The Laws of Slavery in Texas

The Laws of Slavery in Texas

Author: Randolph B. Campbell

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-02-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0292721889

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The laws that governed the institution of slavery in early Texas were enacted over a fifty-year period in which Texas moved through incarnations as a Spanish colony, a Mexican state, an independent republic, a part of the United States, and a Confederate state. This unusual legal heritage sets Texas apart from the other slave-holding states and provides a unique opportunity to examine how slave laws were enacted and upheld as political and legal structures changed. The Laws of Slavery in Texas makes that examination possible by combining seminal historical essays with excerpts from key legal documents from the slave period and tying them together with interpretive commentary by the foremost scholar on the subject, Randolph B. Campbell. Campbell's commentary focuses on an aspect of slave law that was particularly evident in the evolving legal system of early Texas: the dilemma that arose when human beings were treated as property. As Campbell points out, defining slaves as moveable property, or chattel, presented a serious difficulty to those who wrote and interpreted the law because, unlike any other form of property, slaves were sentient beings. They were held responsible for their crimes, and in numerous other ways statute and case law dealing with slavery recognized the humanness of the enslaved. Attempts to protect the property rights of slave owners led to increasingly restrictive laws—including laws concerning free blacks—that were difficult to uphold. The documents in this collection reveal both the roots of the dilemma and its inevitable outcome.


Book Synopsis The Laws of Slavery in Texas by : Randolph B. Campbell

Download or read book The Laws of Slavery in Texas written by Randolph B. Campbell and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The laws that governed the institution of slavery in early Texas were enacted over a fifty-year period in which Texas moved through incarnations as a Spanish colony, a Mexican state, an independent republic, a part of the United States, and a Confederate state. This unusual legal heritage sets Texas apart from the other slave-holding states and provides a unique opportunity to examine how slave laws were enacted and upheld as political and legal structures changed. The Laws of Slavery in Texas makes that examination possible by combining seminal historical essays with excerpts from key legal documents from the slave period and tying them together with interpretive commentary by the foremost scholar on the subject, Randolph B. Campbell. Campbell's commentary focuses on an aspect of slave law that was particularly evident in the evolving legal system of early Texas: the dilemma that arose when human beings were treated as property. As Campbell points out, defining slaves as moveable property, or chattel, presented a serious difficulty to those who wrote and interpreted the law because, unlike any other form of property, slaves were sentient beings. They were held responsible for their crimes, and in numerous other ways statute and case law dealing with slavery recognized the humanness of the enslaved. Attempts to protect the property rights of slave owners led to increasingly restrictive laws—including laws concerning free blacks—that were difficult to uphold. The documents in this collection reveal both the roots of the dilemma and its inevitable outcome.

Address to the People of Texas, on the Protection of Slave Property

Address to the People of Texas, on the Protection of Slave Property

Author: H. M'Bride Pridgen

Publisher:

Published: 1859

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis Address to the People of Texas, on the Protection of Slave Property by : H. M'Bride Pridgen

Download or read book Address to the People of Texas, on the Protection of Slave Property written by H. M'Bride Pridgen and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860

Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860

Author: Thomas D. Morris

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2004-01-21

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 0807864307

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This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War. As Thomas Morris clearly shows, racial slavery came to the English colonies as an institution without strict legal definitions or guidelines. Specifically, he demonstrates that there was no coherent body of law that dealt solely with slaves. Instead, more general legal rules concerning inheritance, mortgages, and transfers of property coexisted with laws pertaining only to slaves. According to Morris, southern lawmakers and judges struggled to reconcile a social order based on slavery with existing English common law (or, in Louisiana, with continental civil law.) Because much was left to local interpretation, laws varied between and even within states. In addition, legal doctrine often differed from local practice. And, as Morris reveals, in the decades leading up to the Civil War, tensions mounted between the legal culture of racial slavery and the competing demands of capitalism and evangelical Christianity.


