Description
Book SynopsisBeginning in 1803, the Ohio legislature enacted what came to be known as the Black Laws. These laws instituted barriers against blacks entering the state and placed limits on black testimony against whites.
Trade Review“The book is a welcome addition to the literature in the field, not just of studies of slavery and fugitive slavery, but also of constitutional and political history. It tells an important part of a complex story, and its availability to scholars will help to shape our understanding of the history of race and slavery in not only Ohio but the Midwest for generations to come.”
“As Middleton makes clear, opposition to slavery was not the same thing as support for African American civil rights, and the Ohio constitution, while prohibiting slavery, placed several restrictions upon African American residents, including denial of the right to vote.”
“It is sprinkled with sparking insights and should be of interest to scholars unconcerned with Ohio, the black laws, or this era.”
“Stephen Middleton’s scholarship is superb: he mines nearly seventy manuscript collections in seventeen depositories in ten states as well as about fifty major legal cases and sixty newspapers. He weaves together legal and social history in a seamless narrative fabric in nice chronological order from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to the abolition of Ohio’s Black Laws in 1887.”
“Black Laws, Middleton persuasively argues, mirrored Southern slave codes.”
“Middleton provides a new story of African-American survival and resistance amid systematic, institutionalized racism. Indeed, historians writ large will marvel at Middleton’s ability to weave together, rather seamlessly, local, state, and national law and politics.”
