The Quarters and the Fields: Slave Families in the Non-Cotton South (New Perspectives on the History of the South)

"A fresh and inventive method of presenting some lesser-known aspects of slavery to both scholars and students."--Ronald Traylor, Southeastern Louisiana University "Pargas redefines the meaning of 'slave agency' to examine the varying ability of enslaved workers to shape and protect their domestic arrangements."--Larry Hudson, University of Rochester The Quarters and the Fields offers a unique approach to the examination of slavery. Rather than focusing on slave work and family life on cotton plantations, Damian Pargas compares the practice of slavery among the other major agricultural cultures in the nineteenth-century South: tobacco, mixed grain, rice, and sugar cane. He reveals how the demands of different types of masters and crops influenced work patterns and habits, which in turn shaped slaves' family life. By presenting a broader view of the complex forces that shaped enslaved people's family lives, not only from outside but also from within, this book takes an inclusive approach to the slave agency debate. A comparative study that examines the importance of time and place for slave families, The Quarters and the Fields provides a means for understanding them as they truly were: dynamic social units that were formed and existed under different circumstances across time and space. Introduction : Agency, Diversity, And Slave Families -- Three Slave Societies Of The Non-cotton South -- The Nature Of Agricultural Labor -- Family Contact During Working Hours -- Family-based Internal Economies -- Slaveholding Across Time And Space -- Marriage Strategies And Family Formation -- Forced Separation -- Weathering Different Storms. Damian Alan Pargas. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In The Quarters and the Fields, Damian Pargas provides a unique approach to the examination of slavery. Rather than focusing on slave work and family life on cotton plantations, he compares the practice of slavery among the other major agricultural cultures in the nineteenth-century South: tobacco, mixed grain, rice, and sugar cane