Yeah this is the heading of a book which I read here recently. It is written by John Miller.
According to the cover of the book it is 'The Extraordinary True Story of Sally Miller and Her Fight for Freedom in Old New Orleans'.
This book is really good and the author says he was researching for writing about court cases in the 1840s when he got interested in the court cases involving the above mentioned girl and he has written it as a story.(narrative) which makes a very interesting reading.
The place this has happened is New Orleans which is a State in USA which was recently in news because of the 'Katrina' the strom which played havoc with this city which is situated below sea level.
There were many things which caught my attention , which I had not aware of. In this State there were many Blacks who were not slaves and were free. They were freed by their master or they bought their freedom by paying for it. (working extra hours and thereby earning ). There were lot of intermingling between the races, (not exactly marriage) there by having lot of mixed race children and adults in the population. Even the native Indians could be held as slaves. This lead to lot of white skinned people being slaves. Only pure whites could not be a slave legally.
This book is about a white girl who is supposed to be of German origin. A case is filed that she is a lost German girl who went absconding after landing in New Orleans from Germany. We get to read how there were so many Germans and other immigrants from Europe who also had to suffer a lot and do many kind of jobs , but they could not be held as slaves. (being of white race of course) .
The slave owner argues (his lawyers) that this particular girl is not of German origin but she is of a mixed race, who has definitely African blood, which makes it legal for him to have her as a slave.
I was horrified to read about how even if a mother becomes free, her children born while she was a slave are considered as slaves and are owned by the erstwhile Owner of the mother .
The story has many twists and turns . Thank God within some decades of this legal drama, due to civil war and Abraham Lincon slavery was abolished in 1865.
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2 comments:
interesting twist. So, mankind has actually progressed; even though we think not many a time in recent history!
yeah it is really sad that some form of slavery does exist. But the slavery in US was unique in that it was based on the Race and Colour. (Of course our own opressive system was based on caste system even though we all belonged to the same race) Otherwise I always feel it is a question of money and power, those with power and money opress those without it.
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