Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This introduction provides a historical background on the transition of African Americans who worked on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from slave labor to wage labor. It establishes a sense of place ...
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This introduction provides a historical background on the transition of African Americans who worked on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from slave labor to wage labor. It establishes a sense of place and offers a brief history of the society and economy of the Eastern Shore between settlement and the American Revolution. It discusses the role of the waterways of the Delmarva Peninsula, whose regional economy was tied to shipping and boating, in the economic and social development of the Eastern Shore from settlement to the present. It also considers how the Eastern Shore made the transition from tobacco production to mixed agriculture, along with the role played by slave labor in the trend toward agricultural diversification. Finally, it examines how Eastern Shore slaves got their first meaningful chance to escape slavery and how the integration of the Eastern Shore in the global grain market contributed to the rise of black freedom.Less
This introduction provides a historical background on the transition of African Americans who worked on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from slave labor to wage labor. It establishes a sense of place and offers a brief history of the society and economy of the Eastern Shore between settlement and the American Revolution. It discusses the role of the waterways of the Delmarva Peninsula, whose regional economy was tied to shipping and boating, in the economic and social development of the Eastern Shore from settlement to the present. It also considers how the Eastern Shore made the transition from tobacco production to mixed agriculture, along with the role played by slave labor in the trend toward agricultural diversification. Finally, it examines how Eastern Shore slaves got their first meaningful chance to escape slavery and how the integration of the Eastern Shore in the global grain market contributed to the rise of black freedom.
Bernard L. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469653471
- eISBN:
- 9781469653495
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653471.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Hampton Roads to Assateague Island, Virginia's Eastern Shore is a distinctly southern place with an exceptionally ...
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Nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Hampton Roads to Assateague Island, Virginia's Eastern Shore is a distinctly southern place with an exceptionally southern taste. Four centuries of encounter, imagination, and invention continue to shape the foodways of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, melding influences from Indigenous peoples, European migrants, enslaved and free West Africans, and more recent newcomers. Herman reveals how local ingredients and the cooks who have prepared them for the table have developed a distinctly American terroir--the flavors of a place experienced through its culinary and storytelling traditions. This terroir flourishes even as it confronts challenges from climate change, declining fish populations, and farming monoculture. Herman reveals this resilience through the recipes and celebrations that hold meaning, not just for those who live there but for all those folks who sit at their tables--and other tables near and far. Blending personal observation, history, memories of harvests and feasts, and recipes, Herman tells of life along the Eastern Shore through the eyes of its growers, watermen, oyster and clam farmers, foragers, church cooks, restaurant owners, and everyday residents.Less
Nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Hampton Roads to Assateague Island, Virginia's Eastern Shore is a distinctly southern place with an exceptionally southern taste. Four centuries of encounter, imagination, and invention continue to shape the foodways of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, melding influences from Indigenous peoples, European migrants, enslaved and free West Africans, and more recent newcomers. Herman reveals how local ingredients and the cooks who have prepared them for the table have developed a distinctly American terroir--the flavors of a place experienced through its culinary and storytelling traditions. This terroir flourishes even as it confronts challenges from climate change, declining fish populations, and farming monoculture. Herman reveals this resilience through the recipes and celebrations that hold meaning, not just for those who live there but for all those folks who sit at their tables--and other tables near and far. Blending personal observation, history, memories of harvests and feasts, and recipes, Herman tells of life along the Eastern Shore through the eyes of its growers, watermen, oyster and clam farmers, foragers, church cooks, restaurant owners, and everyday residents.
Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195072389
- eISBN:
- 9780199787982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195072389.003.0037
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan ...
