Book Review: Black Elders: The Meaning of Age in American Slavery and Freedom

Black Elders: The Meaning of Age in American Slavery and Freedom. By Frederick C. Knight. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. Hardcover, 241 pp. $39.95.

Reviewed by Patrick Young

Before the Covid 19 pandemic, my wife and I went to Auburn, New York, to visit Harriet Tubman National Historical Park. Many of the stories told there were ones I was familiar with; her childhood in slavery, her escape to the North, her courageous role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, her leadership with United States Colored Troops during the Civil War, and her post-war work on behalf of civil rights.

One story that I was unfamiliar with was told by the largest building in the park. Tubman set up a home for elderly African Americans on her own property. After all Tubman had done to make sure Black Americans had a future in the United States, she also spent most of the last quarter century of her life caring for those who had been born enslaved, helped fight for freedom, and now, without any resources, were indigent and infirm.

In his new book, Black Elders: The Meaning of Age in American Slavery and Freedom, Frederick Knight writes about how elderly African Americans were perceived in their own day and why many Black institutions raised money to care for them in freedom. From Black churches to women’s organizations to the Freedman’s Bureau, elderly Blacks in freedom did not have the accumulated savings of most other Americans to pay for food and shelter after they could no longer work. Due partly to the kidnapping of their children by “slave masters,” filial support was often lacking. A woman might have given birth to a half-dozen children, but by the time she could no longer work, in many cases her children had been sold off with no records of where they were twenty years after “slave sales” had parted the family. Similarly, people that white Americans could turn to for assistance as they aged, like a sibling or spouse, might have had their relationship extinguished by slave sales or other forms of forced migration.

Before Blacks were subjected to New World slavery in large numbers by the imperial regimes of Britain, France, Portugal, and Spain, and by the later rise of republican slavery in the United States, African communities gave elevated status to the elderly. While the economic contributions of those who were over sixty years of age greatly diminished by their failing strength and health, these elders carried the history of their people in their minds and the culture of their native land in their bones.

As slave patrols, both European and African, spread over the African continent in the 17th through the 19th centuries, the European purchasers of slaves completely devalued the elders. As they were viewed as no longer economically productive and could not bear children, their value did not bear the cost of transporting them to the Americas. However, when middle-aged enslaved people were transported to the Americas, they quickly assumed the role that the more elderly people held in Africa. The New World Black elders understood the relations of power in their new environment, and they sought to stitch together communities from among the truly multiethnic New World diaspora to transform the recently arrived so that they could advance the younger people’s survival.

Frederick Knight uses voluminous research to get the opinions of both white enslavers and Black enslaved people on the role of African American elders. Particularly interesting was Knight’s examination of free communities of color after slavery that were abolished in the northern states following the American Revolution. As people were emancipated in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and throughout New England, many elders helped form the organs of resistance to slavery such as the Black churches, schools, abolitionist societies, and local manifestations of the Underground Railroad, and they pioneered in creating networks with white communities opposed to slavery.

These elders helped provide sanctuary for Blacks freed during the Civil War, helped recruit and organize freed people into United States Colored Troops regiments, and helped craft an actionable agenda for liberating those still held in slavery.

Knight’s new book covers an area of American history that has previously received little scholarly attention. Quotes from enslaved people and enslavers put flesh on the bones of the statistical evidence that Knight presents within the study. Hopefully others will follow and explore additional avenues within this fascinating topic that will in turn continue to expand our understanding of African American elders.

Patrick Young is a Special Professor at Hofstra Law School and the author of the Reconstruction Era Blog.