The Price of Freedom carefully examines how urban slavery, long neglected by historians, became an important step in the path from bonded to free labour. The author argues that the creation of "term slavery" and the increase in manumission in Baltimore during the post-revolutionary era should be attributed to economic self-interest rather than humanitarian impulses founded in republican ideology or religion. Using the leverage of flight, the author shows how skilled slaves wielded considerable power in negotiating the terms of their labour. This meticulous study sheds new light on free and unfree labour during the early national period.

lgli/_409592.f48b702028164aee1b687e028dde8715.epub

lgrsnf/_409592.f48b702028164aee1b687e028dde8715.epub

zlib/History/American Studies/T. Stephen Whitman/The price of freedom: slavery and manumission in Baltimore and early national Maryland_1116326.epub

United States, United States of America

Lexington, Ky, Kentucky, 1997

Lexington (Ky.), cop. 1997

Edition Unstated, 1997

до 2011-08

lg677449

{"isbns":["0813120047","9780813120041"],"publisher":"University Press of Kentucky"}

Includes bibliographical references (p. 216-232) and index.

Paradoxically, In The Decades Following The Revolution, Slavery In Baltimore Gained Strength Even As Slaves Were Being Freed In Record Numbers. The Vigorous Growth Of The City Required The Exploitation Of Rural Slaves With Craft Skills. To Prevent Them From Escaping And To Spur Higher Production, Owners Entered Into Arrangements With Their Slaves, Promising Eventual Freedom In Return For Many Years Of Hard Work. This Was A Practical, Not A Philanthropic Arrangement; Following The Release Of One Group Of Slaves, Owners Would Simply Purchase Additional Ones. This Practice Of Term Slavery Created A Labor Force Affordable To Small Craftsmen And Manufacturers And Directly Contributed To The Urban Development Of The Country's Third Largest City. Newly Freed Slaves, Driven By Debts Contracted In Purchasing Freedom, Remained Dependent Upon Their Former Masters For Employment. The Freeing Of Blacks In Rural Maryland And Their Migrations To Baltimore To Work And Save In Order To Aid Still-enslaved Kin Supplied The City With Even More Free Black Workers. Slavery In Early National Baltimore And Rural Maryland -- Industrial Slavery In Baltimore -- The Black Drive For Autonomy And Masters' Responses -- Manumission And The Transformation Of Slavery -- Free Black Family Strategies For Gaining Freedom -- Political-economic Thought And Free Blacks. T. Stephen Whitman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

A stereotypical image of manumission is that of a benign plantation owner freeing his slaves on his deathbed. But as Stephen Whitman demonstrates, the truth was far more complex, especially in border states where manumission was much more common. Whitman analyzes the economic and social history of Baltimore to show how the vigorous growth of the city required the exploitation of rural slaves. To prevent them from escaping and to spur higher production, owners entered into arrangements with their slaves, promising eventual freedom in return for many years'hard work. The Price of Freedom reveals how blacks played a critical role in freeing themselves from slavery. Yet it was an imperfect victory. Once Baltimore's economic growth began to slow, freed blacks were virtually excluded from craft apprenticeships, and European immigrants supplanted them as a trained labor force.

2011-08-31