Product Description
Kathleen Brown examines the origins of racism and slavery in British North America from the perspective of gender. Both a basic social relationship and a model for other social hierarchies, gender helped determine the construction of racial categories and the institution of slavery in Virginia. But the rise of racial slavery also transformed gender relations, including ideals of masculinity. In response to the presence of Indians, the shortage of labor, and the insecurity of social rank, Virginia's colonial government tried to reinforce its authority by regulating the labor and sexuality of English servants and by making legal distinctions between English and African women. This practice, along with making slavery hereditary through the mother, contributed to the cultural shift whereby women of African descent assumed from lower-class English women both the burden of fieldwork and the stigma of moral corruption.
Brown's analysis extends through Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, an important juncture in consolidating the colony's white male public culture, and into the eighteenth century. She demonstrates that, despite elite planters' dominance, wives, children, free people of color, and enslaved men and women continued to influence the meaning of race and class in colonial Virginia.
Awards & Distinctions
1997 John H. Dunning Prize in United States History, American Historical Association
Honorable Mention, 1996 Berkshire Conference Book Prize
Features
- 512 Pages
- Paperback, ISBN 978-0-8078-4623-0
- Measures 6.1” x 1” x 9.25”
- Written by Kathleen M. Brown
- Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press
About the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture is the oldest organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to the advancement of study, research, and publications bearing on the history and culture of early America. Books published through UNC Press’s partnership with the OI, which dates back more than half a century, have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, several Bancroft Prizes, and the Francis Parkman Prize.
The Omohundro Institute is an independent research organization sponsored by William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg. All editorial work, including acquisitions, for OI books is done under the direction of OI Editor of Books Catherine E. Kelly.
