Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810

by Shane White

Book Overview

Shane White creatively uses a remarkable array of primary sources--census data, tax lists, city directories, diaries, newspapers and magazines, and courtroom testimony--to reconstruct the content and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820312452
• ISBN13: 9780820312453
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The best book on a much-neglected subject

It's embarrassing that we Yanks need an Australian to write our history for us, but Shane White does it with humor, insight, and thoroughness. This is unquestionably the best book I have read on the subject of slavery in New York, and I've read all the books there are on the subject. (There aren't many.) White uses primary sources and original research, supplying data which our own historians have not bothered to ferret out. He gives an excellent description of the peculiar nature of the peculiar institution in New York, the different slave culture and different relationships between slaves and owners which in no way resembled that of the South.Most recent books that deal with the subject of slavery in New York quote this book extensively; you might as well read it for yourself.