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

This book has stood the test of time as one of the most readable microhistories of colonial free blacks in America. It restores to the historical record the lives of individuals who strove to better their lives, as well as elucidates a pre-Revolutionary period when social and racial laws in America had not yet hardened. In a new preface, Breen and Innes situate their work in the explosion of work on early American slavery and African-American life over the past two decades