April 1775 open Warfare broke out black people began choosing sides in the north some 5,000 black men joined and mixed in all black regiments to fight on the side of the pat Patriots some fought as minut men in the earliest battles of the war black soldiers were badly needed because some white colonists were reluctant to serve initially General Washington resisted arming black men for white Americans everywhere the image of a black soldier toing a gun evokes a totally disordered Society the complete dis ordering of the old Society Washington relented when he heard what was happening further south word was spreading that the British were going to offer freedom to Slaves who joined their side in November 1775 Lord Dunmore the royal governor of Virginia issued a proclamation offering freedom to enslaved people who fled to the British who joined his eth e opian core it has a tremendous effect and word spreads to other colonies it was the rumor of Lord dunmore's Proclamation that probably inspired Titus to run away after a stent in Dan Mo's Ethiopian regiment Titus returned to the m of New Jersey Countryside this time he was leading a Guerilla band of black and white Raiders fighting for the British only now he was known as Colonel Tai Colonel Tai and his band knew the landscape and the farmers in the region they raided property and carried off cattle and clothing to deliver to British troops they terrorized their former owners and kidnapped key Patriot farmers most importantly they liberated their enslaved families and friends New York was the cockpit of the reol ution Colonel tide was acting on a local level but his actions had Continental importance during a battle in September 1780 Colonel Ty took a bullet in his wrist within days he died only 26 years old he had fought in the revolution for 5 years dun War's offer of Freedom coupled with the chaos of war led to a mass Exodus from Southern plantations tens of thousands of slaves responded with their feet the risks were huge there are tragic stories in Chesapeake Bay word is out that you can get on board a British ship so you gather your family eight or 10 people in a small boat you row out to the boat that's flying a British flag only to find out that it's a hoax that the Patriots have run up a British flag in order to lure you on board arrest you punish you and send you back to the plantation it's stories like that that break your heart those slaves that reached the British forces were assigned the most uous tasks building fortifications hauling heavy equipment digging ditches they lived in miserable conditions in military camps and died by the thousands of small pox at the end of the war thousands of former slaves were transported to Freedom by the British many others were freed by fighting for the Patriots no other event until the Civil War would liberate so many slaves the point in all this is that whether African-Americans fought for the American cause or whether they fought for the British cause they were fighting for the central cause of Freedom that's what African-Americans were fighting for for them the revolution really was a freedom struggle all men are born free and equal as the war was coming to an end colonies began to write new constitutions Reon the right of enjoying and defending their lives and Liberties that in 1780 the Massachusetts Constitution was read aloud in every village including Sheffield where momet did errands their natural rights and the blessings of life and whenever these great objects are not OB after M bet knocked on the door of attorney Theodore Sedwick she knew him from the meetings at the Ashley house she overheard Ashley and his colleagues talking about the rhetoric of Independence talking about natural rights M bet essentially says we have this Constitution that appears to announce a principle of each person being free if that is the case then I am free her meeting with Cedric led to a court suit in which Mett and another slave of the household sued Colonel Ashley for their freedom it wasn't just Theodore Sedwick going against Colonel Ashley he hired Theodore did some of the best legal talent that could be found in the whole Southern New England in 1781 M bet won her case and announced that she would thereafter be known as Elizabeth Freeman her Victory helped pave the way for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts 2 years later during the long hot summer of 1787 enslaved Coachmen waited outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia inside their owners forged a constitution for the new Republic the issue that was hardest for them to address was the issue of slavery and they simply postponed it all through that hot summer to the very end of their debates and they finally brought it up and addressed it most delegates North and South never considered eliminating slavery Pro it was clear any attempt at abolition would have ended the effort to create the United States while the deals around slavery would shape the national debate for the next 70 years the words slave or slavery never appear in this founding document now they do refer to the institution in several indirect ways there is the notion that the slave trade will not be abolished for at least 20 years there is the notion that a person who owes service to a Master in one state cannot Escape that service by removing himself to another state and that's kind of a fugitive slave Clause but they don't use the word slave or slavery the most politically significant deal embraced by the Constitution was the 3- fths Clause it allowed states to count their slave population as 3 fifths of a person in determining representation in Congress so the fact is from the south point of view they are getting additional political power as a result of their slave population except for the 35th compromise Jefferson would have lost at election in 1800 but the slaves are not being represented the slaves get nothing from this and the Republic that's created pays the price for that over the next many many generations black people were betrayed by the new constitution but if doors were shutting they now looked for Windows