Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Slavery

The end of slavery in the United States inspired conflicting visions of the future for all Americans in the nineteenth century, black and white, slave and free. The black child became a figure upon which people projected their hopes and fears about slavery's abolition. As a member of the first generation of African Americans raised in freedom, the black child--freedom's child--offered up the possibility that blacks might soon enjoy the same privileges as whites: landownership, equality, autonomy. Yet for most white southerners, this vision was unwelcome, even frightening. Many northerners,...

In this intriguing study, Robert Nowatzki reveals the unexpected relationships between blackface entertainment and antislavery sentiment in the United States and Britain. He contends that the ideological ambiguity of both phenomena enabled the similarities between early minstrelsy and abolitionism in their depictions of African Americans, as well as their appropriations of each other's rhetoric, imagery, sentiment, and characterization. Because the antislavery movement had stronger support in Britain and an association with the middle classes, Nowatzki argues, its conflicts with blackface...

When wealthy Mississippi cotton planter Isaac Ross died in 1836, his will decreed that his plantation, Prospect Hill, should be liquidated and the proceeds from the sale be used to pay for his slaves' passage to the newly established colony of Liberia in western Africa. Ross's heirs contested the will for more than a decade, prompting a deadly revolt in which a group of slaves burned Ross's mansion to the ground. But the will was ultimately upheld. The slaves then emigrated to their new home, where they battled the local tribes and built vast plantations with Greek Revival-style mansions...

One of the most important books published on slave society, Stolen Childhood focuses on the millions of children and youth enslaved in 19th-century America. This enlarged and revised edition reflects the abundance of new scholarship on slavery that has emerged in the 15 years since the first edition. While the structure of the book remains the same, Wilma King has expanded its scope to include the international dimension with a new chapter on the transatlantic trade in African children, and the book's geographic boundaries now embrace slave-born children in the North. She includes data...

"Places of the Underground Railroad: A Geographical Guide" presents an overview of the various sites that comprised this unique road to freedom, with entries chosen to represent all regions of the United States and Canada. Where most works on the Underground Railroad focus on the people involved, this unique guide explores the intricacies of travel that allowed the "conductors" to carry out the tasks entrusted to them. It presents an accurate picture of just where the Underground Railroad was and how it operated, including routes and itineraries and connections between the various Railroad...

The practice of African slavery has been described as the United States's most shameful sin. Undoing this practice was a long, complex struggle that lasted centuries and ultimately drove America to a bitter civil war.

After an introduction that places the United States's form of slavery into a global, historical perspective, author T. Adams Upchurch shows how an ancient custom evolved into the American South's peculiar institution. The gripping narrative will fascinate readers, while excerpts from primary documents provide glimpses into the minds of key abolitionists and proslavery...