Stevens Memorial Library (North Andover)

Between slavery and freedom, free people of color in America from settlement to the Civil War, Julie Winch

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

Between slavery and freedom

bibliography

863801781

Julie Winch

The African American history series

free people of color in America from settlement to the Civil War

Explores the complex world of those people of African birth or descent who occupied the "borderlands" between slavery and freedom in the 350 years from the founding of the first European colonies in what is today the United States to the start of the Civil War. However they had navigated their way out of bondage--through flight, through military service, through self-purchase, through the working of the law in different times and in different places, or because they were the offspring of parents who were themselves free--they were determined to enjoy the same rights and liberties that white people enjoyed. In a concise narrative and selected primary documents, noted historian Julie Winch shows the struggle of black people to gain and maintain their liberty and lay claim to freedom in its fullest sense. Refusing to be relegated to the margins of American society and languish in poverty and ignorance, they repeatedly challenged their white neighbors to live up to the promises of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.--From publisher description

Introduction : "On liberty's borderlands -- Property or persons: black freedom in colonial America, 1513-1770 -- In liberty's cause: black freedom in revolutionary America, 1770-1790 -- Race, liberty and citizenship in the new nation, 1790-1820 -- "We will have our rights": redefining black freedom, 1820-1850 -- "No rights which the white man was bound to respect": black freedom and black citizenship, 1850-1861 -- Epilogue : black freedom, white freedom