Ted Maris-Wolf. Family Bonds

Family Bonds: Free Blacks and Re-enslavement Law in Antebellum Virginia is a deeply researched, innovative, and engaging study of race, law, and freedom from the revolutionary era to the Civil War and its aftermath. At the heart of the book is a novel reinterpretation of how Virginians—black and white—negotiated and understood the state’s 1806 expulsion law, which required the removal from the Commonwealth of free African Americans within twelve months of their manumission, and voluntary self-enslavement legislation that was enacted in the 1850s. In Ted Maris-Wolf’s reading, the expulsion law was enforced only sporadically and re-enslavement laws were enacted with some reluctance by a majority of white legislators who were unwilling to enslave free people “en masse” (26). What is more, self-enslavement was selectively and strategically promoted and employed by free African Americans as a tactic that allowed them to remain with their families and communities in Virginia while avoiding prosecution for illegal residency and, potentially, sale into slavery on the state’s terms.

Art · Commonwealth · Family law · Legislation · Political science · Reinterpretation · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · White (mutation) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies