First Freedom
The Responses of Alabama's Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction
By Peter Kolchin; Preface by Peter Kolchin
SERIES:
Library of Alabama Classics
University of Alabama Press
Crucial changes occurred during the years following the Civil War as blacks manifested their desire to live as independently as possible and to reject every social relation reminiscent of slavery. This classic study of the history of post-slave societies helped to initiate historiographic trends that remain central to the study of emancipation.
Peter Kolchin is Henry Clay Reed Professor of History at the University of Delaware. His other works include A Sphinx on the American Land: The 19th Century South in Comparative Perspective, American Slavery: 1619-1877, and Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom.