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Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan regrouped and public lynching increased, but the atrocities remained unchecked by the Roosevelt Administration. In 1931 and 1932, two horrific lynchings on Maryland's Eastern Shore prompted Mencken to write some of his strongest columns against the subject, resulting in the Baltimore Sun being censored and Mencken himself receiving death threats. Not to be deterred, Mencken joined the NAACP to campaign for the Costigan-Wagner Bill to put an end to lynching.Less
Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan regrouped and public lynching increased, but the atrocities remained unchecked by the Roosevelt Administration. In 1931 and 1932, two horrific lynchings on Maryland's Eastern Shore prompted Mencken to write some of his strongest columns against the subject, resulting in the Baltimore Sun being censored and Mencken himself receiving death threats. Not to be deterred, Mencken joined the NAACP to campaign for the Costigan-Wagner Bill to put an end to lynching.
Bernard L. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469653471
- eISBN:
- 9781469653495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653471.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This is a book about the taste of place and the styles and stories of cooking that define it. It is a book about how people talk about their lives and their histories through the stories that flow ...
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This is a book about the taste of place and the styles and stories of cooking that define it. It is a book about how people talk about their lives and their histories through the stories that flow from field, marsh, kitchen, and table. This is also a book about tradition—the human process of making sense and discovering invention through experience lived, remembered, imagined. This book contains recipes, recollections, instructions, and insights about a universe of food. It taps into local histories, natural histories, material histories, and oral histories. It is about discovery through the worlds we eat and absorb into our bodies and memories. Most of all it is a book about the stories people tell about what they eat and why it holds meaning—not just for them but for all those folks who sit at their table—and at other tables in other places near and far. It is a book about how the taste of place expresses a love of place. This book originates in a particular place, but it resonates with foodways far beyond its borders. The place in question is the Eastern Shore of Virginia.Less
This is a book about the taste of place and the styles and stories of cooking that define it. It is a book about how people talk about their lives and their histories through the stories that flow from field, marsh, kitchen, and table. This is also a book about tradition—the human process of making sense and discovering invention through experience lived, remembered, imagined. This book contains recipes, recollections, instructions, and insights about a universe of food. It taps into local histories, natural histories, material histories, and oral histories. It is about discovery through the worlds we eat and absorb into our bodies and memories. Most of all it is a book about the stories people tell about what they eat and why it holds meaning—not just for them but for all those folks who sit at their table—and at other tables in other places near and far. It is a book about how the taste of place expresses a love of place. This book originates in a particular place, but it resonates with foodways far beyond its borders. The place in question is the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book concludes with a summary of the topics discussed in each chapter. It considers emancipation in the early republic within the context of America's transition to a free labor system, as well ...
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This book concludes with a summary of the topics discussed in each chapter. It considers emancipation in the early republic within the context of America's transition to a free labor system, as well as how white Marylanders developed expectations for free labor and slavery that would last to and through the Civil War. It examines how the transition from slave labor to free labor on the Eastern Shore gave rise to a free African American community with more social layers than one might expect in a rural society. It also assesses the impact of commercial agriculture on the lives and attitudes of free African American workers, along with the laws enacted by Maryland to force free African Americans into wage dependence and deny them the right to rise above their hireling status. Finally, it shows that slaves and free African Americans did not act as a single “community” and that their interests diverged with the transition from slavery to freedom.Less
This book concludes with a summary of the topics discussed in each chapter. It considers emancipation in the early republic within the context of America's transition to a free labor system, as well as how white Marylanders developed expectations for free labor and slavery that would last to and through the Civil War. It examines how the transition from slave labor to free labor on the Eastern Shore gave rise to a free African American community with more social layers than one might expect in a rural society. It also assesses the impact of commercial agriculture on the lives and attitudes of free African American workers, along with the laws enacted by Maryland to force free African Americans into wage dependence and deny them the right to rise above their hireling status. Finally, it shows that slaves and free African Americans did not act as a single “community” and that their interests diverged with the transition from slavery to freedom.
Bernard L. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469653471
- eISBN:
- 9781469653495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653471.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The closing chapter pulls together the many strands of foodways that continue to define the Eastern Shore of Virginia as a distinct and distinctive terroir. The chapter begins with an African ...