Book Synopsis Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 by : Thomas D. Morris

Download or read book Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 written by Thomas D. Morris and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004-01-21 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War. As Thomas Morris clearly shows, racial slavery came to the English colonies as an institution without strict legal definitions or guidelines. Specifically, he demonstrates that there was no coherent body of law that dealt solely with slaves. Instead, more general legal rules concerning inheritance, mortgages, and transfers of property coexisted with laws pertaining only to slaves. According to Morris, southern lawmakers and judges struggled to reconcile a social order based on slavery with existing English common law (or, in Louisiana, with continental civil law.) Because much was left to local interpretation, laws varied between and even within states. In addition, legal doctrine often differed from local practice. And, as Morris reveals, in the decades leading up to the Civil War, tensions mounted between the legal culture of racial slavery and the competing demands of capitalism and evangelical Christianity.

Slavery and Freedom in Texas

Slavery and Freedom in Texas

Author: Jason A. Gillmer

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0820351636

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In these absorbing accounts of five court cases, Jason A. Gillmer offers intimate glimpses into Texas society in the time of slavery. Each story unfolds along boundaries--between men and women, slave and free, black and white, rich and poor, old and young--as rigid social orders are upset in ways that drive people into the courtroom. One case involves a settler in a rural county along the Colorado River, his thirty-year relationship with an enslaved woman, and the claims of their children as heirs. A case in East Texas arose after an owner refused to pay an overseer who had shot one of her slaves. Another case details how a free family of color carved out a life in the sparsely populated marshland of Southeast Texas, only to lose it all as waves of new settlers "civilized" the county. An enslaved woman in Galveston who was set free in her owner's will--and who got an uncommon level of support from her attorneys--is the subject of another case. In a Central Texas community, as another case recounts, citizens forced a Choctaw native into court in an effort to gain freedom for his slave, a woman who easily "passed" as white. The cases considered here include Gaines v. Thomas, Clark v. Honey, Brady v. Price, and Webster v. Heard. All of them pitted communal attitudes and values against the exigencies of daily life in an often harsh place. Here are real people in their own words, as gathered from trial records, various legal documents, and many other sources. People of many colors, from diverse backgrounds, weave their way in and out of the narratives. We come to know what mattered most to them--and where those personal concerns stood before the law.


Book Synopsis Slavery and Freedom in Texas by : Jason A. Gillmer

Download or read book Slavery and Freedom in Texas written by Jason A. Gillmer and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these absorbing accounts of five court cases, Jason A. Gillmer offers intimate glimpses into Texas society in the time of slavery. Each story unfolds along boundaries--between men and women, slave and free, black and white, rich and poor, old and young--as rigid social orders are upset in ways that drive people into the courtroom. One case involves a settler in a rural county along the Colorado River, his thirty-year relationship with an enslaved woman, and the claims of their children as heirs. A case in East Texas arose after an owner refused to pay an overseer who had shot one of her slaves. Another case details how a free family of color carved out a life in the sparsely populated marshland of Southeast Texas, only to lose it all as waves of new settlers "civilized" the county. An enslaved woman in Galveston who was set free in her owner's will--and who got an uncommon level of support from her attorneys--is the subject of another case. In a Central Texas community, as another case recounts, citizens forced a Choctaw native into court in an effort to gain freedom for his slave, a woman who easily "passed" as white. The cases considered here include Gaines v. Thomas, Clark v. Honey, Brady v. Price, and Webster v. Heard. All of them pitted communal attitudes and values against the exigencies of daily life in an often harsh place. Here are real people in their own words, as gathered from trial records, various legal documents, and many other sources. People of many colors, from diverse backgrounds, weave their way in and out of the narratives. We come to know what mattered most to them--and where those personal concerns stood before the law.

South to Freedom

South to Freedom

Author: Alice L Baumgartner

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1541617770

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A brilliant and surprising account of the coming of the American Civil War, showing the crucial role of slaves who escaped to Mexico. The Underground Railroad to the North promised salvation to many American slaves before the Civil War. But thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1837. In South to Freedom, historianAlice L. Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery's future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. This is a revelatory and essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War.


Book Synopsis South to Freedom by : Alice L Baumgartner

Download or read book South to Freedom written by Alice L Baumgartner and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant and surprising account of the coming of the American Civil War, showing the crucial role of slaves who escaped to Mexico. The Underground Railroad to the North promised salvation to many American slaves before the Civil War. But thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1837. In South to Freedom, historianAlice L. Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery's future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. This is a revelatory and essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War.

