Quakers
Quakers called Friends, are a Christian group of religious movements formally known as the Religious Society of Friends, Society of Friends or Friends Church. Members of the various Quaker movements are all united in a belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access "the light within", or "that of God in every one"; some may profess the priesthood of all believers, a doctrine derived from the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are Nontheist Quakers whose spiritual practice is not reliant on the existence of gods. To differing extents, the different movements that make up the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers worldwide. In 2017, there were 377,557 adult Quakers, with 49% in Africa. Around 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to the "evangelical" and "programmed" branches of Quakerism—these Quakers worship in services with singing and a prepared message from the Bible, coordinated by a pastor.
Around 11% of Friends practice waiting worship, or unprogrammed worship, where the order of service is not planned in advance, is predominantly silent, may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present. Some meetings of both types have Recorded Ministers in their meetings—Friends recognised for their gift of vocal ministry; the first Quakers lived in mid-17th-century England. The movement arose from the Legatine-Arians and other dissenting Protestant groups, breaking away from the established Church of England; the Quakers the ones known as the Valiant Sixty, attempted to convert others to their understanding of Christianity, travelling both throughout Great Britain and overseas, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of these early Quaker ministers were women, they based their message on the religious belief that "Christ has come to teach his people himself", stressing the importance of a direct relationship with God through Jesus Christ, a direct religious belief in the universal priesthood of all believers.
They emphasized a personal and direct religious experience of Christ, acquired through both direct religious experience and the reading and studying of the Bible. Quakers focused their private life on developing behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity and the light of God. In the past, Quakers were known for their use of thee as an ordinary pronoun, refusal to participate in war, plain dress, refusal to swear oaths, opposition to slavery, teetotalism; some Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays and Friends Provident. In 1947, the Quakers, represented by the British Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. During and after the English Civil War many dissenting Christian groups emerged, including the Seekers and others. A young man, George Fox, was dissatisfied with the teachings of the Church of England and non-conformists, he had a revelation that "there is one Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition", became convinced that it was possible to have a direct experience of Christ without the aid of an ordained clergy.
In 1652 he had a vision on Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England, in which he believed that "the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered". Following this he travelled around England, the Netherlands, Barbados preaching and teaching with the aim of converting new adherents to his faith; the central theme of his Gospel message was. His followers considered themselves to be the restoration of the true Christian church, after centuries of apostasy in the churches in England. In 1650, Fox was brought before the magistrates Gervase Bennet and Nathaniel Barton, on a charge of religious blasphemy. According to Fox's autobiography, Bennet "was the first that called us Quakers, because I bade them tremble at the word of the Lord", it is thought that Fox was referring to Isaiah 66:2 or Ezra 9:4. Thus, the name Quaker began as a way of ridiculing Fox's admonition, but became accepted and is used by some Quakers. Quakers described themselves using terms such as true Christianity, Children of the Light, Friends of the Truth, reflecting terms used in the New Testament by members of the early Christian church.
Quakerism gained a considerable following in England and Wales, the numbers increased to a peak of 60,000 in England and Wales by 1680. But the dominant discourse of Protestantism viewed the Quakers as a blasphemous challenge to social and political order, leading to official persecution in England and Wales under the Quaker Act 1662 and the Conventicle Act 1664; this was relaxed after the Declaration of Indulgence and stopped under the Act of Toleration 1689. One modern view of Quakerism at this time was that the relationship with Christ was encouraged through spiritualisation of human relations, "the redefinition of the Quakers as a holy tribe,'the family and household of God'". Together with Margaret Fell, the wife of Thomas Fell, the vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and an eminent judge, Fox developed new conceptions of family and community that emphasised "holy conversation": speech and behaviour that reflected piety and love. With the restructuring of the family and household came new roles for wom
New Town, Edinburgh
The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. A masterpiece of city planning, it was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850, retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture, its best known street is Princes Street, facing Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town across the geographical depression of the former Nor Loch. Together with the Old Town, the New Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995; the idea of a New Town was first suggested in the late 17th century when the Duke of Albany and York, when resident Royal Commissioner at Holyrood, encouraged the idea of having an extended regality to the north of the city and a North Bridge. He gave the city a grant:That, when they should have occasion to enlarge their city by purchasing ground without the town, or to build bridges or arches for the accomplishing of the same, not only were the proprietors of such lands obliged to part with the same on reasonable terms, but when in possession thereof, they are to be erected into a regality in favour of the citizens.
