Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867: Series 3, Volume 1: Land and Labor, 1865

by Steven Hahn (Editor), Steven F. Miller (Editor), Susan E. O'Donovan (Editor), John C. Rodrigue (Editor), Leslie S. Rowland (Editor)

Overview

Land and Labor, 1865 examines the transition from slavery to free labor during the tumultuous first months after the Civil War. Letters and testimony by the participants—former slaves, former slaveholders, Freedmen's Bureau agents, and others—reveal the connection between developments in workplaces across the South and an intensifying political contest over the meaning of freedom and the terms of national reunification. Essays by the editors place the documents in interpretive context and illuminate the major themes.

In the tense and often violent aftermath of emancipation, former slaves seeking to ground their liberty in economic independence came into conflict with former owners determined to keep them dependent and subordinate. Overseeing that conflict were northern officials with their own notions of freedom, labor, and social order. This volume of Freedom depicts the dramatic events that ensued—the eradication of bondage and the contest over restoring land to ex-Confederates; the introduction of labor contracts and the day-to-day struggles that engulfed the region's plantations, farms, and other workplaces; the achievements of those freedpeople who attained a measure of independence; and rumors of a year-end insurrection in which ex-slaves would seize the land they had been denied and exact revenge for past oppression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469641294
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/01/2017
Pages:	1108
Sales rank:	317,457
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 2.40(d)

About the Author

Steven Hahn is Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Steven F. Miller is coeditor of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland.

Susan E. O'Donovan is associate professor of history and African & African American studies at Harvard University.

John C. Rodrigue is Lawrence and Theresa Salameno Professor of History at Stonehill College.

Leslie S. Rowland is associate professor of history at the University of Maryland and director of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project.

Table of Contents

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
The Records
The Freedmen and Southern Society Project

EDITORIAL METHOD
Elements of a Document

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
Editorial Symbols
Symbols Used to Describe Manuscripts
Abbreviations for Record Groups in the National Archives of the United States
Short Titles
Military and Other Abbreviations

LAND AND LABOR, 1865

CHAPTER 1 The Novel Condition of Freedom
CHAPTER 2 Overseeing Freedom
CHAPTER 3 Coming to Terms
CHAPTER 4 The Land Question
CHAPTER 5 Points of Contention
CHAPTER 6 Dependency and Relief
CHAPTER 7 Measures of Independence
CHAPTER 8 Settling Up
CHAPTER 9 Specters of Insurrection
CHAPTER 10 Lessons Learned

INDEX

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This volume definitely lives up to the very high standards set by its predecessors. The editors tackle a significant, complex set of issues, explicating them in a lucid, well-argued fashion and displaying a thorough command of the existing and voluminous relevant secondary literature. The quality of both the history and the writing here is impressive.—Eric Foner, Columbia University

Editorial Reviews

One of the great editorial achievements of modern scholarship.—Journal of Peasant Studies



One cannot imagine scholars dealing with Reconstruction nationally, or the post-bellum history of any Southern state, without close attention to this work.—H-Net Reviews



[A] magnificent collection.—Journal of Southern History



Provide[s] the reader with a panoramic view of the complexities of emancipation. . . . Key documents provide new insights into the mind and mood of the formerly enslaved regarding their new status. . . . A major new contribution to serious scholarship in the several related fields of Civil War, Reconstruction, and emancipation.—Louisiana History

From the Publisher