Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781108480642)

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.

Author: Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariela J. Gross
ISBN-10: 1108480640
ISBN-13: 9781108480642
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/16/2020
Pages: 294
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.60w x 0.86d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2020