Black Masters A Free Family Of Color In The Old South

Author : Michael P. Johnson,James L. Roark
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 440 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 1986-04-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393245486

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Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South by Michael P. Johnson,James L. Roark Pdf

"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.

Author : Larry Koger
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2011-11-18
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786469314

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Black Slaveowners by Larry Koger Pdf

Most Americans, both black and white, believe that slavery was a system maintained by whites to exploit blacks, but this authoritative study reveals the extent to which African Americans played a significant role as slave masters. Examining South Carolina's diverse population of African-American slaveowners, the book demonstrates that free African Americans widely embraced slavery as a viable economic system and that they--like their white counterparts--exploited the labor of slaves on their farms and in their businesses. Drawing on the federal census, wills, mortgage bills of sale, tax returns, and newspaper advertisements, the author reveals the nature of African-American slaveholding, its complexity, and its rationales. He describes how some African-American slave masters had earned their freedom but how many others--primarily mulattoes born of free parents--were unfamiliar with slavery's dehumanization.

Author : Eric Anderson,Alfred A. Moss, Jr.
Publisher : LSU Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1991-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0807116912

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The Facts of Reconstruction by Eric Anderson,Alfred A. Moss, Jr. Pdf

Thirty years after the publication of John Hope Franklin’s influential interpretative essay Reconstruction: After the Civil War, ten distinguished scholars have contributed to a new appraisal of Reconstruction scholarship. Recognizing Professor Franklin’s major contributions to the study of the Reconstruction era, their work of analysis and review has been dedicated to him. Although most of the contributors studied with John Hope Franklin, The Facts of Reconstruction is not a festschrift, at least not the conventional sense. The book does not offer a comprehensive assessment of Franklin’s remarkably wide-ranging work in southern and Afro-American history, but instead engages his influential interpretation of Reconstruction. The essays in The Facts of Reconstruction focus upon questions raised in Reconstruction: After the Civil War. Was southern white intransigence the decisive influence in Presidential Reconstruction? What as the role of violence in southern “redemption”? How successful were the educational experiments of the Reconstruction era? Why did southern Republicans fail to build an effective coalition capable of surviving the pressure of racism? In addition, several essays discuss questions not directly addressed in Franklin’s book, since his pathbreaking work indirectly stimulated study in a variety of new areas. For example, contributors to The Facts of Reconstruction examine the ante-bellum origins of Reconstruction, evaluate the development of racial segregation during the late nineteenth century, analyze the political and legal ideas behind the Reconstruction debates, and study the prospering minority among blacks. Representing a variety of perspectives, the authors have sought to follow John Hope Franklin’s admonition that Reconstruction should not be used as “a mirror of ourselves.” If they have succeeded, this book in honor of a profound scholar and inspiring teacher will provoke new discussion about “the facts of Reconstruction.”

Author : Michael P Johnson,James L. Roark
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2016-08-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469621487

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No Chariot Let Down by Michael P Johnson,James L. Roark Pdf

These thirty-four letters, written by members of the William Ellison family, comprise the only sustained correspondence by a free Afro-American family in the late antebellum South. Born a slave, Ellison was freed in 1816, set up a cotton gin business, and by his death in 1861, he owned sixty-three slaves and was the wealthiest free black in South Carolina. Although the early letters are indistinguishable from those of white contemporaries, the later correspondence is preoccupied with proof of their free status.

Author : Calvin Dill Wilson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 40 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2022-05-15
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1387958119

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Black Masters by Calvin Dill Wilson Pdf

"Wilson finds that there were about 6,200 colored slave-holders in the days of yore, and that these 'Black Masters' owned some 18,000 slaves." - The African Abroad (1913) "An extremely interesting article." -Albany Law Journal (1905) "While doing research on black slaveholders early in this century, Calvin Dill Wilson discovered further evidence of William Ellison's reputation for harshness." Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South (1984) "In rural Virginia and Maryland also there were free colored slaveholders in considerable numbers." -American Negro Slavery (2013) "Calvin Dill Wilson is a writer of prominence for magazines." -Harry Probasco, U.S. House of Representatives Hearing, 1918 It is a fact that African-Americans owned slaves in the South before the Civil War, but few people seem to know it. From Calvin Dill Wilson's short 19-page book "Black Masters" we learn that wealthy free African-Americans bought and sold members of their own race just as did the Southern white planter; African-Americans, once slaves and freed by their white masters, became slave-owners, themselves. "To judge from all that is known on the subject, we may assume that the only thing that prevented the great majority of colored people from buying and trading in one another, was, in addition to the law in some States, their lack of means," according to Watson's Magazine (1913). In introducing his short work, Wilson writes: "The most singular and dramatic aspect of slavery in the United States was the occasional ownership of bondsmen by free blacks. Historically, the facts are obscure, little known and difficult to trace; this phase is overlooked by historians, so far as I am aware, and is lost from the memories of most people of this generation..."

Author : Loren Schweninger
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 1990
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0252066340

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Black Property Owners in the South, 1790-1915 by Loren Schweninger Pdf

Property ownership has been a traditional means for African Americans to gain recognition and enter the mainstream of American life. This landmark study documents this significant, but often overlooked, aspect of the black experience from the late eighteenth century to World War I.

