Black litigants in the antebellum American South
By: Kimberly M. Welch
Series: The John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture; John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 306
ISBN-13: 9781469636436
Subjects: Social conditions; African Americans; Actions and defenses; History
Description: "This work explores free and enslaved African Americans' involvement in a broad range of civil actions in the Natchez district of Mississippi and Louisiana between 1800 and 1860. Though the antebellum southern courts have long been understood as institutions supporting the class interests and the racial ideologies of the planter and merchant elite, Kimberly Welch shows how black litigants found ways to advocate for themselves even within a racist system. To understand their success, Welch argues that we must understand the language that they used--the language of property, in particular. Because private property and slavery were fundamentally linked in the minds of slave owners, the term 'property' contained a group of metaphors that underwrote a set of white, male claims about autonomy, membership, citizenship, and personhood"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: A bind of their own making; title: Telling stories; title: The rhetoric of reputation; title: Advocacy; title: Your word is your bond; title: The sanctity of property; title: Subjects of selfhood; title: For family and property; title: Afterword: From property to Plessy; title: Appendix: Researching black litigants.