The Evolution of Black Business, Part II–Enslavement and the Colonial Period

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was the primary foundation of the economies of European nations and their colonies in the Americas. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, it was responsible for dispersing millions of enslaved Africans worldwide to build those economies with free labor. Western capitalism and its Industrial Revolution are historically linked to the triangular trade. The triangular trade was a system of exchange where Africa supplied the Americas with enslaved laborers, the Americas supplied Europe with raw material, and Europe supplied Africa and the Americas with finished goods. Without the triangular trade, capitalism would not have grown to what it is today.
During this period, enslaved and free Africans throughout the Diaspora engaged in business and commerce – some to purchase their freedom and others to maintain their families and communities. One of the first documented Africans in the US to engage in business was Anthony Johnson, who in 1621 was brought to Virginia as a captive called “Antonio the Negro.” By 1651, Johnson and his wife Mary had gained freedom and became one of the few African landowners in 17th-century Virginia with servants. Johnson amassed 250 acres of land on the eastern shore of Virginia and raised livestock. The couple was respected for their hard work and held in high esteem. In 1653 the plantation was devastated by fire. However, when the Johnsons requested relief, the court exempted Mary and their two daughters from county taxation for the rest of their lives, in direct defiance of a law that required all free Africans to pay taxes.
Paul Cuffee was born on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts in 1759, one of 10 children of a farmer named Kofi Slocum, a freedman. Cuffee bought and built ships, developing his own maritime company that traded the length of the US Atlantic coast, with trips to the Caribbean and Europe. Cuffee dreamed that free Africans and freedmen would establish a colony in Africa based on emigration and trade. Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel every year to Sierra Leone, transporting African settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products.
African entrepreneurs were also found in the Midwest. In 1779 explorer Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable established a trading post on the site that became the city of Chicago. In addition to importing merchandise from the East, Du Sable owned a bakehouse, mill, dairy, smokehouse, and lumberyard. His business activities serviced the wilderness within a 200-mile radius.
The Slave Economy
An internal slave economy developed between enslaved Africans on the plantation, other plantations, and the slave owners. Although the traditional currencies such as cloth, cowrie shells, and iron bars that were used in the African slave trade were absent, the bartering among the enslaved resembled trade among West African peoples like the Fulani, Mandinka, Wolof, Fanti, Igbo, Yoruba, and others.
Slave owners hired out their captives for-profit ranging from 10 to 20% of the captive’s price per year. Contracts concerning clothing, food, medical attention, and treatment varied, and those hired out often earned wages for themselves. Once the principle of the wages had been established, the highly skilled could also hire out their own time, negotiating contracts, making their living arrangements, and paying their owners a specified amount on a semi-annual or annual basis.
African captives in the US used the surplus from land appropriated by them for growing food and tobacco cultivation to create produce markets where goods were sold or bartered. These were the first ventures that provided the enslaved with an income. Some enslaved entrepreneurs earned enough to purchase freedom for themselves and their families and to acquire land.
Peter Williams, Sr., born into slavery in New York, was a successful tobacconist who helped found the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1800. He purchased his freedom in 1786 with his earnings. African-born Amos Fortune purchased his freedom at age 60 and established a successful tannery business with clientele in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Kentucky’s “Free Frank” McWorter set up saltpeter (principal ingredient in gunpowder) factory in Pulaski County. In 1836 he founded the town of New Philadelphia, Illinois, becoming the first African to establish a planned community in the US. The site is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark. Virginia’s Robert Gordon sold slack from his white father’s coal yard and established a side business with profits amounting to around $15,000. After purchasing his freedom in 1846, he moved to Ohio, used the money to start a coal business in Cincinnati, and by 1860 had amassed earnings of $60,000 from coal and real estate profits. In upstate New York William Goodridge developed several businesses including a jewelry store, an oyster company, a printing company, a construction company, and a large retail merchandise store, while running a train on the Columbia Railroad. In 1848 he earned capital of $20,000, in addition to real estate holdings in both New York and Canada. John Rock was born in New Jersey and became a teacher, dentist, doctor, and attorney. He studied dentistry and opened his practice in Philadelphia in 1850. After earning his medical degree, he moved to Boston in 1854 where he practiced dentistry and medicine. Unable to continue in the medical field because of poor health, he studied law and passed the Massachusetts Bar in 1861. In 1865, Rock became the first African attorney admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court.
In the early and mid-1800s, African men and women in the US transformed their experience in food preparation and service to open successful catering businesses, restaurants, and hotels. Hospitality businesses ranged from single proprietors working from their homes to large establishments with staff. In 1869, a group of 12 African caterers formed the Corporation of Caterers as a way of supporting each other and ensuring high standards among their members. By 1870, the organization had 500 members including business owners and employees in the catering business.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
People of African descent in Philadelphia have a long history of successful entrepreneurship that goes back to the 18th and 19th Centuries. Just like today, street vendors were a big part of Philadelphia’s economy in those days, and many of them were of African descent. Many free Africans were tailors, furniture makers, carpenters, sailmakers, caterers, bakers, hairdressers, barbers, musicians, shoemakers, and dressmakers like abolitionist Hetty Burr, developed their businesses that served white and Black clientele.
