Gleanings of Freedom: Free and Slave Labor along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860

Gleanings of Freedom: Free and Slave Labor along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860
ISBN-10
0252093569
ISBN-13
9780252093562
Category
History
Pages
296
Language
English
Published
2011-12-05
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Author
Max Grivno

Description

Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century landowners in the hinterlands of Baltimore, Maryland, cobbled together workforces from a diverse labor population of black and white apprentices, indentured servants, slaves, and hired workers. This book examines the intertwined lives of the poor whites, slaves, and free blacks who lived and worked in this wheat-producing region along the Mason-Dixon Line. Drawing from court records, the diaries, letters, and ledgers of farmers and small planters, and other archival sources, Max Grivno reconstructs how these poorest of southerners eked out their livings and struggled to maintain their families and their freedom in the often unforgiving rural economy.

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