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  €  Email:  [log in to unmask]
> Personal Website:  http://www.stephanaschwartz.com  €   Schwartzreport:
> http://www.schwartzreport.net    147 Pinewood Road, Virginia Beach, Virginia
> 22932  €  Voice:  757.422.4549
>
>
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html