The legal disadvantages imposed on free African-Americans, beginning in the late 17th century in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion, spread south and west from Virginia. As a stable, stratified society put down roots on each new frontier, it brought with it new laws designed to strengthen the division between the races, and to keep free […]
ShareArchive | December, 2016
Rivers and Freedom: A Child’s Escape
By Carla Rabinowitz on December 10, 2016 in Bettises, Free People of Color, Martha Bettis Cooper, slavery, steamboats, Thomas Stevenson Drew, women’s lives
When Patsie Bettis was freed in 1837, a year after the death of her father Elijah Bettis III, she was the mother of two young sons, Drew, age 7, and Martin, age 2. Drew was the son of Thomas Stevenson Drew, who was married to Patsie’s white cousin Cinderella Bettis. Martin’s father is unknown, although […]
ShareThe South’s Railroad Problem
In 1851, when Albert Pike visited a number of the Northern states, he reported that Ohio at that time had 29 railroads and 830 miles of track in operation; Pennsylvania, 52 railroads and 1,224 miles; and Michigan, which had entered the Union at the same time as Arkansas, 4 railroads and 447 miles. In Arkansas, […]
Share