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Zusatztext Lea VanderVelde's Redemption Songs is a stunning account of the efforts of ordinary African Americans to secure freedom through the courts. In graceful prose, VanderVelde highlights the surprising promise of freedom suits but also the staggering toll the effort took on those who turned to them. Recovering the voices of those long thought voiceless, VanderVelde tells even experts things we did not know. Equally important, she brings to life things we know in theory. Informationen zum Autor Lea VanderVelde is the Josephine Witt Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. Klappentext While hundreds of books have been written about slavery, in the main they tend to be either microhistories of individual slaves and slave families or broad social histories of the peculiar institution. Redemption Songs uniquely features both approaches. VanderVelde not only knits together the stories of a dozen distinct individuals with one thing in common-their status as litigants-and little else, she also provides a rich and eye-opening account of the legal foundations of the larger system. Zusammenfassung Dred Scott v. Sanford is the most famous--and also the most infamous--Supreme Court decision in American history. Justice Roger Taney's ruling in favor of Scott's owner effectively extended the reach of the slave system far beyond the South, and was instrumental in worsening the sectional crisis. While the decision was disastrous, what is often overlooked is the fact that in certain circumstances slaves could avail themselves of the legal system. As it turns out, Scott was one among many slave litigants who took to the courts and in so doing helped reshape the parameters of American slavery. In Redemption Songs, Lea VanderVelde moves far beyond the Scott case through chapter-length accounts of a dozen slave suits in the state of Missouri. VanderVelde covers the Scott case, but casts it in relief against a wide variety of trials involving slave litigants. In one instance, an owner freed his slaves, but they were seized by the owner's creditors. Were they free or not? Another case revolved around the fact that the litigant had Native American as well as black ancestors. Which ancestry was decisive? Another dispute involved a Mississippi owner's will, which included only vague instructions to manumit his slaves into Illinois. In combination, the stories behind the cases provide a genuinely multifaceted portrait of slavery in late antebellum America. While hundreds of books have been written about slavery, in the main they tend to be either microhistories of individual slaves and slave families or broad social histories of the peculiar institution. Redemption Songs uniquely features both approaches. VanderVelde not only knits together the stories of a dozen distinct individuals with one thing in common-their status as litigants-and little else, she also provides a rich and eye-opening account of the legal foundations of the larger system. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how the system operated and how slaves attempted to navigate through it in the most trying of circumstances. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. How Frontier Slaves Came to be Entitled to Lawyers 2. How it Came about that a Native American Pedigree Meant Freedom: Celeste's Extended Family 3. John Merry a/k/a Jean Marie: Redemption Over and Over Again 4. The Children of Canadienne Rose 5. Winny, the Mother of Frontier Redemptions 6. The Duncan Brothers in Black and White 7. The Mass Kidnapping of Lydia's Children 8. Masters, Lovers, Husbands, Mates, Both Black and White 8 a. Betrayal and Deceit: Eliza Tyler's Redemption 8 b. Devotion and Death: Maria Whiten's Redemption 8 c. The Prerogative of One's Master to Change His Mind? Hester Norcom's Redemption 9. The Slaves of Milton Duty 10. David Shipman's Fidelity to the Spirit of Liberty 11. Mr. and Mrs. Dred Scott: Taking i...
