1.   Even Massachusetts felt compelled to expel many free blacks.

2.   He was a free black from New Rochelle, a skilled wheelwright who had only recently arrived in the city.

3.   States in these areas began enacting legislation to prevent the entry of free blacks within their borders.

4.   There was no niche or corner of safety for the free black in a slave society.

5.   And among those free blacks in northern ports, the seamen were likely to be among the most successful members of the community.

6.   Born as free blacks, the Downings were committed abolitionists.

7.   But that alone speaks to how blacks made their own way in freedom and offers contrasts with enslaved blacks and perhaps similarities with other free blacks in the East.

8.   During these dangerous journeys, free blacks and runaway slaves had created a secret system of communicating.

9.   Historians tell us that black Africans willingly sold slaves to the West and that free blacks throughout early America bought and owned them.

10.   Historians tell us that black Africans willingly sold slaves to the West and that free blacks throughout the colonies bought and owned them.