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Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture)

Amazon.com Price:  $39.93 (as of 06/05/2019 06:47 PST- Details)

Description

In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued to put into effect the terms of their contracts, recuperate unpaid debts, recover back wages, and claim damages for assault. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. And they incessantly won. Based on new research conducted in courthouse basements and storage sheds in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, Kimberly Welch draws on over 1,000 examples of free and enslaved black litigants who used the courts to give protection to their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society.

To remember their success, Welch argues that we will have to remember the language that they used–the language of property, in particular–to make their claims recognizable and persuasive to others and to link their status as owner to the ideal of a free, autonomous citizen. In telling their stories, Welch reveals a prior to now unknown world of black legal activity, one that may be consequential for understanding the long history of race, rights, and civic inclusion in The us.

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