Family or Freedom: People of Color in the Antebellum South - Hardcover

by Emily West (Author)

In the antebellum South, the presence of free people of color was problematic to the white population. Not only were they possible assistants to enslaved people and potential members of the labor force; their very existence undermined popular justifications for slavery. It is no surprise that, by the end of the Civil War, nine Southern states had enacted legal provisions for the "voluntary" enslavement of free blacks. What is surprising to modern sensibilities and perplexing to scholars is that

Author Biography

Emily West is lecturer in history at the University of Reading and author of Chains of Love: Slave Couples in Antebellum South Carolina.