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The closing chapter pulls together the many strands of foodways that continue to define the Eastern Shore of Virginia as a distinct and distinctive terroir. The chapter begins with an African American church menu and turns to a group of award-winning contemporary chefs for their reactions to the listed fare. Every menu is much more than the itemized listing it provides. Menus are invitations to invention through pairings and juxtapositions. They are a literature where individual items speak to the expertise of the cook and the expectations of the diner. Menus are the most optimistic of all literary forms. They are about art and gratification.Less
The closing chapter pulls together the many strands of foodways that continue to define the Eastern Shore of Virginia as a distinct and distinctive terroir. The chapter begins with an African American church menu and turns to a group of award-winning contemporary chefs for their reactions to the listed fare. Every menu is much more than the itemized listing it provides. Menus are invitations to invention through pairings and juxtapositions. They are a literature where individual items speak to the expertise of the cook and the expectations of the diner. Menus are the most optimistic of all literary forms. They are about art and gratification.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines the impact of economic recession on the wartime grain trade on the Eastern Shore in general and on rural free African Americans in particular. It first considers the response of ...
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This chapter examines the impact of economic recession on the wartime grain trade on the Eastern Shore in general and on rural free African Americans in particular. It first considers the response of planters to recession, such as joining the Maryland Agricultural Society, resettling in the Deep South, and selling surplus slaves to the new class of interstate slave traders. It shows that the economic crisis restricted trade and finance, resulting in unemployment, underemployment, and limited employment opportunities for free African Americans. Reduced wages and chronic underemployment forced many urban African Americans and their families to seek public assistance. The chapter also discusses the increase in racial violence during the period and how the recession affected the structure and development of African American neighborhoods.Less
This chapter examines the impact of economic recession on the wartime grain trade on the Eastern Shore in general and on rural free African Americans in particular. It first considers the response of planters to recession, such as joining the Maryland Agricultural Society, resettling in the Deep South, and selling surplus slaves to the new class of interstate slave traders. It shows that the economic crisis restricted trade and finance, resulting in unemployment, underemployment, and limited employment opportunities for free African Americans. Reduced wages and chronic underemployment forced many urban African Americans and their families to seek public assistance. The chapter also discusses the increase in racial violence during the period and how the recession affected the structure and development of African American neighborhoods.
Bernard L. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469653471
- eISBN:
- 9781469653495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653471.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the long arc of the modern oyster pie from its origins in 16th-century England to its place as a fallback mainstay of the Eastern Shore of Virginia diet. Through storytelling, ...
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This chapter explores the long arc of the modern oyster pie from its origins in 16th-century England to its place as a fallback mainstay of the Eastern Shore of Virginia diet. Through storytelling, oral history, documentary evidence, and recipes, it places oyster pie in the heyday of the oyster industry and the multitude of oyster recipes from the turn of the 20th century, many published in cookbooks and newspaper columns. The challenge embedded in pursuit of oyster pie is in negotiating the balance between those that were “ordinary” and those that were “precious.” With the archaeology of oyster pie sorted and recipes collected, the chapter turns to the creative work of contemporary chefs related to cuisine and terroir.Less
This chapter explores the long arc of the modern oyster pie from its origins in 16th-century England to its place as a fallback mainstay of the Eastern Shore of Virginia diet. Through storytelling, oral history, documentary evidence, and recipes, it places oyster pie in the heyday of the oyster industry and the multitude of oyster recipes from the turn of the 20th century, many published in cookbooks and newspaper columns. The challenge embedded in pursuit of oyster pie is in negotiating the balance between those that were “ordinary” and those that were “precious.” With the archaeology of oyster pie sorted and recipes collected, the chapter turns to the creative work of contemporary chefs related to cuisine and terroir.
Bernard L. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469653471
- eISBN:
- 9781469653495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653471.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter looks at the contemporary rise of Latin American foodways on the Eastern Shore of Virginia through the lens of an evolving terroir and cuisine. The chapter begins with an Eastern Shore ...
