Migrants against slavery : Virginians and the nation / Philip J. Schwarz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwarz, Philip J., 1940-

Series:

Carter G. Woodson Institute series in Black studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Virginia--Public opinion--History--19th century.

Slavery.

Public opinion--Virginia--History--19th century.

Public opinion.

Antislavery movements--Virginia--History--19th century.

Antislavery movements.

African Americans--Virginia--Migrations--History--19th century.

African Americans.

White people--Virginia--Migrations--History--19th century.

White people.

Migration, Internal--Virginia--History--19th century.

Migration, Internal.

Migration, Internal--United States--History--19th century.

History.

Virginia--Biography.

Virginia.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 250 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 2001.

Summary:

A significant number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Virginians migrated north and west with the intent of extricating themselves from a slave society. All sought some kind of freedom: Whites who left the Old Dominion to escape from slavery refused to live any longer as slave owners or as participants in a society grounded in bondage; fugitive slaves attempted to liberate themselves; free African Americans searched for greater opportunity.

In Migrants against Slavery Philip J. Schwarz suggests that antislavery migrant Virginians, both the famous -- such as fugitive Anthony Burns and abolitionist Edward Coles -- and the lesser known, deserve closer scrutiny. Their migration and its aftermath, he argues, intensified the national controversy over human bondage, playing a larger role than previous historians have realized in shaping American identity and in Americans' effort to define the meaning of freedom.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-237) and index.

ISBN:

0813920086

OCLC:

44592791