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Shades Of Gray: The Life And Times Of An Antebellum Free Family Of Color, Jason A. Gillmer

Jason A Gillmer

The history of race and slavery is often told from the perspective of either the oppressors or the oppressed. This Article takes a different tact, unpacking the rich and textured story of the Ashworths, an obscure yet prosperous free family of color who moved from Louisiana to Texas in the early 1830s, where they owned land, raised cattle, and bought and sold slaves. It is undoubtedly an unusual story; indeed in the history of the time there are surely more prominent names and more famous events. Yet their story reveals a tantalizing world in which—despite legal rules and conventional thinking—life …