We can start with Africans associated with the Philadelphia President’s House who was entrepreneurial. “Black Samuel” Fraunces, a free Haitian, served as a steward in three of the president’s residences – the first in New York, the second in Philadelphia, and the third in Germantown, Pennsylvania at the Deshler-Morris House where George Washington fled when the British invaded Philadelphia. Fraunces was a successful businessman who owned the Fraunces Tavern in the Wall Street section of New York in the 1780s that served as a meeting place where Washington and dignitaries discussed plans for the revolution. His tavern and inn, which opened in 1761, earned him a reputation as a leading restaurateur with, “The finest hostelry in colonial America.” Four years later, Fraunces established Vaux-Hall (named after the famous English pleasure gardens), a resort with hanging gardens, waxworks, concerts, fireworks, and afternoon dances, which set the standard for pleasure gardens in colonial America. After his inauguration, Washington appointed Fraunces steward of the President’s House. After serving Washington for five years, Fraunces resigned and opened a restaurant named Tavern Keeper at 166 South Street in Philadelphia. The next year he renamed it The Golden Tun Tavern and moved it to South Water Street. A legend in his lifetime, a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker located at 310 S. Second Street in Old City honors Fraunces.
Hercules, the enslaved African who was the chief cook at Washington’s Mt. Vernon plantation and the Philadelphia President’s House, was renowned for his exceptional culinary skills. An enterprising brother, it was reported that he earned $100 – $200 per year selling leftovers from Washington’s kitchen. Fortunately, Hercules eventually escaped to New York City in March 1797 on the day Washington returned to Mount Vernon.
James Forten was a freeman, successful entrepreneur, inventor, philanthropist, and abolitionist. He began as a privateer during the Revolutionary War and was a celebrated hero. After the war, Forten purchased a sail loft business and invented a device for ship sails. He employed an integrated workforce and became one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest citizens. Forten uses his wealth to purchase the freedom of enslaved Africans, contributed to abolitionist newspapers and schools for Black children, and supported women’s efforts to attain equality.
Philadelphia was the center of the Black catering industry with several prominent catering businesses. Many of Philadelphia’s African caterers were from the French West Indies. Robert Bogle was the first of many caterers who served Philadelphia’s white elite. Born in 1774, Bogle worked as a waiter, opened a shop at 46 South 8th Street in 1812, and is credited by W.E.B. DuBois as professionalizing the business of catering in Philadelphia. In addition to catering, he ran a funeral business for the social elite. Bogle died in 1848 and was remembered by prominent citizens as an essential part of all of their main events from christenings to funerals. His namesake and descendant Robert Bogle is the CEO and publisher of the Philadelphia Tribune, America’s oldest newspaper serving the African American community, founded in 1884 by Christopher James Perry, Sr.
Other Philadelphia caterers included Haitian-born Peter Augustin and Eugene Baptiste who both established their businesses in 1818. A group of three Black caterers – Thomas Dorsey, Henry Jones, and Henry Minton – were the most sought-after caterers by Philadelphia’s elite between 1845 and 1875. Philadelphia’s caterers were an important part of the city’s social life until 1967 when Albert E. Dutrieulle Catering closed. Much of the $400,000 in property owned by free Africans in Philadelphia in 1840 belonged to caterers.
Joseph Cassey, a freeman, came to Philadelphia from the French West Indies in the early 1800s and opened a very successful wig, perfume, and barbershop business. He also invested in real estate.
Joseph Randolph founded the African Insurance Company in 1810 to help support free Africans in Philadelphia who did not want to join the Free African Society but needed assistance and other benefits. Historians cite this as the first Black-owned insurance company.
William Whipper opened a free labor and temperance grocery store in 1834. He believed that alcohol had a destructive effect on Africa and that drinking alcohol was a contributing factor for Africans selling African people into slavery. In 1835 he formed a partnership with fellow African entrepreneur Stephen Smith to create one of Pennsylvania’s most profitable lumberyards. Whipper contributed to the antislavery movement and operated a stop on the Underground Railroad.
New England
Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Nancy Gardner Prince was a trained seamstress. She lived in Russia for nine years with her husband who was one of 20 paid African servants at the court of the Czar. In Russia, Nancy began a business making fine clothing for babies and children with clientele including the Empress. She employed journeywomen and apprentices. Back in Boston in 1850, Prince self-published her autobiography and travelogue.
In Boston and cities like Providence, Rhode Island, and Hartford, Connecticut, Africans participated in the hair and beauty industry as barbers, hairdressers, and wigmakers. Men and women entrepreneurs served Black and white clients. Barbers and hairdressers constituted 9.5% of the taxpayers in Boston’s African community in 1850. Until the Civil War, barbering was among the most profitable African enterprises in the US. Like today, hair salons and barbershops served as vibrant community centers in which patrons and proprietors debated contemporary issues.
