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.