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Credit Is Due: African Americans As Borrowers And Lenders In Antebellum Virginia, Amanda White Gibson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation analyzes the credit arrangements of Black Virginians, enslaved and free, from the American Revolution to the Civil War. As democracy assured new rights for white men, Black Virginians, and especially Black women, saw the erosion of their legal access to civil and political rights. At the same time a new system of banks provided the capital for the expansion of enslavement. This dissertation examines different forms of debt at the moment when changing ideas about race and freedom and relationships of debt began to evolve into the “modern” banking system. Free and enslaved African Americans were active borrowers …