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This chapter looks at the contemporary rise of Latin American foodways on the Eastern Shore of Virginia through the lens of an evolving terroir and cuisine. The chapter begins with an Eastern Shore Guatemalan mutton barbacoa, pursues the narrative of Hog Island rare breed sheep associated with the natural and cultural history of Virginia's barrier islands, and concludes with how one family finds its own traditions, terroir, and cuisine in a new home.Less
This chapter looks at the contemporary rise of Latin American foodways on the Eastern Shore of Virginia through the lens of an evolving terroir and cuisine. The chapter begins with an Eastern Shore Guatemalan mutton barbacoa, pursues the narrative of Hog Island rare breed sheep associated with the natural and cultural history of Virginia's barrier islands, and concludes with how one family finds its own traditions, terroir, and cuisine in a new home.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines the employment opportunities that were available to free African Americans in the Eastern Shore's agricultural society. It first considers how the steady demand for wage labor ...
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This chapter examines the employment opportunities that were available to free African Americans in the Eastern Shore's agricultural society. It first considers how the steady demand for wage labor in various industries created opportunities for laborers and allowed many African Americans to seize the opportunities made available to them by an expanding labor market. It then challenges the notion that Maryland developed a “dual labor system” in the early nineteenth century, and instead argues that its labor system consisted of free, slave, and semifree workers. This “mixed labor system” is a more accurate reflection of the complexity of labor relations between planters and their former slaves during the period. The chapter concludes with a discussion of free African Americans' experience with wage work and freedom.Less
This chapter examines the employment opportunities that were available to free African Americans in the Eastern Shore's agricultural society. It first considers how the steady demand for wage labor in various industries created opportunities for laborers and allowed many African Americans to seize the opportunities made available to them by an expanding labor market. It then challenges the notion that Maryland developed a “dual labor system” in the early nineteenth century, and instead argues that its labor system consisted of free, slave, and semifree workers. This “mixed labor system” is a more accurate reflection of the complexity of labor relations between planters and their former slaves during the period. The chapter concludes with a discussion of free African Americans' experience with wage work and freedom.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter focuses on the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its meaning for free men and women in rural Maryland. Founded in 1816 by Reverend Richard Allen in collaboration with other African ...
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This chapter focuses on the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its meaning for free men and women in rural Maryland. Founded in 1816 by Reverend Richard Allen in collaboration with other African American Christians from across the Middle Atlantic states, the AME Church on the Eastern Shore expressed the values, culture, and experience of a distinct group of free African Americans while reinforcing their membership in a regional community. This chapter examines how the AME Church gained worship communities on the Eastern Shore through evangelism and how Methodism, along with Catholics and Quakers, contributed to the religious education of African Americans. It also considers the AME Church's denunciation of slavery and concludes with a discussion of the role played by the men and women who participated in rural prayer classes in propagating the AME mission.Less
This chapter focuses on the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its meaning for free men and women in rural Maryland. Founded in 1816 by Reverend Richard Allen in collaboration with other African American Christians from across the Middle Atlantic states, the AME Church on the Eastern Shore expressed the values, culture, and experience of a distinct group of free African Americans while reinforcing their membership in a regional community. This chapter examines how the AME Church gained worship communities on the Eastern Shore through evangelism and how Methodism, along with Catholics and Quakers, contributed to the religious education of African Americans. It also considers the AME Church's denunciation of slavery and concludes with a discussion of the role played by the men and women who participated in rural prayer classes in propagating the AME mission.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book recreates the social and economic milieu of Maryland's Eastern Shore at a time when black slavery and black freedom existed side by side. It follows a generation of manumitted African ...
