"Myne Owne Ground" Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676

by Breen, T. H.; Innes, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780195175370
• ISBN10: 0195175379
• Edition: 25th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Ever since its publication twenty-five years ago, "Myne Owne Ground" has challenged readers to rethink much of what is taken for granted about American race relations. During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for familymembers, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survivemakes this a critical and urgent work of history. In a new foreword, Breen and Innes reflect on the origins of this book, setting it into the context of Atlantic and particularly African history.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 25th Anniversary Edition: The Free Black Planters of Pungoteague Creek in an Atlantic World	ix
Acknowledgments to the First Edition	xxv
Introduction	3	(4)
Patriarch on Pungoteague Creek	7	(12)
Race Relations as Status and Process	19	(17)
Northampton County at Mid-Century	36	(32)
The Free Blacks of the Eastern Shore	68	(42)
Conclusion: Property and the Context of Freedom	110	(5)
Notes	115	(22)
Index	137