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In 1830 there were 319,599 free Negroes in the United States.' Between the years 1830 and 1840, these Negroes were forced to organize into groups of various kinds because of the conditions which faced them in the different sections of the United States. This situation was due mainly to the strict enforcement of rigid laws which limited the freedom of the free Negro-laws were made partly because of the fear on the part of the whites of such servile insurrections as Gabriel's insurrection in Virginia in 1800, the Denmark Vesey insurrection in South Carolina in 1822, and the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia in 1831. Other reasons which forced Negroes to organize were the efforts of the American Colonization Society to remove them from this country, antipathy towards them on the part of most whites and slaves, the activities of the slave dealers who sent many free persons into slavery and the idea prevalent among whites that they were an indolent and shiftless group. As a result, several types of organizations flourished among them. As early as 1787, a beneficial society was organized in Philadelphia. It seems to have been the first organized society in Negro life. The birth of this society was due to the activities of
Dorothy B. Porter (Thu,) studied this question.