The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South

by Dylan C. Penningroth

In The Claims of Kinfolk , Dylan Penningroth uncovers an extensive informal economy of property ownership among slaves and sheds new light on African American family and community life from the heyday of plantation slavery to the "freedom generation" of the 1870s. By focusing on relationships among blacks, as well as on the more familiar struggles between the races, Penningroth exposes a dynamic process of community and family definition. He also includes a comparative analysis of slavery and slave property ownership along the Gold Coast in West Africa, revealing significant differences between the African and American contexts.
Property ownership was widespread among slaves across the antebellum South, as slaves seized the small opportunities for ownership permitted by their masters. While there was no legal framework to protect or even recognize slaves' property rights, an informal system of acknowledgment recognized by both blacks and whites enabled slaves to mark the boundaries of possession. In turn, property ownership--and the negotiations it entailed--influenced and shaped kinship and community ties. Enriching common notions of slave life, Penningroth reveals how property ownership engendered conflict as well as solidarity within black families and communities. Moreover, he demonstrates that property had less to do with individual legal rights than with constantly negotiated, extralegal social ties.

Genres: History

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2003

Reviews

[Evan Ash]

Really insightful, well-written survey of the diversity of ideas of black community and property

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting but won't put Genovese out of business.

[Damian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great compendium of primary sources documenting property ownership and cultural norms over property within the slave population. I liked some of the stories and the content.

[Kidada · Rating 4 out of 5]

This pioneering book on some enslaved people's property ownership and their complex understandings of kin and community upends a lot of conventional beliefs many Americans have about the workings of slavery and the lives and experiences of enslaved people. In addition to his research on the informal economies of slavery, one of the book's greatest accomplishments is that Penningroth wrote it in an accessible way which makes it easier for lay people (non scholars) to read it and expand their knowledge of the "peculiar institution" of American slavery.