African American Slavery and Disability
African American Slavery and Disability

Author: Dea H. Boster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1136275312

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Disability is often mentioned in discussions of slave health, mistreatment and abuse, but constructs of how "able" and "disabled" bodies influenced the institution of slavery has gone largely overlooked. This volume uncovers a history of disability in African American slavery from the primary record, analyzing how concepts of race, disability, and power converged in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. Slaves with physical and mental impairments often faced unique limitations and conditions in their diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation as property. Slaves with disabilities proved a significant challenge to white authority figures, torn between the desire to categorize them as different or defective and the practical need to incorporate their "disorderly" bodies into daily life. Being physically "unfit" could sometimes allow slaves to escape the limitations of bondage and oppression, and establish a measure of self-control. Furthermore, ideas about and reactions to disability—appearing as social construction, legal definition, medical phenomenon, metaphor, or masquerade—highlighted deep struggles over bodies in bondage in antebellum America.

Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860
Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860

Author: Tommy Bogger

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780813916903

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Very few studies of free blacks have attempted to interpret the actions and events affecting them from their own perspectives. At the same time. the search for understanding the antebellum black experience in the South usually has centered on slaves. In Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860, Tommy L. Bogger portrays lives somewhere between slavery and freedom. A free black community of skilled artisans and semi-skilled laborers emerged in Norfolk around 1800. Some free blacks earned the respect of leading white businessmen, and many enjoyed easy access to credit and steady employment. They showed no hesitation in suing recalcitrant debtors -- black or white -- and until 1805 they could count on the cooperation of court officials in helping them to collect. But from then on. free blacks experienced a steady decline in status that continued throughout the antebellum period. Legal restraints were placed on them at the same time that Norfolk's economy stagnated. and white immigrants arriving in the 1830s entered fields once monopolized by blacks. By the 1850s the free black community was sunk in hopelessness and despair. Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860 discusses the active roles that blacks played in creating their community, contradicting prevalent images of free blacks at the mercy of whites. While previous studies of Virginia's free blacks have focused on Richmond or Petersburg, developments in Norfolk's free black community also merit analysis. Norfolk also offers the advantage of a population large enough to provide a reliable data base yet small enough to preserve the stories of individual lives. Those interested in African-American history, Virginia history, orthe South in general will find this book a valuable new resource.

Freedom Seekers
Freedom Seekers

Author: Damian Alan Pargas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-11-18

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1107179556

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Examines the experiences of runaway slaves in North America, conceptually dividing the continent into three distinct 'spaces of freedom'.

The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860
The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860

Author: John Hope Franklin

Publisher:

Published: 1969

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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John Hope Franklin has devoted his professional life to the study of the American South and African Americans. Originally published in 1943 by UNC Press, The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860 was his first book on the subject. As Franklin shows, freed blacks in the antebellum South did not enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Even in North Carolina, reputedly more liberal than most southern states, discriminatory laws became so harsh that some voluntarily returned to slavery. When Franklin wrote The Free Negro in North Carolina, the subject of free blacks had received scant attention from scholars. Since then, however, the topic has generated a great deal of interest. In a new foreword to this edition, Franklin surveys the scholarship on free blacks that has appeared since the original publication of his study, and he reaffirms the importance of understanding the variations and complexities of the African American experience.

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