Week 4: The Impact of the Revolution
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Gobbets
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Governor Dunmore's Proclamation and the Virginia Assembly's response
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Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ch.14
Other Sources
Benezet, Anthony, Short observations on slavery, introductory to some extracts from the writing of the Abbe Raynal, on that important subject. (Philadelphia, 1781)
Questions
What impact did the struggle against Britain have on American slavery? What was the impact of the revolution on American slaves? Why were the slaves not emancipated? How did Jefferson reconcile his racist views and his anti-slavery stance?
Core Reading
- Frey, Sylvia, 'Between slavery and freedom: Virginia blacks in the American revolution' JSH 49 (1983) 375-398
- Olwell, Robert, 'Domestick enemies: slavery and political independence in South Carolina, May 1775-March 1776' JSH 55 (1989), 21-48
- Lockley, Tim ' "The King of England's Soldiers": Armed blacks in Savannah and its hinterlands during the Revolutionary War Era, 1778-1787' in Leslie Harris & Daina Berry eds, Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014) 26-41.
E-resources
- Gregory D. Massey, 'The limits of antislavery thought in the revolutionary lower South: John Laurens and Henry Laurens' JSH LXIII (1997)
- Berlin, I. 'The Revolution in Black Life', in: Young, A. (ed.) The American revolution: explorations in the history of American radicalism, pp. 349-382.
- Morgan, P. 'Black Society in the Lowcountry 1760-1810', in: Berlin, I. & Hoffman, R. (eds.) Slavery and freedom in the age of the American Revolution, pp. 83-141.
- Frey, S. 'Liberty, Equality, and Slavery: The Paradox of the American Revolution' in: Greene, J. (ed.) The American revolution: its character and limits, pp. 230-252.
- Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity (ch 3 'Revolutionary Generations')
- Bellamy, Donnie D., 'The legal status of black Georgians during the colonial and revolutionary eras', JNH, LXXIV, (1989), 1-10.
- Kenneth Morgan, 'Slavery and the debate over the ratification of the United States Constitution' S& A (Dec 2001) 40-65
- Ohline, Howard, 'Slavery, economics and congressional politics, 1790' JSH 46 (1980) 335-360
- Ohline, Howard, 'Republicanism and slavery: the origins of the three-fifths clause in the United States constitution' WMQ (1971)
- Davis, David Brion The problem of slavery in the age of Revolution, 1770-1823
- Jordan, Winthrop, White over Black, ch 12 (pp. 429-81) ebook
Further reading
- Berlin, Ira [ed], Slavery and Freedom in the era of the American Revolution (articles by Nash, Dunn, Morgan, Kulikoff, Norton, Raboteau, Macleod, Knight, Davis, Quarles)
- Jordan, Winthrop, White man's burden ch 7 & 12
- David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (ch 7)
- Frey, Sylvia R., Water from the rock: black resistance in a revolutionary age.
- Rose, Willie, Slavery and Freedom (ch 1)
- Goldwin, Robert & Kaufman, Art, Slavery and its consequence: the constitution, equality and race
- Miller, John Chester, The wolf by the ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
- MacLeod, Duncan, Slavery, race and the American revolution