Forging freedom : Black women and the pursuit of liberty in antebellum Charleston / / Amrita Chakrabarti Myers

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910822455703321
• Autore: Myers Amrita Chakrabarti
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Chapel Hill, : University of North Carolina Press, c2011
• ISBN: 979-88-908828-2-0; 1-4696-0259-8; 0-8078-6909-0
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (282 p.)
• Collana: Gender and American culture
• Disciplina: 305.48/8960730757915; 305.488960730757915
• Soggetti: African American women - South Carolina - Charleston - History - 19th century; African American women - South Carolina - Charleston - Social conditions - 19th century; Freed persons - South Carolina - Charleston - History - 19th century; Freed persons - South Carolina - Charleston - Social conditions - 19th century; Charleston (S.C.) History 1775-1865; Charleston (S.C.) Social conditions 19th century; Charleston (S.C.) Race relations History 19th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction : imagining freedom in the slave South -- City of contrasts : Charleston before the Civil War -- A way out of no way : Black women and manumission -- To survive and thrive : race, sex, and waged labor in the city -- The currency of citizenship : property ownership and Black female freedom -- A tale of two women : the lives of Cecille Cogdell and Sarah Sanders -- A fragile freedom : the story of Margaret Bettingall and her daughters -- Epilogue : the continuing search for freedom.
• Sommario/riassunto: For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. In this deeply researched social history, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers analyzes the ways ; in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom. Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, an