Freedpeople in the tobacco South : Virginia, 1860-1900 / Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kerr-Ritchie, Jeffrey R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Freed persons--Virginia--History--19th century.

Freed persons.

African American farmers--Virginia--Economic conditions.

African American farmers.

Tobacco farms--Virginia--History--19th century.

Tobacco farms.

Virginia--Economic conditions.

Virginia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (363 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Freed people in the tobacco South

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Throughout the colonial and antebellum periods, Virginia's tobacco producers exploited slave labor to ensure the profitability of their agricultural enterprises. In the wake of the Civil War, however, the abolition of slavery, combined with changed market conditions, sparked a breakdown of traditional tobacco culture. Focusing on the transformation of social relations between former slaves and former masters, Jeffrey Kerr-Ritchie traces the trajectory of this breakdown from the advent of emancipation to the stirrings of African American migration at the turn of the twentieth century.Drawing upon a rich array of sources, Kerr-Ritchie situates the struggles of newly freed people within the shifting parameters of an older slave world, examines the prolonged agricultural depression and structural transformation the tobacco economy underwent between the 1870s and 1890s, and surveys the effects of these various changes on former masters as well as former slaves. While the number of older freedpeople who owned small parcels of land increased phenomenally during this period, he notes, so too did the number of freedom's younger generation who deserted the region's farms and plantations for Virginia's towns and cities. Both these processes contributed to the gradual transformation of the tobacco region in particular and the state in general.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Notes

1. Slavery, Tobacco, and Old Dominion

2. Free Labor Struggles in the Field, 1865-1867

3. Black Republicanism in the Field, 1867-1870

4. The Impact of Emancipation, 1865-1872

5. The Contested Tobacco State, 1873-1877

6. Readjusting Free Labor Relations, 1873-1889

7. The Highest Stage of Tobacco Alliance, 1890-1892

8. Shifting Terrain

Epilogue

Appendix One: Colonel Brown's Address to the Freedmen of Virginia

Appendix Two: Captain Sharp's Report to Colonel Brown

Appendix Three: Sampson White's Letter to Federal Census Director E. Dana Durand, September 1910

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9798890867919

9780807861141

0807861146

OCLC:

54092891