Description
Book SynopsisIn the Old Northwest from 1830 to 1870, a bold set of activists battled slavery and racial prejudice. This book is about their expansive efforts to eradicate southern slavery and its local influence in the contentious milieu of four new states carved out of the Northwest Territory: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. While the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery in the region in 1787, in reality both it and racism continued to exert strong influence in the Old Northwest, as seen in the race-based limitations of civil liberties there. Indeed, these states comprised the central battleground over race and rights in antebellum America, in a time when race''s social meaning was deeply infused into all aspects of Americans'' lives, and when people struggled to establish political consensus.
Antislavery and anti-prejudice activists from a range of institutional bases crossed racial lines as they battled to expand African American rights in this region. Whether they were antislave
Trade Review
Anyone interested in the emergence of rights consciousness will benefit from reading this book.
* Ohio Valley History *
Weiner's book represents a useful expansion of the literature on the abolitionist movement.....[It] is an excellent study of race relations and the struggle over slavery in [the Midwest].
* The Annals of Iowa *
Weiner's book is a welcome addition recognizing the Old Northwest as a distinct region and, as such, a distinct voice in the discussion of race and rights in the developing United States in a small collection of such literature.
* Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society *
Race and Rights is a well-written narrative that gives a good picture of the world of antislavery activism in the Old Northwest.
* Indiana Magazine of History *
This well-written, deeply researched study of antislavery and proslavery actions in the Old Northwest adds powerful new dimensions to our understanding of evolving antagonisms about human servitude in the decades before the Civil War.
* Journal of American History *
