The Price of Freedom

The stereotypical image of manumission involves a benign plantation owner freeing his slaves on his deathbed. But as Stephen Whitman demonstrates, the truth was far more complex, especially in the border states where manumission was much more common. 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 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. "A significant book that illuminates an important subject with unprecedented depth". -- Eugene D. Genovese The Price of Freedom reveals how blacks played a critical role in freeing themselves from slavery, both by striking bargains with their owners and by assisting those still enslaved after their own manumission. Yet it was an imperfect victory. Freed blacks were virtually excluded from craft apprenticeships, and European immigrants supplanted them as a trained labor force in the 1830s. When former slaves began to be perceived as an economic threat, the racism implicit in slavery became explicit.

ISBN 0813120047   DEWEY edition DC20 ISBN13 9780813120041 (What's this?)   Pages 238 Publisher The University Press of Kentucky   Volumes 001 Imprint The University Press of Kentucky   Weight (grammes) 590 Format Hardback   Published in Lexington Publication date 15 Feb 2001   Height (mm) 254 Non-book description 238 p. :   Width (mm) 165 Library of Congress E445.M3 W4   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY 975.200496   Academic level Postgraduate, General

		List of Illustrations and Maps
		List of Tables
		Acknowledgments
		Introduction		1
1		Slavery in Early National Baltimore and Rural Maryland		8
2		Industrial Slavery in Baltimore		33
3		The Black Drive for Autonomy and Masters' Responses		61
4		Manumission and the Transformation of Slavery		93
5		Free Black Family Strategies for Gaining Freedom		119
6		Political-Economic Thought and Free Blacks		140
		Conclusions		158
App. A		Baltimore Slaveholders, 1790-1820		167
App. B		Occupational Categories		170
App. C		Sale Prices of Term Slaves and Slaves for Life		175
		Notes		178
		Bibliography		216
		Index		233

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