Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.
Bernie D. Jones argues that these will contests indicated a struggle within the elite over race, gender, and class issues—over questions of social mores and who was truly family. Judges thus acted as umpires after a man’s death, deciding whether to permit his attempts to provide for his slave partner and family. Her analysis of these differing judicial opinions on inheritance rights for slave partners makes an important contribution to the literature on the law of slavery in the United States.
Bernie D. Jones
Fathers of Conscience
Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South
Fathers of Conscience
Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South
Ngôn ngữ Anh ● định dạng PDF ● Trang 216 ● ISBN 9780820342306 ● Kích thước tập tin 1.9 MB ● Nhà xuất bản University of Georgia Press ● Thành phố Athens ● Quốc gia US ● Được phát hành 2011 ● Có thể tải xuống 24 tháng ● Tiền tệ EUR ● TÔI 5513542 ● Sao chép bảo vệ Adobe DRM
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