Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730–1810 - Hardcover

Sidbury, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052158454X ISBN 13: 9780521584548

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1997

Synopsis

James Sidbury's Ploughshares into Swords places the enslaved population of Virginia squarely within the emerging Atlantic world culture--of the market economy, of urban culture, of Virginia's rapidly changing religious culture. Sidbury stresses the way black Virginians appropriated white cultural forms, transformed their meaning, and in the process created symbols of black liberation and a culture that had autonomous features even though it drew from the larger culture. His skillfull interweaving of these two separate strands of argument provides rare insights into the entire process of identity formation and creolization.

About this title

Book Description

During the summer of 1800, slaves in and around Richmond conspired to overthrow slavery. This book uses Gabriel's Conspiracy, and the evidence produced during its repression, to expose the processes through which Virginians of African descent built an oppositional culture. Sidbury portrays this culture, and the multiple, sometimes conflicting, senses of identity that emerged among the people of the rapidly-growing state capitol. The book offers an alternative interpretation of the Virginia that was home to many of the Founding Fathers.

About the Author

James Sidbury is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Ploughshares Into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052158454X
• ISBN 13: 9780521584548
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 306