THOREAU SOCIETY INC – Thoreau Society & Thoreau Farm Online Auction 2025
Auction Ends: Feb 28, 2025 10:00 PM EST

Books

Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (St

Item Number
190
Estimated Value
30 USD
Opening Bid
10 USD

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Item Description

by Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela Gross

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

 

How did Africans become 'blacks' in the Americas? Becoming Free, Becoming Black tells the story of enslaved and free people of color who used the law to claim freedom and citizenship for themselves and their loved ones. Their communities challenged slaveholders' efforts to make blackness synonymous with slavery. Looking closely at three slave societies - Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana - Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross demonstrate that the law of freedom - not slavery - established the meaning of blackness in law. Contests over freedom determined whether and how it was possible to move from slave to free status, and whether claims to citizenship would be tied to racial identity. Laws regulating the lives and institutions of free people of color created the boundaries between black and white, the rights reserved to white people, and the degradations imposed only on black people.

Item Special Note

New hardcover. Local pick-up or ships from Concord. Winning bidder pays shipping charges.