Black Demographic Data, 1790-1860
Black Demographic Data, 1790-1860

Author: Clayton E. Cramer

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 1997-03-11

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13:

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An excellent resource on the changing population distribution of antebellum Black Americans, this book covers census data by region and state. Two-thirds of the book consists of tables and graphs providing dimensional representations of black populations, both free and slave, in pre-Civil War America. The book opens with a discussion of the limitations of the census data, then goes on to provide an overview of the progress of manumission, abolition, and restrictions on black migration. The book also examines the 1840 census controversy. It will be a particularly useful resource for scholars concerned with changes in the black population.

Freedom's Port
Freedom's Port

Author: Christopher Phillips

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780252066184

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Baltimore's African-American population--nearly 27,000 strong and more than 90 percent free in 1860--was the largest in the nation at that time. Christopher Phillips's Freedom's Port, the first book-length study of an urban black population in the antebellum Upper South, chronicles the growth and development of that community. He shows how it grew from a transient aggregate of individuals, many fresh from slavery, to a strong, overwhelmingly free community less wracked by class and intraracial divisions than were other cities. Almost from the start, Phillips states, Baltimore's African Americans forged their own freedom and actively defended it--in a state that maintained slavery and whose white leadership came to resent the liberties the city's black people had achieved.

Black Slaveowners
Black Slaveowners

Author: Larry Koger

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2011-12-02

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0786469315

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Drawing on the federal census, wills, mortgage bills of sale, tax returns, and newspaper advertisements, this authoritative study describes the nature of African-American slaveholding, its complexity, and its rationales. It reveals how some African-American slave masters had earned their freedom and how some free Blacks purchased slaves for their own use. The book provides a fresh perspective on slavery in the antebellum South and underscores the importance of African Americans in the history of American slavery. The book also paints a picture of the complex social dynamics between free and enslaved Blacks, and between Black and white slaveowners. It illuminates the motivations behind African-American slaveholding--including attempts to create or maintain independence, to accumulate wealth, and to protect family members--and sheds light on the harsh realities of slavery for both Black masters and Black slaves. • BLACK SLAVEOWNERS--Shows how some African Americans became slave masters • MOTIVATIONS FOR SLAVEHOLDING--Highlights the motivations behind African-American slaveholding • SOCIAL DYNAMICS--Sheds light on the complex social dynamics between free and enslaved Blacks • ANEBELLUM SOUTH--Provides a perspective on slavery in the antebellum South

Pamphlets of Protest
Pamphlets of Protest

Author: Richard Newman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1136687254

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Between the Revolution and the Civil War, African-American writing became a prominent feature of both black protest culture and American public life. Although denied a political voice in national affairs, black authors produced a wide range of literature to project their views into the public sphere. Autobiographies and personal narratives told of slavery's horrors, newspapers railed against racism in its various forms, and poetry, novellas, reprinted sermons and speeches told tales of racial uplift and redemption. The editors examine the important and previously overlooked pamphleteering tradition and offer new insights into how and why the printed word became so important to black activists during this critical period. An introduction by the editors situates the pamphlets in their various social, economic and political contexts. This is the first book to capture the depth of black print culture before the Civil War by examining perhaps its most important form, the pamphlet.

Blacks in Colonial America
Blacks in Colonial America

Author: Oscar Reiss

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2006-12-11

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0786429577

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By the time of the American Revolution, blacks made up 20 percent of the colonial population. Early in colonial history, many blacks who came to America were indentured servants who served out their contracts and then settled in the colonies as free men. Over time, however, more and more blacks arrived as slaves, and the position of blacks in colonial society suffered precipitous decline. This book discusses the lives of blacks, both slave and free, as they struggled to make homes for themselves among the white European settlers in the New World. The author thoroughly examines colonial slavery and the laws supporting it (as early as 1686, for example, New Jersey had laws demanding the return of fugitive slaves) as well as the emancipation movement, active from the beginning of the slave trade. Other topics include blacks and the practice of Christianity in the colonies, and the service of blacks in the Revolution.

Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South
Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South

Author: Michael P. Johnson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1986-04-17

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 0393245489

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"A remarkably fine work of creative scholarship." —C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books In 1860, when four million African Americans were enslaved, a quarter-million others, including William Ellison, were "free people of color." But Ellison was remarkable. Born a slave, his experience spans the history of the South from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. In a day when most Americans, black and white, worked the soil, barely scraping together a living, Ellison was a cotton-gin maker—a master craftsman. When nearly all free blacks were destitute, Ellison was wealthy and well-established. He owned a large plantation and more slaves than all but the richest white planters. While Ellison was exceptional in many respects, the story of his life sheds light on the collective experience of African Americans in the antebellum South to whom he remained bound by race. His family history emphasizes the fine line separating freedom from slavery.