Black litigants in the antebellum American South / Kimberly M. Welch.

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2018]

E185.92 .W45 2018

9781469636436 hardcover ; alkaline paper
1469636433 hardcover ; alkaline paper
9781469636443 paperback ; alkaline paper
1469636441 paperback ; alkaline paper
9781469636450 electronic book

xiv, 306 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

(OCoLC)990778129

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Purchased from the income of the Murray Fund