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Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South
Kimberly M. Welch
2018
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In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued to enforce the terms of their contracts, recover unpaid debts, recuperate back wages, and claim damages for assault. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. And they often won. Based on new research conducted in courthouse basements and storage sheds in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, Kimberly Welch draws on over 1,000 examples of free and enslaved black litigants who used the courts to protect their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society. To understand their success, Welch argues that we must understand the language that they used — the language of property, in particular — to make their claims recognizable and persuasive to others and to link their status as owner to the ideal of a free, autonomous citizen. In telling their stories, Welch reveals a previously unknown world of black legal activity, one that is consequential for understanding the long history of race, rights, and civic inclusion in America.
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Keywords
- Adams County, Mississippi
- African Americans and the civil courts
- African Americans and the courts
- African Americans and the law
- American legal history
- black citizenship
- black legal culture
- Black litigants
- civic inclusion
- Claiborne County, Mississippi
- claims-making of African Americans
- enslaved litigants
- free black litigants
- free blacks and property rights
- Iberville Parish, Louisiana
- legal culture of the American South
- long civil rights movement
- lower Mississippi Valley
- Natchez district
- Natchez, Mississippi
- Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana
- property rights as civil rights
- race and law
- slavery and the law
- slavery in Louisiana
- slavery in Mississippi
- slaves and freedom suits
- the Belly family
- thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSL Ethnic studies
- thema EDItEUR::L Law::LN Laws of specific jurisdictions and specific areas of law::LNA Legal systems: general::LNAC Legal systems: civil procedure, litigation and dispute resolution
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas
- William Johnson
Links
DOI: 10.5149/9781469636467_WelchEditions