It is possible that, with such patronage, the New Town may have been built many years earlier than it was but, in 1682, the Duke left the city and became King in 1685, only to lose the throne in 1688. The decision to construct a New Town was taken by the city fathers, after overcrowding inside the Old Town city walls reached breaking point and to prevent an exodus of wealthy citizens from the city to London; the Age of Enlightenment had arrived in Edinburgh, the outdated city fabric did not suit the professional and merchant classes who lived there. Lord Provost George Drummond succeeded in extending the boundary of the Royal Burgh to encompass the fields to the north of the Nor Loch, the polluted body of water which occupied the valley north of the city. A scheme to drain the Loch was put into action, although the process was not completed until 1817. Crossing points were built to access the new land; the Mound, as it is known today, reached its present proportions in the 1830s. As the successive stages of the New Town were developed, the rich moved northwards from cramped tenements in narrow closes into grand Georgian homes on wide roads.
However, the poor remained in the Old Town. A design competition was held in January 1766 to find a suitably modern layout for the new suburb, it was won by 26-year-old James Craig, following the natural contours of the land, proposed a simple axial grid, with a principal thoroughfare along the ridge linking two garden squares. Two other main roads were located south with two minor streets between. Several mews off the minor streets provided stable lanes for the large homes. Completing the grid are three north-south cross streets. Craig's original plan has not survived but it has been suggested that it is indicated on a map published by John Laurie in 1766; this map shows a diagonal layout with a central square reflecting a new era of civic Hanoverian British patriotism by echoing the design of the Union Flag. Both Princes Street and Queen Street are shown as double sided. A simpler revised design reflected the same spirit in the names of civic spaces; the principal street was named George Street, after the king at the time, George III.
Queen Street was to be located to the north, named after his wife, St. Giles Street to the south, after the city's patron saint. St Andrew Square and St. George's Square were the names chosen to represent the union of Scotland and England; the idea was continued with the smaller Thistle Street between George Street and Queen Street, Rose Street between George Street and Princes Street. King George rejected the name St. Giles Street, St Giles being the patron saint of lepers and the name of a slum area or'rookery' on the edge of the City of London, it was therefore renamed Princes Street after his sons. The name of St. George's Square was changed to Charlotte Square, after the Queen, to avoid confusion with the existing George Square on the South Side of the Old Town; the westernmost blocks of Thistle Street were renamed Hill Street and Young Street, making Thistle Street half the length of Rose Street. The three streets completing the grid, Castle and Hanover Streets, were named for the view of the castle, King George's father Frederick, the name of the royal family respectively.
Craig's proposals hit further problems. The exposed new site was unpopular, leading to a £20 premium being offered to the first builder on site; this was received by John Young who built Thistle Court, the first buildings in the New Town, at the east end of Thistle Street in 1767. Instead of building as a terrace as envisaged, he built a small courtyard. Doubts were overcome soon enough, further construction started in the east with St. Andrew Square. Craig had intended that the view along George Street be terminated by two large churches, situated at the outer edge of each square, on axis with George Street. Whilst the western church on Charlotte Square was built, at St Andrew Square the land behind the proposed church site was owned by Sir Lawrence Dundas, he commissioned a design from Sir William Chambers. The resulting Palladian mansion, known as Dundas House, was completed in 1774. In 1825 it was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland and today is the registered office of the bank.. The forecourt of the building, with the equestrian monument to John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun, occupies the proposed church site.
St. Andrew's Church had to be built on a site on George St
Library Company of Philadelphia
The Library Company of Philadelphia is a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a library, the Library Company of Philadelphia has accumulated one of the most significant collections of valuable manuscripts and printed material in the United States; the current collection size is about 500,000 books and 70,000 other items, including 2,150 items that once belonged to Franklin, the Mayflower Compact, major collections of 17th-century and Revolution-era pamphlets and ephemera and whole libraries assembled in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection includes first editions of Moby-Dick and Leaves of Grass; the Library Company was an offshoot of the Junto, a discussion group in colonial Philadelphia, that gravitated around Benjamin Franklin. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and a number of his fellow members among the Junto drew up articles of agreement to found a library, for they had discovered that their far-ranging conversations on intellectual and political themes floundered at times on a point of fact that might be found in a decent library.