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This book recreates the social and economic milieu of Maryland's Eastern Shore at a time when black slavery and black freedom existed side by side. It follows a generation of manumitted African Americans and their freeborn children and grandchildren through the process of inventing new identities, associations, and communities in the early nineteenth century. Free Africans and their descendants had lived in Maryland since the seventeenth century, but before the American Revolution they were always few in number and lacking in economic resources or political leverage. By contrast, manumitted and freeborn African Americans in the early republic refashioned the Eastern Shore's economy and society, earning their livings as wage laborers while establishing thriving African American communities. As free workers in a slave society, these African Americans contested the legitimacy of the slave system even while they remained dependent laborers. They limited white planters' authority over their time and labor by reuniting their families in autonomous households, settling into free black neighborhoods, negotiating labor contracts that suited the needs of their households, and worshipping in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Some moved to the cities, but many others migrated between employers as a strategy for meeting their needs and thwarting employers' control. They demonstrated that independent and free African American communities could thrive on their own terms. In all of these actions the free black workers of the Eastern Shore played a pivotal role in ongoing debates about the merits of a free labor system.Less
This book recreates the social and economic milieu of Maryland's Eastern Shore at a time when black slavery and black freedom existed side by side. It follows a generation of manumitted African Americans and their freeborn children and grandchildren through the process of inventing new identities, associations, and communities in the early nineteenth century. Free Africans and their descendants had lived in Maryland since the seventeenth century, but before the American Revolution they were always few in number and lacking in economic resources or political leverage. By contrast, manumitted and freeborn African Americans in the early republic refashioned the Eastern Shore's economy and society, earning their livings as wage laborers while establishing thriving African American communities. As free workers in a slave society, these African Americans contested the legitimacy of the slave system even while they remained dependent laborers. They limited white planters' authority over their time and labor by reuniting their families in autonomous households, settling into free black neighborhoods, negotiating labor contracts that suited the needs of their households, and worshipping in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Some moved to the cities, but many others migrated between employers as a strategy for meeting their needs and thwarting employers' control. They demonstrated that independent and free African American communities could thrive on their own terms. In all of these actions the free black workers of the Eastern Shore played a pivotal role in ongoing debates about the merits of a free labor system.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines the experience of migrant workers as well as the meaning of migration for African American laborers. It considers how migration contributed to rural African Americans' sense of ...
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This chapter examines the experience of migrant workers as well as the meaning of migration for African American laborers. It considers how migration contributed to rural African Americans' sense of belonging to a larger regional community that extended from the Eastern Shore to Philadelphia and Baltimore and beyond. It also discusses the impact of gradual manumission on the government's efforts to manage the mobility of unfree laborers in an otherwise unregulated labor market, along with the steps taken by Maryland whites to distinguish legitimately free workers from enslaved workers earning wages for slaveholders, including the introduction of Certificates of Freedom or “freedom papers”.Less
This chapter examines the experience of migrant workers as well as the meaning of migration for African American laborers. It considers how migration contributed to rural African Americans' sense of belonging to a larger regional community that extended from the Eastern Shore to Philadelphia and Baltimore and beyond. It also discusses the impact of gradual manumission on the government's efforts to manage the mobility of unfree laborers in an otherwise unregulated labor market, along with the steps taken by Maryland whites to distinguish legitimately free workers from enslaved workers earning wages for slaveholders, including the introduction of Certificates of Freedom or “freedom papers”.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It ...
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This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It considers the unrelated criminal and civil laws, collectively known as the Black Codes, introduced by Maryland to define the legal status of free African Americans while reinforcing the racial hierarchy. It shows that the Maryland government legislated dependence by denying African Americans the right to pursue economic self-sufficiency. It also discusses the laws on vagrancy and apprenticeships used by the local government as a legal tool to extract labor from free African Americans and ensure their subordination to white masters. Finally, it explores how free African Americans secured the services of the local government to protect their own investments on the Eastern Shore.Less
This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It considers the unrelated criminal and civil laws, collectively known as the Black Codes, introduced by Maryland to define the legal status of free African Americans while reinforcing the racial hierarchy. It shows that the Maryland government legislated dependence by denying African Americans the right to pursue economic self-sufficiency. It also discusses the laws on vagrancy and apprenticeships used by the local government as a legal tool to extract labor from free African Americans and ensure their subordination to white masters. Finally, it explores how free African Americans secured the services of the local government to protect their own investments on the Eastern Shore.