Slavery by Another Name

Slavery by Another Name

Author: Douglas A. Blackmon

Publisher: Icon Books

Published: 2012-10-04

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1848314132

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A Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the mistreatment of black Americans. In this 'precise and eloquent work' - as described in its Pulitzer Prize citation - Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history - an 'Age of Neoslavery' that thrived in the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude thereafter. By turns moving, sobering and shocking, this unprecedented account reveals these stories, the companies that profited the most from neoslavery, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.


Book Synopsis Slavery by Another Name by : Douglas A. Blackmon

Download or read book Slavery by Another Name written by Douglas A. Blackmon and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the mistreatment of black Americans. In this 'precise and eloquent work' - as described in its Pulitzer Prize citation - Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history - an 'Age of Neoslavery' that thrived in the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude thereafter. By turns moving, sobering and shocking, this unprecedented account reveals these stories, the companies that profited the most from neoslavery, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.

Homicide Justified

Homicide Justified

Author: Andrew Fede

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0820351121

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This comparative study looks at the laws concerning the murder of slaves by their masters and at how these laws were implemented. Andrew T. Fede cites a wide range of cases--across time, place, and circumstance--to illuminate legal, judicial, and other complexities surrounding this regrettably common occurrence. These laws had evolved to limit in different ways the masters' rights to severely punish and even kill their slaves while protecting valuable enslaved people, understood as "property," from wanton destruction by hirers, overseers, and poor whites who did not own slaves. To explore the conflicts of masters' rights with state and colonial laws, Fede shows how slave homicide law evolved and was enforced not only in the United States but also in ancient Roman, Visigoth, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British jurisdictions. His comparative approach reveals how legal reforms regarding slave homicide in antebellum times, like past reforms dictated by emperors and kings, were the products of changing perceptions of the interests of the public; of the individual slave owners; and of the slave owners' families, heirs, and creditors. Although some slave murders came to be regarded as capital offenses, the laws con-sistently reinforced the second-class status of slaves. This influence, Fede concludes, flowed over into the application of law to free African Americans and would even make itself felt in the legal attitudes that underlay the Jim Crow era.


Book Synopsis Homicide Justified by : Andrew Fede

Download or read book Homicide Justified written by Andrew Fede and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comparative study looks at the laws concerning the murder of slaves by their masters and at how these laws were implemented. Andrew T. Fede cites a wide range of cases--across time, place, and circumstance--to illuminate legal, judicial, and other complexities surrounding this regrettably common occurrence. These laws had evolved to limit in different ways the masters' rights to severely punish and even kill their slaves while protecting valuable enslaved people, understood as "property," from wanton destruction by hirers, overseers, and poor whites who did not own slaves. To explore the conflicts of masters' rights with state and colonial laws, Fede shows how slave homicide law evolved and was enforced not only in the United States but also in ancient Roman, Visigoth, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British jurisdictions. His comparative approach reveals how legal reforms regarding slave homicide in antebellum times, like past reforms dictated by emperors and kings, were the products of changing perceptions of the interests of the public; of the individual slave owners; and of the slave owners' families, heirs, and creditors. Although some slave murders came to be regarded as capital offenses, the laws con-sistently reinforced the second-class status of slaves. This influence, Fede concludes, flowed over into the application of law to free African Americans and would even make itself felt in the legal attitudes that underlay the Jim Crow era.

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

Author: Damian Alan Pargas

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2020-09-08

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0813065798

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This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience. Contributors investigate sites of formal freedom, where slavery was abolished and refugees were legally free, to determine the extent to which fugitive slaves experienced freedom in places like Canada while still being subject to racism. In sites of semiformal freedom, as in the northern United States, fugitives’ claims to freedom were precarious because state abolition laws conflicted with federal fugitive slave laws. Contributors show how local committees strategized to interfere with the work of slave catchers to protect refugees. Sites of informal freedom were created within the slaveholding South, where runaways who felt relocating to distant destinations was too risky formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations. These individuals procured false documents or changed their names to avoid detection and pass as free. The essays discuss slaves’ motivations for choosing these destinations, the social networks that supported their plans, what it was like to settle in their new societies, and how slave flight impacted broader debates about slavery. This volume redraws the map of escape and emancipation during this period, emphasizing the importance of place in defining the meaning and extent of freedom. Contributors: Kyle Ainsworth | Mekala Audain | Gordon S. Barker | Sylviane A. Diouf | Roy E. Finkenbine | Graham Russell Gao Hodges | Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie | Viola Franziska Müller | James David Nichols | Damian Alan Pargas | Matthew Pinsker A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller


