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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blacks who achieved freedom..., August 24, 2002
This is an excellent introduction to the evolution of black-white relations in mainland North America and to the development of racist attitudes based on cultural diversity. Africans began arriving early in English-American history. Some of the first of these arrived in Virginia. A number of black Atlantic creoles, notably the Johnsons and Drigguses arrived in Virginia, managed to survive the tidewater massacre and other problems relating to survival and even to gain enough personal wealth to buy their freedom (or were subject to voluntary manumission due to appreciation for their outstanding service to their owners). These black former-slaves (and, possibly, some black indentured servants) set up plantations on Virginia's east shore (where the coast doubles backs around Chesapeake Bay) and established plantations. They owned slaves and purchased white indentured servants. In addition, because the racist aspects of slavery were still largely limited by the cosmopolitanism of the Atlantic creoles, several of the families intermarried with whites. Slowly, over a period of time, an increasing number of non-creole blacks arrived as slaves and the distinct markings, customs and languages of the numerous new arrivals resulted in hardening racial sentiments. Some blacks, such as Anthony Johnson's grandson (also Anthony Johnson) began to consider Africa in a positive light as opposed to European racism and restrictions on the rights of free blacks - eventually leaving for less restrictive colonies, such as Maryland. Some were re-enslaved (not having been able to produce clear evidence that they were free and not having any living whites who could attest that their ancestors had been freed). As Ira Berlin (MANY THOUSANDS GONE) points out, some remained as relatively wealthy planters, such as Ezicarum Driggus even after such racist sentiment crystallized. This should be read with Tommy L. Bogger: FREE BLACKS IN NORFOLK VIRGINIA 1790-1860:The Darker Side of Freedom and Earvin Jordan's BLACK CONFEDERATES AND AFRO-YANKEES IN CIVIL WAR VIRGINIA.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, June 8, 2009
This review is from: "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 (Paperback)
In their revisionist "Myne Owne Ground" Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676, Breen and Innes have two objectives. Assuming the style of essayists, they challenge scholars to take a careful, unbiased view of race, slavery, and African-Americans in the United States generally and in colonial America specifically. They challenge scholars to avoid the teleological assumption that discrimination and racism also existed in the earliest days of European presence in colonial North America and to avoid allowing abstract and largely artificial social categories such as race and slavery to drive research. They even provide some variables, for example demography, spatiality, ethnicity, and wealth. They want scholars to take a personal and careful approach and to find the agency of individuals, especially, as they argue, because tensions increased around the time of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), reaching a legal climax in 1705. The book's strength and holding power rest in this section because the authors give scholars methodologies, theories, and hypotheses.
Secondly, by studying free African-Americans in seventeenth-century Northampton County, Virginia, Breen and Innes argue that some African-Americans--such as Anthony Johnson, Francis Payne, Emanuel Driggus, and about three hundred others by 1650--were able to achieve freedom because race-based, life-long slavery did not become inevitable until about the 1660s and 1670s. Some of these individuals bought their freedom and then bought property, frequently functioning as equals in society. Only a few of these, such as Johnson, were able to become successful plantation operators. This element of the book seems largely the same or a slightly updated version of Russell's account; virtually all of the information about Johnson and his family is the same. Neither source addresses Johnson's treatment of his slaves. And Breen and Innes do not explain why Johnson, "patriarch on Pungoteauge Creek," moved from Virginia to Maryland beyond their guess that he sought better land. Such a discussion would only serve to add credibility and evidence to their argument that tension developed and increased in this late-seventeenth-century society. Their argument that Johnson achieved success and relative equality is strong because of the court cases and his property. But, their generalization of these conditions to colonial society is weak because they only discuss one small element of Virginia, where eighty something percent of African-Americans were enslaved. Ultimately, these authors do not integrate their goals for other scholars in their own work.
Finally, although they do not study antebellum blacks as other scholars, by studying colonial society before the South transformed from a "society with slaves" to a "slave society," they are able to show not only perhaps the best situation free African-Americans found in the South before the Civil Rights Movement, but they are also able to establish that what became the United States was not built on racism from the beginning. For the simple reason that not many authors write about colonial slavery, this book is significant.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Free blacks of the 17th century, February 2, 2009
This review is from: "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 (Paperback)
Very readable historical narrative. Clears up a very large misconception: that whites automatically thought blacks were inferior and thus enslaved them.
Only people with enough resources to obtain property were allowed an active and coveted role in Virginia society. Many blacks that had obtained freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore attained this stature - their rights protected and upheld by the court justices, white children placed in their custody, were called to testify against whites in trials, conducted substantial business with great white planters, and so forth. Without anyone considering it taboo.
Virginia's society was initially based more on class and Englishness than race. Joe the white indentured servant and John the black indentured servant were treated the same way by their masters. As all of their indentures were up, there was a growing class of relatively united black and white freemen who were not part of the upper-class English gentry.
Herein lies the problem. After Bacon's Rebellion, the gentry created sharp racial lines within the poor class and thus weaked the unity in the lower class. Racism was created -- it was not automatic. The main points of this book are to encourage the reader to see the origins of racism in a different light and to tell the awesome story of free blacks on the Eastern Shore in the 17th century.
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