Slaves, Free Blacks, and Race in the Legal Regimes of Cuba, Louisiana, and Virginia: A Comparison
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: This Article analyzes the legal regimes regulating slavery and race at the ground level as they evolved in three different locations in the Americas (Virginia, Cuba, and Louisiana), showing how they shaped, and were shaped in turn, by the actions of people of color.The Article attempts to compare law "from the bottom up": regulatory efforts by local legislatures, slaves' claims in court, trial-level adjudications, and interactions among ordinary people and low-level government officials.We begin with the greatest commonality of racial status across the Americas: all over the New World, slaveholders built discriminatory legal regimes that sought to equate "negro" and "slave."We then follow the trajectories of these legal systems in three different periods: the early years of these colonies, until roughly the 1760s; the Age of Revolution, from the 1770s
Authors: Ariela Gross, Alejandro de la Fuente
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2620631641