Author : William J. Cooper Jr.,Thomas E. Terrill
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Page : 504 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2008-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780742563995

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The American South by William J. Cooper Jr.,Thomas E. Terrill Pdf

In The American South: A History, Fourth Edition, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the South from the history of the United States. The authors' analysis underscores the complex interaction between the South as a distinct region and the South as an inescapable part of America. Cooper and Terrill show how the resulting tension has often propelled section and nation toward collision. In supporting their thesis, the authors draw on the tremendous amount of profoundly new scholarship in Southern history. Each volume includes a substantial biographical essay—completely updated for this edition—which provides the reader with a guide to literature on the history of the South. Coverage now includes the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, up-to-date analysis of the persistent racial divisions in the region, and the South's unanticipated role in the 2008 presidential primaries.

Author : Barbara Krauthamer
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469607108

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Black Slaves, Indian Masters by Barbara Krauthamer Pdf

Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South

Author : William L. Richter
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 540 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2009-08-20
Category : History
ISBN : 0810870002

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The A to Z of the Old South by William L. Richter Pdf

Being considerably different from other regions of the country, most notably regarding its fervent practice of slavery, the land south of the Mason-Dixon line, because of slavery, enjoyed an exceptional prominence in politics, and after the invention of the cotton gin, a high degree of prosperity. However, also because of slavery, it was alienated from the rest of the nation, attempted to secede from the union, and was forced back in only after it lost the Civil War. Numerous cross-referenced entries on prominent individuals, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Robert E. Lee, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as others on policies of the time that have since slipped into oblivion are all covered in this book. Economic, social and religious backgrounds trace the seemingly inevitable path to secession, war, and defeat. This reference also includes an introductory essay, a chronology, and a bibliography of the epoch.

Author : William L. Richter
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 593 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2013-02-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780810879157

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Historical Dictionary of the Old South by William L. Richter Pdf

Historical Dictionary of the Old South, Second Edition covers the history of the Old South through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The cross-referenced dictionary section has over 600 cross referenced dictionary entries on politics, culture, and the economy of the Old South. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Old South.

Author : Oxford University Press
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2010-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199808366

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Free People of Color: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide by Oxford University Press Pdf

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated. This ebook is just one of many articles from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Atlantic History, a continuously updated and growing online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through the scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of Atlantic History, the study of the transnational interconnections between Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, particularly in the early modern and colonial period. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

Author : Edward Ball
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2017-10-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9781466897496

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Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball Pdf

Fifteen years after its hardcover debut, the FSG Classics reissue of the celebrated work of narrative nonfiction that won the National Book Award and changed the American conversation about race, with a new preface by the author The Ball family hails from South Carolina—Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to four thousand black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves. Part historical narrative, part oral history, part personal story of investigation and catharsis, Slaves in the Family is, in the words of Pat Conroy, "a work of breathtaking generosity and courage, a magnificent study of the complexity and strangeness and beauty of the word ‘family.'"

Author : Randy J. Sparks
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780674495166

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Africans in the Old South by Randy J. Sparks Pdf

The Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in history, yet most of its stories are lost. Randy Sparks examines the few remaining reconstructed experiences of West Africans who lived in the South between 1740 and 1860. Their stories highlight the diversity of struggles that confronted every African who arrived on American shores.

Author : Billy D. Higgins
Publisher : University of Arkansas Press
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : African American pioneers
ISBN : 1610754069

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Stranger and a Sojourner:passage Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontier Arkansas (c) by Billy D. Higgins Pdf

Author : Carol Bleser
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1992-09-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190207694

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In Joy and in Sorrow by Carol Bleser Pdf

In Joy and in Sorrow brings together some of the finest historians of the South in a sweeping exploration of the meaning of the family in this troubled region. In their vast canvas of the Victorian South, the authors explore the private lives of Senators, wealthy planters, and the belles of high society, along with the humblest slaves and sharecroppers, both white and black. Stretching from the height of the antebellum South's pride and power through the chaos of the Civil War and Reconstruction to the end of the century, these essays uncover hidden worlds of the Southern family, worlds of love and duty--and of incest, miscegenation, and insanity. Featuring an introduction by C. Vann Woodward, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Mary Chesnut's Civil War, and a foreword by Anne Firor Scott, author of The Southern Lady, this work presents an outstanding array of historians: Eugene Genovese, Catherine Clinton, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Carol Bleser, Drew Faust, James Roark, Michael Johnson, Brenda Stevenson, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Jacqueline Jones, Peter Bardaglio, and more. They probe the many facets of Southern domestic life, from the impact of the Civil War on a prominent Southern marriage to the struggles of postwar sharecropper families. One author turns the pages of nineteenth century cookbooks, exploring what they tell us about home life, housekeeping, and entertaining without slaves after the Civil War. Other essays portray the relationship between a Victorian father and his devoted son, as well as the private writings of a long-suffering Southern wife. In Joy and in Sorrow offers a fascinating look into the tangled reality of Southern life before, during, and after the Civil War. With this collection of essays, editor Carol Bleser provides a powerful new way of understanding this most self-consciously distinct region. In Joy and in Sorrow will appeal to everyone interested in marriage and the family, the problems of gender and slavery, as well as in the history of the South, old and new.