to open 90% of blacks were still enslaved but in Northern cities freed black communities were organizing themselves in southern cities black Artisans were buying their freedom he never will separate our both groups ignited an emancipation movement it began with the founding of the first black Christian churches you got got right it reinforc family and Community it provided the opportunity for men and women to exercise leadership roles blacks had been slow to accept a religion that they associated with slavery and their masters but in the mid 18th century a Protestant Revival movement called the Great Awakening introduced a more democratic and expressive form of Christianity and some black people caught the spirit some slave owners inspired by the values of the Great Awakening and the principles of the new nation began to free their slaves not Thomas Jefferson in the 1780s Jefferson published his only book notes on the state of Virginia in it he argued against this great political and moral evil of slavery yet at the same time he wrote that blacks were mentally inferior to whites it appears to me that in memory they are equal to whites in reason much inferior He suggests that they are not as bright as smart as intellectually gifted Jefferson's theories fueled both sides of the slavery debate and while he wrote that black people should be free he never used his power to free them including during his presidency instead he supported shipping former slaves to Africa Jefferson apparently believed that you could not have emancipation without having colonization which is to say that we can't just let them be free here that won't work so if we are going to emancipate them we have to send them somewhere else while some black supported colonization most leaders in the freed black communities of the north denounced the idea you know one of the things that these free blacks said is I'm a citizen of the United States my father my grandfather fought in the American Revolution to bring this nation into existence I have as much right to be an American to live in America as anybody here the generation of blacks born in the late 18th century were raised on the Promises of the Revolution and the frustrations of its aftermath among them was David Walker brought up in the South Walker would move north to take the emerging Abolitionist Movement to another level Walker was born free in the 1790s in Wilmington North Carolina he probably learned to read and write in one of Wilmington's first black Christian churches these are are places which are not only religious places these are places where political decisions are made political meetings are held by roughly 1820 David Walker made his way to Charleston there he was exposed to the ideas of Denmark visi a freed Carpenter visi was a leader in the new African Methodist Episcopal Church David Walker learns from Denmark vzi the Bible could be a very very important tool in giving blacks a strength to resist um their enslavement and he sees how the church in Charleston could be a center for organizing blacks just in terms of numbers and also ideologically rallying them VY like many blacks enslaved and free had also digested the news about the Haan revolu ution the slave rebellion which created the first black Republic by 1822 while David Walker was in Charleston VC was organizing a massive Rebellion but someone leaked it and VC along with more than 30 others was executed after that failed Rebellion Walker made his way to Boston there he would discover not only a virent racism against black men and women but a growing political Consciousness in the freed black community in 1820s Boston Walker became a leading voice in local black churches and organizations he is a member of the Massachusetts colored Association a black society specifically focused on abolition in 1829 Walker sat down to distill his experiences his analysis of slavery and his rage he wrote what came to be known as the most important abolitionist document of the 19th century he called it an appeal to the colored citizens of the world but in particular and very expressly to those of the United States of America this is an amazing document and we can take it as the first Maybe expression of black nationalism in this country and basically this is a verbal Call to Arms asking the African-American Community to come together and Empower itself America is more our country than it is the whites we have enriched it with our Blood and Tears the appeal itself lays out the full history of argument against slavery against slaveholding oh my colored bre more than that it is addressed to the colored people of America saying to them that they have a single aspiration and that single aspiration is freedom we must and shall be free Walker model the appeal on the Constitution and he drew from the Declaration of Independence and the Bible he says Jefferson and America are hypocrites see your declar ation Americans do you understand your own language he says that America is not doing what it professes to do it is not expressing the values that it says it believes in we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal compare your own language above extracted from your Declaration of Independence with your cruelties and murders he says Christians are not living up to the values of Christianity in the appeal Walker directly confronts Jefferson's arguments about black people in his notes on the state of Virginia as Mr Jefferson declared to the world that we are inferior to the whites he believed that racism had become so Insidious that it was profoundly demoralizing blacks making them incapable of acting against the terrible oppression which weighed on them and his Hope was that the appeal would serve to motivate African-Americans to fight that one of the tremendous elements of David Walker's appeal is his reach into the psyche of blacks to say first and foremost that we need to think together as a people but also to focus on the individual and in a sense to say change begins with you and you must begin to think differently not only to think of us collectively as a single people sharing an