Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 / Edition 1

by Graham Russell Hodges

Overview

While the transition urban African Americans made from slavery to freedom in the North has been the subject of much scholarship, the experiences of their rural counterparts has remained largely hidden. Focusing on the development of a single African American community in eastern New Jersey, Professor Hodges examines the experience of slavery and freedom in the rural North. This unique social history addresses many long held assumptions about the experience of slavery and emancipation outside the plantation South. Hodges weaves an intricate pattern of life and death, work and worship, from the earliest settlement to the end of the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780945612513
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 8.92(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Graham Russell Hodges is Professor of History at Colgate University in upstate New York. He is the editor of Black Itinerants of the Gospel: The Narratives of John Jea and George White, published by Madison House, and author of The New York City Cartmen, 1667-1850.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Acknowledgments Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 The Creation of a Slave Society, 1664-1714 Chapter 5 Small-Farm Slavery, 1714-1775 Chapter 6 Black Revolution in Monmouth, 1775-1783 Chapter 7 From Revolution to Emancipation, 1783-1804 Chapter 8 Gradual Emancipation, 1804-1830 Chapter 9 The Creation of Freedom, 1830-1865 Chapter 10 Epilogue Chapter 11 Selected Bibliography Chapter 12 Index

Editorial Reviews

This book expands our understanding of the African American experience in the North, and provides welcome source material for schools, libraries, and readers of New Jersey history.

Gail Hunton

A brilliant exploration of slavery in a local setting.

Choice Reviews

Hodges's book represents an outstanding achievement. Providing a close examination of the lives of African Americans in the rural county of Monmouth, New Jersey, over a broad temporal sweep from the country's first settlement by Europeans to the total elimination of slavery on the eve of the Civil War, it both shows the critical economic role of slaves in the north and provides the fullest examination of the lives of rural blacks north of the Mason Dixon line. It is a landmark study that brings a level of specificity to the analysis of rural African American life in the north.

Jack P. Greene

This is an excellent book—the stories used to illustrate points are brilliant and the research is impressive.

Douglas R. Egerton

A brilliant exploration of slavery in a local setting.

Choice

A brilliant exploration of slavery in a local setting.

CHOICE

Although the plight of African slaves in the American South has been well documented, scholars have paid much less attention to their Northern counterparts. By focusing on a community in eastern New Jersey from Colonial times through the Civil War, Hodges (Colgate Univ.) shows that black subjugation and mistreatment was not confined to tobacco and cotton plantations. Indeed, although gradual emancipation became New Jersey law in 1804, in eastern New Jersey African Americans were enslaved into the 1850s. Moreover, free blacks struggled against discrimination, exploitation, and disfranchisement. They struggled together, however, and maintained a community culture. Hodges's meticulously documented and beautifully written social history offers valuable insight into the harsh conditions of African American life and race relations in the rural antebellum North. Highly recommended.-Raymond J. Palin, St. Thomas Univ., Miami, Fla.

Library Journal