Book Synopsis Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America by : Damian Alan Pargas

Download or read book Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America written by Damian Alan Pargas and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience. Contributors investigate sites of formal freedom, where slavery was abolished and refugees were legally free, to determine the extent to which fugitive slaves experienced freedom in places like Canada while still being subject to racism. In sites of semiformal freedom, as in the northern United States, fugitives’ claims to freedom were precarious because state abolition laws conflicted with federal fugitive slave laws. Contributors show how local committees strategized to interfere with the work of slave catchers to protect refugees. Sites of informal freedom were created within the slaveholding South, where runaways who felt relocating to distant destinations was too risky formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations. These individuals procured false documents or changed their names to avoid detection and pass as free. The essays discuss slaves’ motivations for choosing these destinations, the social networks that supported their plans, what it was like to settle in their new societies, and how slave flight impacted broader debates about slavery. This volume redraws the map of escape and emancipation during this period, emphasizing the importance of place in defining the meaning and extent of freedom. Contributors: Kyle Ainsworth | Mekala Audain | Gordon S. Barker | Sylviane A. Diouf | Roy E. Finkenbine | Graham Russell Gao Hodges | Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie | Viola Franziska Müller | James David Nichols | Damian Alan Pargas | Matthew Pinsker A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America

A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America

Author: George McDowell Stroud

Publisher:

Published: 1856

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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This Philadelphia judge's work is an essential reference for the library for slavery. It analyzes the law of slavery in each state, including the mid-Atlantic region; and reviews constitutional provisions bearing on slavery. The first edition, issued in 1827, is substantially updated to reflect the sea-change in Southern thinking, which now regarded slavery as a positive good rather than a necessary evil. Issued at the height of the Kansas-Nebraska controversy, its new material on slavery in the Territories, the fugitive slave laws, and slavery's interference with the First Amendment is particularly significant. A shorter, 125-page version was also issued in wrappers in 1856. -- Bookseller.


Book Synopsis A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America by : George McDowell Stroud

Download or read book A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America written by George McDowell Stroud and published by . This book was released on 1856 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Philadelphia judge's work is an essential reference for the library for slavery. It analyzes the law of slavery in each state, including the mid-Atlantic region; and reviews constitutional provisions bearing on slavery. The first edition, issued in 1827, is substantially updated to reflect the sea-change in Southern thinking, which now regarded slavery as a positive good rather than a necessary evil. Issued at the height of the Kansas-Nebraska controversy, its new material on slavery in the Territories, the fugitive slave laws, and slavery's interference with the First Amendment is particularly significant. A shorter, 125-page version was also issued in wrappers in 1856. -- Bookseller.

An Empire for Slavery

An Empire for Slavery

Author: Randolph B. Campbell

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9780807115053

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In the popular mind, Texas conjures up images of the Old West and freedom of the range. Campbell reminds us that Texas grew from Southern roots entangled in human bondage. By the Civil War, Texas had a slave area equal to Alabama and Mississippi and a slave population comparable to Virginia. In the first comprehensive study of slavery in Texas, Campbell offers useful chapters on the law, the domestic slave trade, Indian relations, labor, family, religion, and more, but his book is especially welcome because it pulls the focus on bondage away from the Chesapeake and the Carolinas to show slavery's expansive and adaptive power in the developing West. Slavery knew no bounds, as Lincoln always understood. Recommended for college and university libraries.-- Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia.


Book Synopsis An Empire for Slavery by : Randolph B. Campbell

Download or read book An Empire for Slavery written by Randolph B. Campbell and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the popular mind, Texas conjures up images of the Old West and freedom of the range. Campbell reminds us that Texas grew from Southern roots entangled in human bondage. By the Civil War, Texas had a slave area equal to Alabama and Mississippi and a slave population comparable to Virginia. In the first comprehensive study of slavery in Texas, Campbell offers useful chapters on the law, the domestic slave trade, Indian relations, labor, family, religion, and more, but his book is especially welcome because it pulls the focus on bondage away from the Chesapeake and the Carolinas to show slavery's expansive and adaptive power in the developing West. Slavery knew no bounds, as Lincoln always understood. Recommended for college and university libraries.-- Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia.