"Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676Ever since its publication twenty-five years ago, "Myne Owne Ground" has challenged readers to rethink much of what is taken for granted about American race relations. During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history. In a new foreword, Breen and Innes reflect on the origins of this book, setting it into the context of Atlantic and particularly African history. |
Contents
Patriarch on Pungoteague Creek | 7 |
Race Relations as Status and Process | 19 |
Northampton County at MidCentury | 36 |
Copyright | |
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Accomack Accomack County acres African American Slavery-American Freedom Angola Anthony Johnson appeared Bacon's Rebellion behavior Breen Captain century Chesapeake colonists court records culture Deeds dependent laborers Driggus's early Eastern Shore economic Edmund Scarborough Eltonhead Emanuel Driggus English Francis Payne free black planters gentry Gossall Harmanson headrights Hening historians History House of Burgesses Ibid indentured servants Indians interaction Jane John Casor John Johnson land lived livestock Longo Mary Maryland masters mid-century Morgan Myne Owne Ground Negro neighbors NHCR Northampton County Northampton County court Northampton justices Northampton's free blacks Order Book Parker Payne's persons Philip Mongum plantation Pott pounds of tobacco Pungoteague Pungoteague Creek purchased race relations racial Rodriggus seventeenth seventeenth-century Virginia Slave Trade slavery small planters social society sphere status Statutes at Large Thomas tion tobacco and Caske Tony Longo Virginia's Eastern Shore VMHB W&MQ white planters white servant wife William Harman women World Yeardley