Before Dred Scott : slavery and legal culture in the American confluence, 1787-1857 / Anne Twitty, University of Mississippi.
Before Dred Scott draws on the freedom suits filed in the St Louis Circuit Court to construct a groundbreaking history of slavery and legal culture within the American Confluence, a vast region where the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers converge. Formally divided between slave and free territo...
Saved in:
| Online Access: |
Full Text (via Cambridge) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York NY :
Cambridge University Press,
2016.
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| Series: | Cambridge historical studies in American law and society.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Before Dred Scott draws on the freedom suits filed in the St Louis Circuit Court to construct a groundbreaking history of slavery and legal culture within the American Confluence, a vast region where the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers converge. Formally divided between slave and free territories and states, the American Confluence was nevertheless a site where the borders between slavery and freedom, like the borders within the region itself, were fluid. Such ambiguity produced a radical indeterminacy of status, which, in turn, gave rise to a distinctive legal culture made manifest by the prosecution of hundreds of freedom suits, including the case that ultimately culminated in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott vs Sandford. Challenging dominant trends in legal history, Before Dred Scott argues that this distinctive legal culture, above all, was defined by ordinary people's remarkable understanding of and appreciation for formal law. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xiv, 285 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781316986035 1316986039 9781316282434 1316282430 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/9781316282434 |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Online resource; title from electronic title page (Cambridge Core, viewed September 29, 2017). |