Richard Kilbourne has produced a comprehensive study of the credit system in one Louisiana parish in the antebellum and postbellum periods of the Civil War. East Feliciana Parish was important in terms of both population and the large number of slaves. This book s primary concern is the role of slave property in collateralizing credit relationships and planter perceptions regarding slaves as financial assets.A thorough survey of parish mortgage records and other manuscript collections led to the conclusion that most credit relationships, collateralized and uncollateralized, were grounded in...