Title On slavery's border : Missouri's small-slaveholding households, 1815-1865 / Diane Mutti Burke

Published Athens : University of Georgia Press, ©2010

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 413 pages) : illustrations, maps Series Early American places Early American places. Contents "They came like an avalanche" : the development of a small-slaveholding promised land -- Households in the middle ground : small slaveholders' family strategies -- "I was at home with the Negroes at work" : labor within Missouri's small-slaveholding households -- "May we as one family live in peace and harmony" : small-slaveholding household relations -- "Mah pappy belong to a neighbor" : marriage and family among Missouri slaves -- "We all lived neighbors" : sociability in small-slaveholding neighborhoods -- The war within : the passing of border slavery Summary On Slavery's Border is a bottom-up examination of how slavery and slaveholding were influenced by both the geography and the scale of the slaveholding enterprise. Missouri's strategic access to important waterways made it a key site at the periphery of the Atlantic world. By the time of statehood in 1821, people were moving there in large numbers, especially from the upper South, hoping to replicate the slave society they'd left behind.; Diane Mutti Burke focuses on the Missouri counties located along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to investigate small-scale slavery at the level of the household and neighborhood. She examines such topics as small slaveholders' child-rearing and fiscal strategies, the economics of slavery, relations between slaves and owners, the challenges faced by slave families, sociability among enslaved and free Missourians within rural neighborhoods, and the disintegration of slavery during the Civil War. Mutti Burke argues that economic and social factors gave Missouri slavery an especially intimate quality. Owners directly oversaw their slaves and lived in close proximity with them, sometimes in the same building. White Missourians believed this made for a milder version of bondage. Some slaves, who expressed fear of being sold further south, seemed to agree.; Mutti Burke reveals, however, that while small slaveholding created some advantages for slaves, it also made them more vulnerable to abuse and interference in their personal lives. In a region with easy access to the free states, the perception that slavery was threatened spawned white anxiety, which frequently led to violent reassertions of supremacy Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Slavery -- Missouri -- History -- 19th century Slaveholders -- Missouri -- History -- 19th century Households -- Missouri -- History -- 19th century Farm life -- Missouri -- History -- 19th century Enslaved persons -- Missouri -- Social conditions -- 19th century African Americans -- Missouri -- Social conditions -- 19th century White people -- Missouri -- Social conditions -- 19th century HISTORY -- State & Local. HISTORY -- State & Local -- General. HISTORY -- United States -- 19th Century. African Americans -- Social conditions Farm life Households Race relations Slaveholders Slavery Enslaved persons -- Social conditions Social conditions White people -- Social condition SUBJECT Missouri -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century Missouri -- Social conditions -- 19th century Border States (U.S. Civil War) -- Social conditions -- Case studies Subject Missouri United States -- Border States (U.S. Civil War) Genre/Form Case studies History Form Electronic book Author Early American Places (Project) LC no. 2010026523 ISBN 9780820337364 0820337366 1282892088 9781282892088

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