Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South by Warren Eugene Milteer Jr.

Abstract

Reviewed by: Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South by Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. Felicia Jamison (bio) Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South. By Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 376. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $35.95.) Beyond Slavery's Shadow explores the varied experiences of free people of color in the southern colonies and the United States from the colonial period to the Civil War. From the outset, Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. makes several arguments that he expertly supports throughout the book. First, he asserts that the struggles of free people of color to maintain their rights and independence were consistently waged against colonial powers and state legislators who "gradually adopted attacks on free people of color as [End Page 116] an indirect defense of an economy propelled by slave labor and as a way to attract support from disaffected whites who saw persons of color as commercial competitors" (3). Free people of color—aided by their allies, which included white neighbors, indentured servants, and enslaved people—constantly fought to preserve their freedom and dignity. Milteer's study incorporates a wide range of persons who were included under the constantly changing umbrella category of "free people of color." The grouping varies depending on the time and place being discussed and includes "individuals labeled 'negroes,' 'mulattoes,' 'mustees,' 'Indians,' 'blacks,' 'pardos,' 'morenos,' 'mestizos,' 'quadroons,' and 'octoroons,' who possessed various ancestral connections to the Americas, Africa, Europe, and South Asia" (8). Free people of color obtained this status in a variety of ways, including being born free, suing for their freedom in the courts, purchasing their freedom from enslavers, being manumitted, or self-emancipating by fleeing from enslavers. The author shows that there was no universal experience for this group. Their lives differed depending on "gender, wealth, reputation, occupation, and family connection" (5). For example, Jo and Ann Sip, a married couple who lived in colonial-era Delaware, were bound out and forced to provide free labor for up to seven years to pay jail fees. In contrast, Rachel Bales was fortunate to have a Scottish grandmother who testified on her behalf as evidence of her free status as a British subject. The titles of the chapters reflect the constant battle to maintain one's rights. The book is structured chronologically, which Milteer uses to good effect. Chapter 1, "Liberty in the Colonial South," builds on the stripping away of rights from free people of color, which often occurred by discouraging interracial relationships. Milteer examines legislation from various southern colonies, such as Virginia's 1662 law that increased the fine for marriage and sex between whites and people of African descent; North Carolina and Maryland legislation that fined white women and bound out their "mulatto" children for several years; and Louisiana's 1724 Code Noir, which forbade marriage between white and Black people under threat of fine or punishment. Chapter 2, "The Revolution of Freedom," emphasizes how free people of color used the opportunity and rhetoric of the American Revolution to obtain more rights, often via an enslaver's manumission or by suing for their freedom in court. Chapter 3, "The Backlash," and chapter 4, "Making Freedom Work," are in conversation with one another. The former shows the backlash of the Revolutionary era in which states passed restrictive legislation that made it difficult to gain one's freedom, and the latter discusses how free people of color sought to maintain their rights [End Page 117] while providing important services to their neighbors as "laborers, farmers, artisans, and business owners" (104–5). Chapter 5, "Rebellion and Radicalism," focuses on the antebellum period after the 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion, in which southern states created laws that stripped away rights from free people of color and often forced them to leave the state after gaining freedom. Chapter 6, "Resisting Radicalism," further highlights the varied experiences of free people of color. Though the free population in the South had increased from 182,070 to 262,322 between 1830 and 1860, the vast majority "remained landless and possessed limited personal property" (193). Nonetheless, during the antebellum period, free people of color...