Freedom's Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction

by Stacey L. Smith, Stacey L Smither

Most histories of the Civil War era portray the struggle over slavery as a conflict that exclusively pitted North against South, free labor against slave labor, and black against white. In Freedom's Frontier , Stacey L. Smith examines the battle over slavery as it unfolded on the multiracial Pacific Coast. Despite its antislavery constitution, California was home to a dizzying array of bound and semibound labor African American slavery, American Indian indenture, Latino and Chinese contract labor, and a brutal sex traffic in bound Indian and Chinese women. Using untapped legislative and court records, Smith reconstructs the lives of California's unfree workers and documents the political and legal struggles over their destiny as the nation moved through the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction.
Smith reveals that the state's anti-Chinese movement, forged in its struggle over unfree labor, reached eastward to transform federal Reconstruction policy and national race relations for decades to come. Throughout, she illuminates the startling ways in which the contest over slavery's fate included a western struggle that encompassed diverse labor systems and workers not easily classified as free or slave, black or white.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Civil War, American History

340 pages, Paperback

First published August 12, 2013

Reviews

[Lorraine Herbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish this book. Not because it was a bad book—far from it. But I read this to learn more California and possibly to enhance my dissertation as I work to turn it into a book manuscript. And I took my time.

This book was amazing for the depth of its research. I imagine the author spending wonderful hours with old newspapers and court documents. I guess I’m a little envious!

I learned a lot about the coercive labor systems at work in Gold Rush, Civil War, and Reconstruction California. Seriously this wasn’t really covered in this level of detail (or at all) in any other books I’ve read about my home state. It was quite an eye-opener.

And, yes, it helps me think in more depth of the role of servants in one chapter of my manuscript.

So, this book was worth sticking with.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started life as a doctoral dissertation - I know, I've written one myself - and very little was done with it to move it into the book it became. It's about unfree labor in California between 1850 and 1910, which was a LOT more complicated than the Civil War because both Native Americans and Chinese immigrants were enslaved as well as African Americans, The Civil War freed the African Americans and the Native Americans, but anti-Chinese sentiment produced the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1881.

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a revelatory read!

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stacey L. Smith could have conveyed the nuances of California slave legislation with greater clarity – that chapter is a bit tough to follow – but overall this is a clear, concise history of slave and free labor in 19th-century California. Smith argues that, although on paper California was a free state, plenty of slave labor still went on. White Southerners who moved west with their slaves still practiced slavery until the mid-1850s and used various legal loopholes, plus outright coercion and deceit, to keep their slaves longer. Meanwhile, black and Native American children were often trapped in slave-like apprenticeships; Sonoran Mexicans frequently were trapped in bad labor deals on ranches and in mines; and Chinese laborers frequently endured bad treatment. White fears of "coolie" and "peon" foreigners were grossly exaggerated; Chinese and Mexican immigrants were rarely full-on slaves. Nonetheless, the fear of Chinese and Mexican slaves was used by Republicans and Democrats alike to justify exclusionary immigration laws. Ultimately, California was a free state, but one that allowed in few non-white immigrants. This book certainly gives a different perspective on the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction, not to mention sunny California.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly

[Jason S]

A very interesting account of slavery and other forms of bonded labor between statehood and the Chinese Exclusion Act in Calfironia.