In colonial Pennsylvania at the time there were not many books. Franklin and his friends were of moderate means, none alone could have afforded a representative library such as a gentleman of leisure might expect to assemble. By pooling their resources in pragmatic Franklinian fashion, as the Library Company's historian wrote, "the contribution of each created the book capital of all." The first librarian they hired was America's first. He only held the position for a brief time; until another librarian was found to replace him, Benjamin Franklin took over his duties. Franklin's stint as librarian ended in 1734, he was replaced by William Parsons. He was the librarian for 12 years. Robert Greenway was the fourth librarian, his tenure lasted until 1763; the articles of association specified that each member after the first fifty must be approved by the directors, sign the articles, pay the subscription. Admitting new members and selecting new books were the directors' ordinary duties. In the back of the library's catalog from 1741, Franklin mentioned that the library was accessible to people who were not members.
Those who were not members were allowed to borrow books. However, they had to leave enough money to cover the cost of the book, their money was given back upon returning the book. The privilege of being a member meant. Franklin mentioned that the library was only open on Saturdays, for four hours in the afternoon. On November 10, 1731, at Nicholas Scull's Bear Tavern ten persons paid their forty shillings: Robert Grace, Thomas Hopkinson,2 Benjamin Franklin, John Jones, Jr. Joseph Breintnall, Anthony Nicholas, Thomas Godfrey, Joseph Stretch, Philip Syng, Jr. and John Sober. It was a disappointing turnout: all but John Sober and the hatter Joseph Stretch, who became a Pennsylvania assemblyman, were officers; the library now had eleven paid-up members. Joseph Stretch and his brothers provided half of the original capital to build Pennsylvania Hospital, another of Benjamin Franklin's projects. Over time, fifty subscribers invested 40 shillings each and promised to pay ten shillings a year thereafter to buy books and maintain a shareholder's library.
Therefore, "the Mother of all American subscription libraries" was established, a list of desired books compiled in part by James Logan, "the best Judge of Books in these parts," was sent to London and by autumn the first books were on the shelves. Earlier libraries in the Thirteen Colonies belonged to gentlemen, members of the clergy, colleges. Members of the Library Company soon opened their own book presses to make donations: A Collection of Several Pieces, by John Locke. A bit William Rawle added a set of Spenser's Works to the collection and Francis Richardson gave several volumes, among them Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, but on the whole books in Latin were few. Overtures to the proprietor of Pennsylvania, John Penn at Pennsbury at first elicited no more than a polite response, but an unsolicited gift of 34 pound sterling arrived in the summer of 1738 from Walter Sydserfe, a Scottish-born physician and planter of Antigua; the earliest surviving printed catalogue of 1741 gives the range of readers' tastes, for the members' requirements shaped the collection.
Excluding gifts, a third of the holdings of 375 titles were historical works and accounts of voyages and travels, a category the Library Company has collected energetically throughout its history. A fifth of the titles were literature in the form of poetry and plays, for the prose novel was still in its infancy: as late as 1783, in the first orders from London after the war years, the directors thought "we should not think it expedient to add to our present stock, anything in the novel way." Another fifth of the titles were devoted to works of science. Theology and sermons, accounted for only a tenth of the titles, which set the Free Library apart from collegiate libraries at Harvard and Yale; the Company's agent in London was Peter Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society, the Quaker mercer-naturalist of London, who corresponded with John Bartram. The Library Company's example was soon imitated in other cities along the Atlantic coast, from Salem to Charleston; the Library soon became a repository
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading author, political theorist, freemason, scientist, humorist, civic activist and diplomat; as a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod and the Franklin stove, among other inventions, he founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department and the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies; as the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, community spirit, self-governing institutions, opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment.
In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat." To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders". After 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper, known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of British policies, he pioneered and was first president of Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769.
Franklin became a national hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations, his efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France. He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. During the revolution, he became the first United States Postmaster General, he was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania, he owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.
His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, his status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored more than two centuries after his death on coinage and the $100 bill and the names of many towns, educational institutions, corporations, as well as countless cultural references. Benjamin Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a soaper and candlemaker. Josiah was born at Ecton, England on December 23, 1657, the son of blacksmith and farmer Thomas Franklin, Jane White. Benjamin's father and all four of his grandparents were born in England. Josiah had seventeen children with his two wives, he married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and immigrated with her to Boston in 1683. Following her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their eighth child, was Josiah Franklin's fifteenth tenth and last son. Abiah Folger was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, his wife, Mary Morrell Folger, a former indentured servant.
