audiobook New Directions in Slavery Studies: Commodification; Community; and Comparison by From Ingramcontent in History

Description

The story of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Greene County; Georgia; is a remarkable tale of both fundamental change and essential continuity. In How Curious a Land; Jonathan Bryant follows the county's social; economic; and legal transformation from a wealthy; self-sufficient plantation economy based on slavery to a largely impoverished; economically dependent community dominated by a new commercial class of merchants and lawyers. Emancipated slaves made up two-thirds of the county's population at the end of the Civil War; and thanks to an able; charismatic; and politically active leadership; they enjoyed early success in pressing for their rights. But their gains; says Bryant; were only temporary; because the white elite retained control of the legal system and used it effectively against blacks. Law also helped shape the course of economic change as; for example; postbellum laws designed to benefit the new commercial elite ensured poverty for most of the county's small farmers; both black and white; by relegating them to the status of sharecroppers and tenants. As a result; the county's wealth; though greatly diminished in the postbellum years; remained concentrated in the hands of a small elite.