Neither fugitive nor free : Atlantic slavery, freedom suits, and the legal culture of travel / Edlie L. Wong.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: America and the long 19th centuryPublisher: New York : New York University Press, [2009]Copyright date: 2009Description: 1 online resource (348 pages) : illustrations, mapContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780814795460 (e-book)
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Neither fugitive nor free : Atlantic slavery, freedom suits, and the legal culture of travel.DDC classification:
  • 810.93552 23
LOC classification:
  • PS217.S55 W66 2009
Online resources:
Contents:
Introduction: traveling slaves and the geopolitics of freedom -- Emancipation after "the Laws of Englishmen" -- Choosing kin in antislavery literature and law -- Gender of freedom before Dred Scott -- Crime of color in the Negro Seaman Acts -- Conclusion: fictions of free travel.
Summary: Studies lawsuits to gain freedom for slaves on the grounds of their having traveled to free territory, starting with Somerset v. Stewart (England, 1772), Commonwealth v. Aves (Massachussetts, 1836), Dred Scott v. Sanford, and cases brought questioning the legitimacy of Negro Seamen Acts in the antebellum coastal South. These lawsuits and accounts of them are compared to fugitive slave narratives to shed light on both. The differing impact of freedom obtained from such suits for men and women (women could claim that their children were free, once they were judged free) is examined.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: traveling slaves and the geopolitics of freedom -- Emancipation after "the Laws of Englishmen" -- Choosing kin in antislavery literature and law -- Gender of freedom before Dred Scott -- Crime of color in the Negro Seaman Acts -- Conclusion: fictions of free travel.

Studies lawsuits to gain freedom for slaves on the grounds of their having traveled to free territory, starting with Somerset v. Stewart (England, 1772), Commonwealth v. Aves (Massachussetts, 1836), Dred Scott v. Sanford, and cases brought questioning the legitimacy of Negro Seamen Acts in the antebellum coastal South. These lawsuits and accounts of them are compared to fugitive slave narratives to shed light on both. The differing impact of freedom obtained from such suits for men and women (women could claim that their children were free, once they were judged free) is examined.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2016. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.

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