Mixed Race Studies

Life Stories, Local Places, and the Networks of Free Women of Color in Early North America

127th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association
New Orleans, Louisiana
2013-01-03 through 2013-01-06

AHA Session 72
Friday, 2013-01-04: 08:30-10:00 CST (Local Time)
Preservation Hall, Studio 7 (New Orleans Marriott)

Chair: Daina Ramey Berry, University of Texas, Austin

Papers:

• “Life Stories, Local Knowledge, and the Law in Eighteenth-Century North America” / Terri L. Snyder, California State University, Fullerton
• “‘Refugee from St. Domingue Living in This City’: The Geography of Social Networks in Testaments of Refugee Free Women of Color in New Orleans” / Elizabeth Neidenbach, College of William and Mary
• “The Power of Priscilla’s Upper Room: Gender and the African American Public Sphere in the 1830s” / Sharon E. Wood, University of Nebraska, Omaha

Comment: Anthony S. Parent, Wake Forest University

The three papers included in this panel share several themes significant to new directions in the history of women of color in North America and the Caribbean.

First, all three papers are concerned with the importance of networks, and the relationship between networks and localities.  In these papers, networks sustain women’s claims to freedom, and networks are closely associated with places.  Terri Snyder finds, for example, that Jane Webb and her daughter Elisha strengthened their positions in 18th century courtrooms–rarely hospitable to women of color–by drawing on local knowledge to support their claims to justice.  For Elisha, her mother’s networks in Virginia eventually intervened to secure her freedom in New Hampshire.  Elizabeth Neidenbach’s research in the wills of refugees from St. Domingue uncovers women’s networks expressed in the streets and neighborhoods of New Orleans–networks that reach back to the island home left behind.  Not only did these networks help refugee women survive, they played a significant role in shaping the culture of the city.  Finally, Sharon Wood’s research underscores the importance of African American-controlled space to the emergence of a black public sphere.  Property in Illinois owned by Priscilla, a former slave, became the meeting place when leading white men of St. Louis sought to suppress African American organizing by shutting off their access to space.  

Finally, all three papers are concerned with methodologies of doing history and biography at the intersections of race and gender in early North America. Focusing on relatively ordinary women of color, each paper aims to recover the lives of particular women and integrate them into history. Until very recently, it has been a truism that the life stories of unlettered, enslaved, and free women of color of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries must remain unwritten because the sources to uncover their lives did not exist. Yet each of these papers, by imaginative use of primary sources and diligent linking of records across national, colonial, and state borders, challenges that claim, giving voice and flesh to women whose lives would otherwise remain fragmented among scattered documents.

This session addresses audiences interested in the histories of women, slavery and freedom, and geographical and biographical approaches to history.

The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd Edition)

Prentice Hall
2001
525 pages
Paperback ISBN-10: 0130283231; ISBN-13:  9780130283238

Edited By:

Joan Ferrante
Northern Kentucky University

Prince Brown, Jr.
Northern Kentucky University

For undergraduate courses in race and ethnic relations.

This groundbreaking collection of classic and cutting edge sociological research gives special attention to the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States. It offers an in-depth and eye-opening analysis of (a) the power of racial classification to shape our understanding of race and race relations, (b) the way in which the system came into being and remains, and (c) the real consequences this system has on life chances.

I. THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES.
Patricia Riley, Adventures of an Indian Princess. Timothy Egan, Expelled in 1877, Indian Tribe is Now Wanted as a Resource. Lawrence Otis Graham, Black Man with a Nose Job. Garrett Hongo, Culture Wars in Asian America. Andrea Kim, Born and Raised in Hawaii, But Not Hawaiian. Yolanda Adams, Don’t Want to Be Black Anymore. Mitzi Uehara-Carter, On Being Blackanese. Joan Ferrante, Six Case Studies. Dympna Ugwu-Oju, What Will My Mother Say. Paul Andrew Dawkins, Apologizing for Being a Black Male. Judy Scales-Trent, Choosing Up Sides. Marilyn Halter, Identity Matters: The Immigrant Children. Sarah Van’t Hul, How It Was for Me. Joseph Tovares, Mojado Like Me. Yuri Kochiyama, Then Came the War.

II. CLASSIFYING PEOPLE BY RACE.
Paul Knepper, Historical Origins of the Prohibition of Multiracial Legal Identity in the State and the Nation. Federal Statistical Directive No. 15 THE U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, OMB’s Decisions: Revisions to Federal Statistical Directive. Prince Brown, Jr., Biology and the Social Construction of the “Race” Concept. Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Mean Streets of Social Race. Jack D. Forbes, “Indian” and “Black” as Radically Different Categories. Michael Granberry, A Tribe’s Battle for Its Identity. Madison Hemings, The Memoirs of Madison Hemings. Ariela J. Gross, Litigating Whiteness. Laura L. Lovett, Invoking Ancestors. Angelo N. Ancheta, Race Relations in Black and White . Time Magazine, How to Tell Your Friends From the Japs.

III. ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census, Questions Related to Ethnicity. Luis Angel Toro, Directive No. 15 and Self-Identification. Himilce Novas, What’s in a Name? Julie E. Sprott, The Mingling of Alaska Natives with “Foreigners”: A Brief Historical Overview. Mary C. Waters, Choosing an Ancestry. David Steven Cohen, Reflections on American Ethnicity. Yen Le Espiritu, Theories of Ethnicity. Rudolph J. Vecoli, Are Italian-Americans Just White Folk? Peter D. Salins, Americans United by Myths.

IV. THE PERSISTENCE, FUNCTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION.
Judy Scales-Trent, On Being Like a Mule. Article XIX, Chinese, Constitution of the State of California, 1872; Repealed, November 4, 1952, State of California. Howard Zinn, Persons of Mean and Vile Condition. Stephen Jay Gould, Science and Jewish Immigration. J. A. Rogers, Remarks on the First Two Volumes of Sex and Race. Prince Brown, Jr., Why “Race” Makes No Scientific Sense: The Case of Africans and Native Americans. Albert Jacquard, Science, Pseudo-science and Racism. Charles A Gallagher, White Reconstruction in the University. Trina Grillo and Stephanie M. Wildman, Taking Back the Center. The U.S. Supreme Court, Plessy v. Ferguson. Cheryl I. Harris, Plessy. Albert Jacquard, Declaration of Athens: Scientists Speak Out Against Racism.

V. TOWARD A NEW PARADIGM: TRANSCENDING CATEGORIES.
Vivian J. Rohrl, The Anthropology of Race: A Study of Ways of Looking at Race. Letter from Thomas Jefferson: Virginia’s Definition of a Mulatto. Cruz Reynoso, Ethnic Diversity: Its Historical and Constitutional Roots. Erich Loewy, Making Good Again. Stephen H. Caldwell and Rebecca Popenoe, Perceptions and Misperceptions of Skin Color. Selected Discrimination Cases Handled by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1999. Nicholas Peroff, Indianess. K.C. Cole, Brain’s Use of Shortcuts Can Be A Route to Bias. Richard T. Schaefer, Talking Past One Another. Ward Churchill, Let’s Spread the “Fun” Around: The Issue of Sports Team Names and Mascots. Lawrence Otis Graham, The Rules of Passing. Anthony S. Parent and Susan Brown Wallace, Childhood and Sexual Identity Under Slavery. Patricia Hill Collins, Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection. Bruce N. Simon, White-Blindness. Robert Jensen, White Privilege Shapes the U.S. Robert Jensen, More Thoughts on Why the System of White Privilege is Wrong.