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Author Myers, Amrita Chakrabarti.

Title Forging freedom : Black women and the pursuit of liberty in antebellum Charleston / Amrita Chakrabarti Myers.

Publication Info. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2011]
©2011

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xi, 267 pages) : illustrations.
text file
Series Gender and American culture
Gender & American culture.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Introduction: imagining freedom in the slave South -- City of contrasts: Charleston before the Civil War -- A way out of no way: Black women and manumission -- To survive and thrive: race, sex, and waged labor in the city -- The currency of citizenship: property ownership and Black female freedom -- A tale of two women: the lives of Cecille Cogdell and Sarah Sanders -- A fragile freedom: the story of Margaret Bettingall and her daughters -- Epilogue: the continuing search for freedom.
Summary "For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. In this deeply researched social history, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers analyzes the ways in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom. Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, and legal standing. Examining both those who were officially manumitted and those who lived as free persons but lacked official documentation, Myers reveals that free black women filed lawsuits and petitions, acquired property (including slaves), entered into contracts, paid taxes, earned wages, attended schools, and formed familial alliances with wealthy and powerful men, black and white--all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners"--Provided by publisher.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject African American women -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History -- 19th century.
African American women.
South Carolina -- Charleston.
History.
Chronological Term 19th century
Subject African American women -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
Social conditions.
African American women -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
United States.
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- 19th century.
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Freed persons -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History -- 19th century.
Freed persons.
Freed persons -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation.
Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Antislavery movements.
African Americans -- History -- 1863-1877.
African Americans.
Chronological Term 1863-1877
Subject Charleston (S.C.) -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
Charleston (S.C.) -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century.
Chronological Term 1775-1899
Genre/Form Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Myers, Amrita Chakrabarti. Forging freedom. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, ©2011 9780807835050 (DLC) 2011015961 (OCoLC)711043275
ISBN 9780807869093 (electronic book)
0807869090 (electronic book)
9781469602592 (electronic book)
1469602598 (electronic book)
9780807835050 (cloth ; alkaline paper)
0807835056 (cloth ; alkaline paper)