Some of the successes of African Americans in the period 1800-1860 include:

• Mathematician and surveyor Benjamin Banneker published an almanac and helped lay out the new capital in the District of Columbia.
• Joshua Johnston won praise for his portraiture
• Merchant Paul Cuffee acquired a small fortune from his business enterprises.
• Throughout the North, largely unknown men and women founded schools, mutual-benefit organizations and fellowship groups, often called Free African Societies. Discriminated against white Protestants, they formed their own congregations and new religious denomination – the African Methodist Church, headed by Bishop Richard Allen.
• The Ohio Constitution outlawed slavery. It also prohibited free blacks from voting. The Ohio Legislature passed the first “Black Laws” which placed other restrictions on free African Americans living in the state.
• The Lewis and Clark Expedition explored newly purchased Louisiana and the Pacific Northwest. An African American, York, is prominent in the expedition.
• Great Britain abolishes the importation of enslaved Africans into its colonial possessions.
• The United States government abolished the importation of enslaved Africans, however, the ban is widely ignored. Between 1808 and 1860, approximately 250,000 blacks are illegally imported into the United States. Slave trading within the states (the domestic trade) continues until the end of the Civil War.
• Previously independent African American schools become part of the Boston public school system.
• Richard Allen officially created the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first wholly African American church denomination in the United States.
• Henry Blair is the first African American to receive a patent from the U.S. government. He develops a mechanical corn planter.
• Dr. James McCune Smith of New York City graduates from the Medical School of the University of Glasgow, and becomes the first African American to hold a medical degree.
• Frederick Douglass lead a successful campaign against Rhode Island’s proposed Dorr Constitution which continue the prohibition on black voting rights.
• Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and began her efforts to rescue enslaved people.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which becomes a best selling book and a major influence on the Anti-Slavery Movement.

In what endeavors did they not succeed?

• There were several uprisings that involved taking revenge on their white captors, were not successful.
• Northern blacks were usually forbidden to vote, attend public schools, or sit next to whites in churches.
• The federal government did not allow free African Americans to work for the postal service; claim public lands, or holds a U.S. passport.