"Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676

Ever since its publication twenty-five years ago, "Myne Owne Ground" has challenged readers to rethink much of what is taken for granted about American race relations. During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history. In a new foreword, Breen and Innes reflect on the origins of this book, setting it into the context of Atlantic and particularly African history.

History

Innes, Stephen

Breen, T.H.

Americas

Oxford University Press

Ever since its publication twenty-five years ago, "Myne Owne Ground" has challenged readers to rethink much of what is taken for granted about American race relations. During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history. In a new foreword, Breen and Innes reflect on the origins of this book, setting it into the context of Atlantic and particularly African history.

This ambitious history offers a sweeping reinterpretation of America's cultural roots in the colonial past. Marshaling rich new evidence, Innes focuses on enterprise in early New England and its relation to the prevailing culture of Puritanism. He finds in our beginnings at Massachusetts Bay a fierce devotion to God that fed a social commitment to engage the world and prosper. The result was a thriving capitalism and a diminishing devotion which alarmed Puritan leaders in the late seventeenth century. While telling the story of Massachusetts Bay's transformation from a resource-poor perch on the continent to an active international economy, Innes supplies wonderful detail on early New England's ironworks, fisheries, shipyards, and the "Scums and dreggs" who provided the labor for Puritan enterprise.

Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New England

Business & Money

Economics

W.W.Norton&Company

Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton Legacy Library)

Stephen Innes studies the relationship between work, land, and community in seventeenth-century Springfield, Massachusetts. Using analytical concepts drawn from anthropology--dependence, mediation, and clientage--he shows that the town was a highly commercialized, developmental community contrasting sharply with the communal, quietistic models that currently form our image of early New England.
Originally published in 1983.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Princeton University Press

Stephen Innes studies the relationship between work, land, and community in seventeenth-century Springfield, Massachusetts. Using analytical concepts drawn from anthropology--dependence, mediation, and clientage--he shows that the town was a highly commercialized, developmental community contrasting sharply with the communal, quietistic models that currently form our image of early New England.Originally published in 1983.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Innes, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Innes, Stephen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Innes, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

"Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676

"Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676

Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New England

Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton Legacy Library)

Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton Legacy Library)

Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton Legacy Library)

Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton Legacy Library)