Forging Freedom - (Gender and American Culture) by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Paperback)

About the Book

Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston

Book Synopsis

For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. In this deeply researched social history, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers analyzes the ways in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom.

Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, and legal standing. Examining both those who were officially manumitted and those who lived as free persons but lacked official documentation, Myers reveals that free black women filed lawsuits and petitions, acquired property (including slaves), entered into contracts, paid taxes, earned wages, attended schools, and formed familial alliances with wealthy and powerful men, black and white -- all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners.

Review Quotes

"Forging Freedom should be profitable reading for scholars and students interested in learning about the lives of free African Americans in urban areas in the antebellum South."--Journal of African American History

"A carefully argued work that makes an invaluable contribution to the larger historiography of African American women. . . . Any academic, student, local or regional scholar interested in Urban America, Women's History, Antebellum South, and African American history will find value in this study."--Southern Historian

"An important contribution to the growing scholarly canon on the long-silenced voices of black women, both enslaved and free. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries."--CHOICE

"Carefully researched and lucidly written."--Journal of American History

"Myers' richly-documented Forging Freedom provides a vivid portrait of [freedwomen's] lives."--Civil War Book Review

"Myers's compelling study makes a significant contribution to this literature, drawing much-needed attention to the significance of the urban environment in shaping ideas of freedom in the pre-Civil War South and to the particularity of women's experiences."--Journal of Southern History

"What is so remarkable about this volume is Myer's attention to detail in uncovering these forgotten women's often astonishing stories and putting them in the context of the shifting laws and politics of the antebellum period. . . . This is definitely ground-breaking scholarship."--Carolina Historical Magazine

About the Author

Amrita Chakrabarti Myers is associate professor of history at Indiana University at Bloomington.