ultimate aim of freedom but to think of yourself differently to think of yourself as an agent of freedom and what warer does in his appeal in 1829 is to say listen if emancipation is not forthcoming blood will flow oceans and oceans of blood Americans I call God I call angels I call men to witness that your destruction is at hand Walker distributed his appeal up and down the Atlantic Seaboard he mailed copies to ministers who would read it to the illiterate the appeal was even discovered in the hands of runaways in North Carolina black activists in the 1830s talk of gathering with others in their communities to have the appeal read to them to fire them to give them increased inspiration to continue on with their struggle and to help them understand what it was they were fighting well as you might well imagine this is shocking and frightening to slaveholders immediately many Southern States put out bounties on David Walker's head they want David Walker delivered from Mass chett to a variety of places in the south of course Southern slaveholders were well aware that there had been many slave rebellions and attempted rebellions all along but this was particularly frightening because it was an appeal issued by a free black man outside of the south in other words outside of the direct control of slave holders one of the people who responded to Walker's charge was the young Mariah Stewart who in 1826 married a free and successful Boston shipping agent Born Free Mariah was offened at age five and immediately sent into domestic service she probably learned to read and write in a black church 3 years after her waiting to James Stewart he died although he had been fairly prosperous it turns out that upon his death he had been defrauded by some white businessmen who were his colleagues and so Mariah Stewart was not only widowed but also left destitute a year later she received more devastating news her Mentor David Walker was found dead in his Boston doorway there is is reason to believe he may have been assassinated by someone operating on behalf of those people who felt directly threatened by his appeal for slave rebellion these compounding losses sparked a religious conversion with political implications she sees herself as picking up the torch from David Walker and carrying his work forward Stuart began to write and speak in public you see her speaking things such as I committed myself to a life of virtue and piety and I understood that I might be a warrior and a martyr for the cause of God and my brethren well virtue and piety perfectly reasonable it was woman's sphere it was not a uh uh radical position at all but then in the same sentence the same sentence here come words Warrior and Martyr and God and my brethren dark and dismal is the that she goes right on to say all of the nations of the world are crying out for freedom and Independence and can the sons of Africa remain silent under the heel of tyrany and it's unprecedented in African-American intellectual history why should man any longer deprive his fellow man of equal rights and privileges Mariah Stewart was the first American woman to address a mixed audience of men and women about political issues in its time it was a bold and controversial act for Mariah Stewart the highest form of obedience to God was political protest possess the spirit of Independence Poss inspiration from the Bible to oppose slavery Stuart's special concern was the condition of black women how long shall the fair Daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and Kettles in the early 1830s Mariah Stewart made a number of speeches to Black organizations in Boston in her passion to challenge her audiences to become leaders she seemed to offend both the men and the women throw off your fearfulness and come she's very very hard on black men and accuses them of being servile faithless frivolous passive and make yourselves useful and active members in society and she's telling them to get up off their duffs and and and be active and to be men um so what man wants to be told to be a man have the sons of Africa no souls feel they know ambitious desires but her words are very important and that is African-Americans must depend foremost on themselves they must take the lead themselves they must uplift the race that's the way they' put it in the 19th century they must uplift the race and uh she was critical of anyone in African-American Community who was not working in every way possible to uplift the race David Walker and Mariah Stewart are so important for africanamerican history in a sense we could think of them as our founding father and mother they are the first who have a sense of African-American people as constituting almost a nation within a nation we are a nation within a nation and we need to figure out where we go from here they really foreshadow a coming more militant generation that generation will use the words the sentiments the strategies of Walker and Mariah Stewart what David Walker and what Mariah Stewart understood was that slavery and discrimination would not die as a result of moral persuasion or political activity because they understood that the first abolitionist in America was the first black person brought off of a ship in Chains they understood only War would bring about the possibility of emancipation of blacks in America next time slavery transforms America into an economic power and that made slaves the most valuable thing in the nation beside the land itself enslaved men women and children labor to make millions for their masters here you have the nation tolerating the selling of human beings the seeds of Destruction have been planted violence is erupting in the halls of government on the streets of Washington now say I at New York Life we know that learning from the past helps create a better future we support this PBS program as part of our commitment to understanding the stories that shaped our nation guided by our values Financial strength integrity and Humanity New York life has been part of America's story since 1845 thank you for joining us in exploring the defining moments of our nation's history