Mason-Dixon : crucible of the nation / Edward G. Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gray, Edward G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Borderlands--Northeastern States--History--19th century.

Borderlands.

Borderlands--Southern States--History--19th century.

Slavery--United States--History--19th century.

Slavery.

Mason-Dixon Line--History.

Mason-Dixon Line.

Slavery--History.

Northeastern States.

Southern States.

United States--Mason-Dixon Line.

United States.

Physical Description:

456 pages : illustrations (black and white), maps (black and white) ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Harvard University Press paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2025.

Summary:

Established to calm intracolonial tensions, the Mason-Dixon Line first marked a region of breakneck development and Native American resistance, then the boundary between pro- and antislavery regimes. Edward Gray's is the first comprehensive history of the line and its dynamic role in the US from the colonial period to the Civil War--and beyond.

"Acclaimed scholar Edward Gray offers the first comprehensive history of the Mason-Dixon Line, a border at the center of early American political contestation. Formalized in 1767 to fully and finally demarcate Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, the Line resolved a longstanding jurisdictional conflict that had provoked bloodshed among colonists and ensnared Lenape and Susquehannock populations. In 1780, Pennsylvania's Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery inaugurated a new phase, as the Line became a boundary between free and slave states and their distinct legal regimes. Then, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, the Line became a federal instrument to arrest freedom-seeking Blacks. Only with the end of the Civil War did the Line's significance fade, though it haunted the geography of Jim Crow. Mason-Dixon tells the gripping story of colonial grandees, Native American diplomats, Quaker abolitionists, fugitives from slavery, capitalist railroad and canal builders, US presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Underground Railroad conductors—all contending with the relentless violence and political discord of a borderland that transformed American history." -- back cover

Contents:

Part I: Marchlands in motion ; Lord Baltimore's Northern Problem ; William Penn's unlikely empire ; The battle for Maryland's far north

Part II: Marchlands into Borderlands ; The squatters' empire ; An American bloodlands ; The science of borders

Part III: A Border Emerges. The making of states, free and slave ; Borderlands as heartland ; Fugitive diplomacy ; The fall of greater Baltimore

Part IV: The Age of the Mason-Dixon Line ; The second fugitive slave act ; Border war along the underground railroad ; Borderlands into border states ; The end of the line ; Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0674301536

9780674301535

OCLC:

1514894458

Publisher Number:

CIPO000246760