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Author Thomas, William G., 1964- author.

Title A question of freedom : the families who challenged slavery from the nation's founding to the Civil War / William G. Thomas III.

Publication Info. New Haven : Yale University Press, [2020]
©2020

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Avon Free Public Library - Adult Department  306.362 THOMAS    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Adult Department  306.362 THO    Check Shelf
Description 418 pages : illustrations, maps, genealogical charts ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-392) and index.
Summary "For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George's County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation's capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families (the Butlers, Queens, Mahoneys, and others), their lawyers (among them a young Francis Scott Key), and the slaveholders who fought to defend slavery, beginning with the Jesuit priests who held some of the largest plantations in the nation and founded a college at Georgetown." -- Amazon.com.
The story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American history, in which a number of enslaved families challenged their bondage in court.
Contents Prologue: Georgetown, April 2017 -- The planting -- The inheritance.
Subject Enslaved persons -- United States -- Biography.
Antislavery movements -- United States.
Enslaved persons -- Legal status, laws, etc. (OCoLC)fst01120565
Enslaved persons -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Maryland -- Prince George's County.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation. (OCoLC)fst01120540
Enslaved persons -- Maryland -- Prince George's County -- Biography.
Prince George's County (Md.) -- History.
Maryland -- Prince George's County. (OCoLC)fst01207053
Antislavery movements -- Maryland -- Prince George's County.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- United States -- History.
Genre/Form Biographies.
Subject Enslaved persons. (OCoLC)fst01120522
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- Maryland -- Prince George's County.
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
Subject Enslaved persons -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States.
Antislavery movements. (OCoLC)fst00810800
Added Title Families who challenged slavery from the nation's founding to the Civil War
ISBN 9780300234121 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
0300234120 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
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