African Americans in the Nineteenth Century: People and Perspectives

From the slave trade and the Civil War to "40 acres and a mule" and Jim Crow laws, African Americans in the 1800s struggled to be just that: Americans of African descent afforded full, legally protected citizenship and social acceptance. This insightful work explores African American life across the 19th century, giving voice to those too-often unheard as it explores the way African Americans lived and how slave-era experiences affected their lives afterward.

African Americans in the Nineteenth Century: People and Perspectives goes beyond well-known figures to focus on the lives of everyday African-American men, women, and children across the nation. The book ranges from the African origins of African American communities to coverage of slave communities, female slaves, slave-slave holder relations, and freed persons. Additional chapters look at African Americans in the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow Eras, as they struggled to claim their piece of the American dream.

Titles in the Perspectives in American Social History series look at how ordinary people from all parts of American society influenced-and were affected by-the defining eras and pivotal events in U.S. history. It is a ground-level view of history-a complementary way of exploring crucial moments when American society underwent significant change. Topics are selected to fit curriculum standards for both high school history classes and undergraduate American history courses. An emphasis on social history brings a groundbreaking new trend in historical analysis into the classroom while focusing discussions on topics that will engage students and enhance the traditional approach to history.