William Thomas
Author
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pub. Date
[2020]
Physical Desc
418 pages : illustrations, maps, genealogical charts ; 25 cm
Language
English
Description
For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George's County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation's capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the...