Harvard University Press
Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South
Key Metrics
- Marie Jenkins Schwartz
- Harvard University Press
- Paperback
- 9780674007208
- 9.21 X 6.14 X 0.64 inches
- 0.94 pounds
- Social Science > Ethnic Studies - American - African American & Black Studies
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Each time a child was born in bondage, the system of slavery began anew. Although raised by their parents or by surrogates in the slave community, children were ultimately subject to the rule of their owners. Following the life cycle of a child from birth through youth to young adulthood, Marie Jenkins Schwartz explores the daunting world of slave children, a world governed by the dual authority of parent and owner, each with conflicting agendas.
Despite the constant threats of separation and the necessity of submission to the slaveowner, slave families managed to pass on essential lessons about enduring bondage with human dignity. Schwartz counters the commonly held vision of the paternalistic slaveholder who determines the life and welfare of his passive chattel, showing instead how slaves struggled to give their children a sense of self and belonging that denied the owner complete control.
Born in Bondage gives us an unsurpassed look at what it meant to grow up as a slave in the antebellum South. Schwartz recreates the experiences of these bound but resilient young people as they learned to negotiate between acts of submission and selfhood, between the worlds of commodity and community.
Author Bio
Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Ph.D. taught at Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, Maryland, before accepting a position at the University of Rhode Island where for twenty years she offered courses in the history of slavery and in the history of the early United States.
She is currently professor emeritus of history at URI and an independent scholar and writer. Her latest book, called Ties That Bound: Founding First Ladies and Slaves (Chicago University Press in 2016), depicts the world created by Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson, Martha (Patsy) Jefferson Randolph, Dolley Madison and the people they enslaved. She has begun another book on the First Ladies (Scandal in the White House: First Ladies and Presidential Deceits), which argues that the reaction of First Ladies to the scandalous behavior of husbands has mattered for the stability of the nation.
Schwartz is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other research awards from the American Historical Association, the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization at Brown University, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists/McNeil Foundation and from the University of Rhode Island, including its Center for the Humanities.
In 2000, her book Born in Bondage won the Julia Cherry Spruill Publication Prize for Best Book in Southern Women’s History, given by the Southern Association for Women Historians.
Education
1994 Ph.D. University of Maryland, College Park
1987 M.A. George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
1984 B.A. George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
Source: The University of Rhode Island
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