She came from a Puritan family, among the first Pilgrims to flee to Massachusetts for religious freedom, when King Charles I of England began persecuting Puritans. They sailed for Boston in 1635, her father was "the sort of rebel destined to transform colonial America." As clerk of the court, he was jailed for disobeying the local magistrate in defense of middle-class shopkeepers and artisans in conflict with wealthy landowners. Ben Franklin followed in his grandfather's footsteps in his battles against the wealthy Penn family that owned the Pennsylvania Colony. Benjamin Franklin was born on Milk Street, in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1706, baptized at Old South Meeting House, he was one of seventeen children born to Josiah Franklin, one of ten born by Josiah's second wife, Abiah Folger. Among Benjamin's siblings were his older brother James and his younger sister Jane. Josiah wanted Ben to attend school with the clergy, but only had enough money to send him to school for two years, he did not graduate.
Although "his parents talked of the church as a career" for Franklin, his schooling e
Free Negro
In United States history, a free Negro or free black was the legal status, in the geographic area of the United States, of blacks who were not slaves. This term was in use before the independence of the Thirteen Colonies and elsewhere in British North America, until the abolition of slavery in the United States in December 1865, which rendered the term unnecessary. Slavery was practiced in each of the European colonies at various times. Not all Africans who came to America were slaves. In the early colonial years, some Africans came as indentured servants who were freed after a set period of years, as did many of the immigrants from the British Isles; such servants became free. As early as 1619, a class of free black people existed in North America; the free Negro population increased in a number of ways: children born to colored free women mulatto children born to white indentured or free women mixed-race children born to free Indian women freed slaves slaves who escapedIn most places black workers were either house servants or farm workers.
Black labor was of economic importance in the export-oriented tobacco plantations of Virginia and Maryland, the rice and indigo plantations of South Carolina. About 287,000 slaves were imported into the Thirteen Colonies, or 2% of the more than six million slaves brought across from Africa; the great majority went to sugar colonies in the Caribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be continually replenished. Life expectancy of slaves was much higher in the U. S. Combined with a high birth rate, the numbers grew as the number of births exceeded deaths, reaching nearly 4 million by the 1860 census. From 1770 until 1860, the rate of natural growth of North American slaves was much greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, was nearly twice as rapid as that of England; this was sometimes attributed to high birth rates: "U. S. slaves reached similar rates of natural increase to whites not because of any special privileges but through a process of great suffering and material deprivation".
The southern colonies imported more slaves from established English colonies in the West Indies. Like them, the mainland colonies increased restrictions that defined slavery as a racial caste associated with African ethnicity. In 1663 Virginia adopted the principle in slave law of partus sequitur ventrem: that children were born into the status of their mother, rather than taking the status of their father, as was customary for English subjects under English common law; this meant that children of slave mothers were slaves, regardless of their fathers and ethnicity. In some cases, this could result in a person being white under Virginia law of the time, although born into slavery. According to Paul Heinegg, most of the free black families established in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution were descended from unions between white women, whether indentured servant or free, African men, whether indentured servant, free, or slave; these relationships took place among the working class, reflecting the more fluid societies of the time.
Because the mixed-race children were born to free women, they were free. Through use of court documents, deeds and other records, he traced such families as the ancestors of nearly 80 percent of the free Negroes or free blacks recorded in the censuses of the Upper South from 1790–1810. In addition, slaveholders manumitted some slaves for various reasons: to reward long years of service, because heirs did not want to take on slaves, or to free slave concubines and/or their children. Slaves were sometimes allowed to buy their freedom. In the mid-to-late 18th century and Baptist evangelists in the first Great Awakening encouraged slaveholders to free their slaves, in their belief that all men were equal before God, they approved black leaders as preachers. Before the American Revolutionary War, few slaves were manumitted; the war disrupted the slave societies. Beginning with Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, the British colonial governments recruited slaves of rebels to the armed forces and promised them freedom in return.
