Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South
Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued in conflicts over…
Specifikacia Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South
Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South
In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. They sued to enforce the terms of their contracts, recover unpaid debts, recuperate back wages, and claim damages for assault.
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 protect their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society.To understand their success, Welch argues that we must understand 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 And they often won.
American South
Poems of the American South
First in the South