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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
The African American Experience In Antebellum Cabell County, Virginia/West Virginia, 1810-1865, Cicero Fain
The African American Experience In Antebellum Cabell County, Virginia/West Virginia, 1810-1865, Cicero Fain
History Faculty Research
Located on the Ohio River in western Virginia, adjacent to southeastern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, antebellum Cabell County lay at the fulcrum of east and west, north and south, freedom and slavery. Possessed of a bountiful countryside—replete with wildlife, timber, pristine streams and creeks, and rich river-bottom soil along the navigable Ohio and Guyandotte rivers—it held great potential for settlers who sought to put down roots. Drawn by its promising location and cheap, arable land, migrants settled in the county in increasing numbers in the early 1800s, and many settlers took their slaves with them. Yet like most counties on …
Early Black Migration And The Post-Emancipation Black Community In Cabell County, West Virginia, 1865-1871, Cicero Fain
Early Black Migration And The Post-Emancipation Black Community In Cabell County, West Virginia, 1865-1871, Cicero Fain
History Faculty Research
West Virginia’s formation divided many groups within the new state. Grievances born of secession inflamed questions of taxation, political representation, and constitutional change, and greatly complicated black aspirations during the state’s formative years. Moreover, long-standing attitudes on race and slavery held great sway throughout Appalachia. Thus, the quest by the state’s black residents to achieve the full measure of freedom in the immediate post-Civil War years faced formidable challenges. To meet the mandates for statehood recognition established by President Lincoln, the state’s legislators were forced to rectify a particularly troublesome conundrum: how to grant citizenship to the state’s black residents …