The Continentals also began to allow blacks to fight with a promise of freedom. Tens of thousands of slaves escaped from plantations or other venues during the war in the South; some disappeared in the disruption of war. After the war, when the British evacuated New York, they transported more than 3,000 Black Loyalists and thousands of other Loyalists to resettle in Nova Scotia and Ontario. A total of more than 29,000 Loyalists refugees were evacuated from New York City alone; the British evacuated thousands of other slaves when they left southern ports, resettling many in the Caribbean and others to England. In the first two decades after the war, the number and proportion of free Negroes in the United States rose dramatically: northern states abolished slavery all gradually, but many slaveholders, in the Upper South manumitted their slaves, inspired by the war's ideals. From 1790 to 1810, the proportion of free blacks in the Upper South rose from less than 1% to
Jost Van Dyke
Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main islands of the British Virgin Islands, measuring 8 square kilometres. It rests in the northern portion of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Jost Van Dyke lies about 8 km to 8 km to the north of Saint John. Little Jost Van Dyke lies off its eastern end. Like many of the neighboring islands, it is volcanic in mountainous; the highest point on the island is Majohnny Hill at 321 m. There is no specific information available that 17th-century Dutch privateer, Joost van Dyk, is the name sake of the island; this early Dutch settler and former pirate used Jost van Dyke's harbours as a hideout, may be the name sake, yet there is no factual evidence supporting this claim. John C. Lettsome, founder of the Medical Society of London is Jost Van Dyke's most noteworthy resident. Although the English captured the BVI in 1672, it seems that Jost Van Dyke was ignored until the mid-18th century. A map drawn of the BVI in 1717 by Captain John Walton does not depict either Jost Van Dyke or Little Jost Van Dyke.
The remains of sugar works on the ridge above Great Harbour provide archaeological evidence that some sugar cane was under cultivation and processed, though not in any great quantity. In 1815, 140 acres were under cotton cultivation. There was a population of 428. By 1825, cotton production decreased to 17,000 pounds, while the population increased to 506. Similar to other islands in the region, JVD and the BVI saw gradual and irreversible economic decline throughout the 18th century. Curiously though, the population of Jost Van Dyke continued to increase. Thereafter, many BVI islanders sought work at the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's coaling wharves in St. Thomas. By 1853, Dookhan attributes a population of 1,235 residents on Jost Van Dyke, 196 of whom died of a cholera outbreak in that same year. From the Emancipation Era forward, the community of Jost Van Dyke subsisted on small scale fishing and subsistence agriculture. Charcoal-making was a practice that began during the plantation era when strong fires were vital for sugar and rum production, charcoal making emerged as a primary industry for the BVI during the Post-Emancipation years.
Between the 1920s and 1960s, an estimated 20,000 tons of charcoal were exported from the BVI to the US Virgin Islands. According to island residents, on JVD, people would work collectively to build charcoal pits, a practice that continues to this day; the pits were a social gathering place, women might use the heat of the fire to bake bread or roast breadfruit while the men might play dominoes around the pit. Maritime resources were extremely important to the people of Jost Van Dyke, the island has emerged as a fishing village; the desire for trade and social interaction with nearby islands stimulated the development of seafaring skills. Sailing, fishing and boat construction flourished. Small, locally constructed sailing vessels the "Tortola Boat" flourished in the BVI until about the 1960s when they were replaced with motorized craft. Jost Van Dyke, like the rest of the British Virgin Islands, suffered catastrophic damage from Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm which struck the territory in September 2017.
The island's hillsides were stripped of vegetation. Jost Van Dyke's primary school, health clinic, two petrol stations were damaged, while most of the island's homes were destroyed. With little aid from the British or territorial governments during the week following the storm, Jost Van Dyke's 298 residents set up a recovery and command center Foxy’s Tamarind Bar and Restaurant. Food from other restaurants and residences were brought to Foxy's, which housed the island's only major, surviving refrigerator and generators before others were repaired by the Royal Marines that month. Residents connect remote parts of the islands; as at the 2010 Census, the population of Jost Van Dyke was 298. The population has grown in recent decades, in line with the population of the Virgin Islands, its recorded population in 1991 was 140. The island has a young population with nearly one-half of residents under the age of 35 and 70% under the age of 50. Jost Van Dyke receives numerous visitors; the island is accessible by private boats and ferry service from Tortola, Saint Thomas, Saint John.
The most frequent destination is Great Harbour. The beach strip around the harbour is lined with small restaurants. Since the late 1960s, Foxy's Bar in Great Harbour has been a popular stop for Caribbean boaters. Foxy's and the other bars in Great Harbour now host a modest crowd year-round and are filled with thousands of partiers on New Year's Eve. Great Harbour is one of the busiest ports in the BVI: in 2008, nearly 7,000 boats cleared through the island's port. Today and yachting tourism is the mainstay of the economy. Located in nearby White Bay is the Soggy Dollar Bar, another famous beach bar on the island, it is reputedly the birthplace of the popular drink known as the Painkiller. The Soggy Dollar bar is appropriat