D. H. Dilbeck
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469636184
- eISBN:
- 9781469636191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636184.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter describes Douglass’s life from his birth until his move to Baltimore as a young child. It describes his exposure both to the religion of local slaves and the proslavery Christianity of ...
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This chapter describes Douglass’s life from his birth until his move to Baltimore as a young child. It describes his exposure both to the religion of local slaves and the proslavery Christianity of local masters. The chapter also details Douglass’s earliest encounters with evil and suffering, and how those encounters shaped the foundation of his religious outlookLess
This chapter describes Douglass’s life from his birth until his move to Baltimore as a young child. It describes his exposure both to the religion of local slaves and the proslavery Christianity of local masters. The chapter also details Douglass’s earliest encounters with evil and suffering, and how those encounters shaped the foundation of his religious outlook
Christin Marie Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496821775
- eISBN:
- 9781496821805
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496821775.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Sarah Elizabeth Wright was a radical writer committed to leftist, anti-racist and feminist politics. Her novel draws on these commitments to imagine the layers of rejection experienced by southern ...
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Sarah Elizabeth Wright was a radical writer committed to leftist, anti-racist and feminist politics. Her novel draws on these commitments to imagine the layers of rejection experienced by southern black women workers in Maryland. Climates of rejection problematize the exclusionary legacies of the New Deal’s Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program. The narrative affects challenge social discourses that pathologized poor black women’s reproduction in order to deny them a place in the national body politic and the national family. When the novel places the laboring mother and her family in the laps of readers, Wright therefore poses crucial questions for her time: how responsible are we for inherited conditions and will we continue to reject our kin?Less
Sarah Elizabeth Wright was a radical writer committed to leftist, anti-racist and feminist politics. Her novel draws on these commitments to imagine the layers of rejection experienced by southern black women workers in Maryland. Climates of rejection problematize the exclusionary legacies of the New Deal’s Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program. The narrative affects challenge social discourses that pathologized poor black women’s reproduction in order to deny them a place in the national body politic and the national family. When the novel places the laboring mother and her family in the laps of readers, Wright therefore poses crucial questions for her time: how responsible are we for inherited conditions and will we continue to reject our kin?
Anne Norton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813175621
- eISBN:
- 9780813175652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813175621.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter goes over the history of Fredrick Douglass’s early life, especially his fight with and escape from Edward Covey, the slave breaker. It starts with his birth on Maryland’s treacherous ...
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This chapter goes over the history of Fredrick Douglass’s early life, especially his fight with and escape from Edward Covey, the slave breaker. It starts with his birth on Maryland’s treacherous Eastern Shore and delves into his time as a slave and the time he was forced to serve Covey. It chronicles his escape from slavery in a context of uncertainty as well as some of the interesting views that derived from his ability to read and educate himself. The chapter then goes on to show how Douglass’s background as a law-breaker informed his political views and how lawbreaking contributes to slaves’ process of becoming free. Douglass recognized the imperative authority of the law while understanding that each individual has sovereignty over himself or herself.Less
This chapter goes over the history of Fredrick Douglass’s early life, especially his fight with and escape from Edward Covey, the slave breaker. It starts with his birth on Maryland’s treacherous Eastern Shore and delves into his time as a slave and the time he was forced to serve Covey. It chronicles his escape from slavery in a context of uncertainty as well as some of the interesting views that derived from his ability to read and educate himself. The chapter then goes on to show how Douglass’s background as a law-breaker informed his political views and how lawbreaking contributes to slaves’ process of becoming free. Douglass recognized the imperative authority of the law while understanding that each individual has sovereignty over himself or herself.