Neighbourhoods and Solidarity in the Natchez District of Mississippi: Rethinking the Antebellum Slave Community

This chapter turns away from the linguistic strategies people of color mobilized in court to investigate white lawyers’ incentives to represent black litigants and white judges’ motivations when deciding cases involving African Americans’ claims. It assesses the role of white people in the story of black litigiousness. Of course, rhetoric remained important, but rhetoric rarely led to results without a particular institutional makeup. Understanding the institutional framework of the Natchez district bench and bar—in this case, the makeup of the legal professionals, the internal hierarchies and values, the incentive patterns, and the pressure points and tensions—provides insight into how and where marginalized peoples inserted themselves and under what circumstances.

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The U. S. Army and the Origins of Sharecropping in the Natchez District-A Case Study

The Journal of Negro History ◽

10.2307/2717191 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 62 (1) ◽

pp. 60-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ronald L. F. Davis

Keyword(s):

Natchez District

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The Natchez District and the American Revolution.

The Journal of Southern History ◽

10.2307/2207565 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 112

Author(s):

J. Barton Starr ◽

Robert V. Haynes

Keyword(s):

American Revolution ◽

Natchez District

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Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636436.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Kimberly M. Welch

Keyword(s):

Black People ◽

American South ◽

White People ◽

Personal Status ◽

History Of ◽

New Research ◽

And Storage ◽

Natchez District ◽

History Of Race ◽

The Ideal

In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued to enforce the terms of their contracts, recover unpaid debts, recuperate back wages, and claim damages for assault. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. And they often won. Based on new research conducted in courthouse basements and storage sheds in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, Kimberly Welch draws on over 1,000 examples of free and enslaved black litigants who used the courts to protect their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society. To understand their success, Welch argues that we must understand the language that they used—the language of property, in particular—to make their claims recognizable and persuasive to others and to link their status as owner to the ideal of a free, autonomous citizen. In telling their stories, Welch reveals a previously unknown world of black legal activity, one that is consequential for understanding the long history of race, rights, and civic inclusion in America.

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