Reviews: 22

Perusing sources such as court records, family papers, legislative documents, probate data, parish registers, census materials, tax lists, city directories, organizational records, police ledgers, death certificates, legal case files, and manumission books (7), Myers explores the strategies and avenues that legally free, "virtually free," and enslaved black women engaged in order to bring themselves and their offspring towards a more secure and fuller freedom. [...]enlisting southern values of landownership and property, we find that free and "virtually free" black women sought ownership of real estate; filed affidavits; initiated lawsuits; created trust agreements with white men; and even bought, owned, and sold enslaved labourers to create a better social and financial standing for themselves and their children. In this final section, Myers corroborates her argument that black women's access to their visions of freedom was contingent upon factors of time, place, and social space. [...]we find two unique cases in which chance as much as strategy played a key role in determining the virtue of individual black women.