-----Original Message-----
From: Stephan A. Schwartz [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 10:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Free Black slave ownership
Thanks, Jon. Very good points, which will add nuance. I do know Berlin,
that's where I started.
-- Stephan
on 5/12/02 9:36 AM, Jon Kukla at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Re question 2 and on the assumption that your gaze may extend beyond the
> boundaries of the Old Dominion.: I've just been reading Carl Brasseaux's
essay
> on "Creoles of Color in Louisiana's Bayou Country" in connection with my
book
> on
> the Louisiana Purchase - He offers very reliable figures on slave-holding
by
> free people of color and raises the question and attempts to gauge the
degree
> to
> which _some_ of their slave purchases were done for the purpose of
manumitting
> or taking care of family members - while others were for laborers and with
> attitudes that paralleled their white planter neighbors. Of course
Louisiana
> had
> a different legal approach to manumission than Virginia; the Louisiana law
&
> practice is well described in the late Kim Hanger's essay on The Origins
of
> NEw
> Orleans's Free People of Color - Both essays are found in James H. Dormon,
ed
> Creoles of Color of the Gulf South (Knoxville: Univ of Tenn Press1996)
along
> with other good things.
> I trust you're familiar with Ira Berlin's Slaves without Masters (New
York:
> Oxford 1974) and Berlin's more recent big book (title of which eludes me
until
> the coffee kicks in........) Brasseaux (who edits the journal Louisiana
> History) says good things about H. E. Sterkx's The Free Negro in
Ante-Bellum
> Louisiana (Rutherford NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press 1976
>
> Jon Kukla
>
> "Stephan A. Schwartz" wrote:
>
>> I am doing research for a major national magazine piece I have been asked
to
>> do which will touch on the issue of reparations. In the course of my
work,
>> I have come across the following volume:
>>
>> Black Masters. A Family of Color in the Old South, Michael P. Johnson and
>> James L. Roak New York: Norton, 1984)
>>
>> Two questions for the list:
>>
>> 1.) Although the book seems sound, and comes from a reputable publisher,
>> does anyone know any reason I should be leery of the research it uses (I
am
>> more interested in the research than the arguments);
>>
>> 2.) Can anyone provide any additional material on free black ownership
of
>> slaves.
>>
>> I am not writing a polemical piece and am not interested in arguing a
>> partisan position. My interest is solely factual accuracy, so that I
give
>> an honest presentation of the history here. Since this is such an
explosive
>> subject, I want to make sure I am on firm ground, and would appreciate
any
>> input from other members of this list.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> -- Stephan
>>
>> Stephan A. Schwartz EUR Email: [log in to unmask]
>> Personal Website: http://www.stephanaschwartz.com EUR Schwartzreport:
>> http://www.schwartzreport.net 147 Pinewood Road, Virginia Beach,
Virginia
>> 22932 EUR Voice: 757.422.4549
>>
>>
>>
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