Africans participated in the apparel industry in Boston and elsewhere in New England as tailors, dressmakers, seamstresses, milliners, and retail clothiers, and dominated high fashion tailoring before the Civil War. By 1860, successful African tailors’ annual incomes ranged as high as $10,000.
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The South
The largest number of successful business owners of African descent were in Louisiana. Free Africans in the Lower South, who owned large farms or plantations and had established rural businesses, were often of mixed ancestry. They received financial assistance from white relatives or patrons. James Pendarvis–of St. Paul’s Parish near Charleston, South Carolina–was the son of a white planter and an enslaved woman. He was the largest African planter and slave owner during the 18th Century. Bequeathed a large plantation, by 1786, Pendarvis owned more than 3,000 acres and 113 enslaved Africans. Although few would equal Pendarvis wealth, in subsequent years, South Carolina rice planters-John Holman, Jr., Samuel Holman, John Garden, and Elias Collins, Alabama cattle rancher Zeno Chastang, Mississippi cotton planter Andrew Barland, and Louisiana slave owners Jean Baptiste Mullion, Dominique Metoyer and Suzanne Metoyer-received tracts of land and enslaved by their white fathers. Even when there were no direct ancestral ties, free Africans who established income-producing farms and rural enterprises usually received assistance from whites. For example, Alabama bridge builder Horace King was emancipated in 1829 by his owner John Godwin, who became his partner in a construction company.
Enslaved William Ellison of South Carolina established a successful cotton gin factory after he was freed. He invented a device that increased the gin’s efficiency, and his market extended to most of the cotton-producing regions. He invested his profits in slaves and real estate holdings.
The business activities of William Leidesdorff, America’s first millionaire of African descent, allowed him to acquire property worth $1.5 million before his death in 1848 at the age of 38. Born in the Virgin Islands to an enslaved woman, he came to the US in the 1830s and settled in New Orleans, where he was a ship owner and captain before moving to San Francisco in 1841. In San Francisco, Leidesdorff built a hotel, opened a ship chandlery shop, established a lumber yard and a shipyard. Mexican citizenship allowed him to acquire a $35,000 land grant. During the Mexican War, Leidesdorff provisioned the American army. He eventually became San Francisco’s first city treasurer.
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Canada
In Canada during the 1800s, approximately 2,000 formerly enslaved Africans who sought refuge behind British lines during the War of 1812 were sent to Nova Scotia. Known as the Black Refugees, they settled in various townships in Nova Scotia. Another thousand or so Black Refugees moved into New Brunswick and established settlements there. The 1820s saw an influx of fugitive slaves from the US. By the time of the American Civil War, around 30,000 fugitives had escaped to Canada.
Some major cities had all-Black settlements. Places like the Elgin Settlement, Dawn, and Oro were built for mutual support and protection against white Canadians. After the US Civil War, in major cities like Montreal and Toronto, the economic life of African men focused around their employment on the railroads. African entrepreneurs thrived on catering to the porters’ needs with barbershops, rooming houses, halls, and cafes. In the 1850s, many who migrated to Victoria, British Columbia had been successful merchants in California and upon arrival in Canada established small businesses.
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Latin America
In Brazil, as in the US, some enslaved Africans negotiated agreements with owners that allowed them to practice a trade or occupation without direct supervision on the condition that a portion of their income is given to the owner. This system helped them to acquire money to buy their freedom. In the 18th century, increasing manumissions created African communities of free persons engaged in commerce. Like the traditional market women/queens in Africa, women of African descent — enslaved and free — played a crucial role in marketing throughout Latin America. In urban areas throughout colonial Latin America, women dominated the marketplace. They sold food they prepared at home, flowers, woven goods, cloth, yarn, and tobacco. In Lima, Peru free and enslaved African women and men produced and sold lard.
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Europe
In Europe, most enslaved Africans were house servants and craftsmen. However, enslaved Africans in Portugal worked in agriculture and fishing. Free Africans living in Loulé and Lagos on the southern edge of Portugal owned houses, and some, especially women, became innkeepers.
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The Motherland
Between 1800 and 1900, West Africa’s coastal states struggled in the face of imperial overtures from European trade partners. During this period, King Jaja of Opobo was an extreme example of Africans taking advantage of the changing political, religious, and economic landscape of the Eastern Niger Delta. Born Mbanaso Ozurumba in the Igboland village of Umuduruoha in 1821, Jaja, as he would become known to his European trading partners, traversed the domestic slave systems of Southeastern Nigeria and arrived in the Delta trading state of Bonny in 1833. He obtained tremendous wealth and political influence through the palm oil trade, ultimately becoming the head of one of Bonny’s most influential canoe-houses. From 1871, Jaja monopolized the palm oil trade and became the most influential trader from his new position as king of the island community, which he named Opobo. By 1884, the relationship between Jaja and his European trade partners deteriorated and led to his exile in the West Indies. Political pressure forced the British to return Jaja to Opobo. Unfortunately, the once-powerful enslaved turned king died while trying to return home in 1891.
Final Installment: Black Business in the 20th Century