African-Virginian Extended Kin: The Prevalence of West African Family Forms among Slaves in Virginia, 1740-1870

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dc.contributor.authorRoberts, Kevinen
dc.contributor.committeechairShifflett, Crandall A.en
dc.contributor.committeememberBunch-Lyons, Beverlyen
dc.contributor.committeememberBanks, Ingriden
dc.contributor.departmentHistoryen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:33:55Zen
dc.date.adate1999-04-23en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:33:55Zen
dc.date.issued1999-04-16en
dc.date.rdate1999-04-23en
dc.date.sdate1999-04-19en
dc.description.abstractScholarship on slave families has focused on the nuclear family unit as the primary socializing institution among slaves. Such a paradigm ignores the extended family, which was the primary form of family organization among peoples in western and central Africa. By exploring slave trade data, I argue that 85% of slave imports to Virginia in the 18th century were from only four regions. Peoples from each region-the Igbo, the Akan, Bantu speakers from Angola and Congo, and the Mande from Senegambia-were marked by the prevalence of the extended family, the centrality of women, and flexible descent systems. I contend that these three cultural characteristics were transferred by slaves to Virginia. Runaway slave advertisements from the Virginia Gazette show the cultural makeup of slaves in eighteenth-century Virginia. I use these advertisements to illustrate the prevalence of vast inter-plantation webs of kin that pervaded plantation, county, and even state boundaries. Plantation records, on the other hand, are useful for tracking the development of extended families on a single plantation. William Massie's plantation Pharsalia, located in Nelson County, Virginia, is the focus of my study of intra-plantation webs of kin. Finally, I examine the years after the Civil War to illustrate that even under freedom, former slaves resorted to their extended families for support and survival.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Artsen
dc.identifier.otheretd-041999-153416en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-041999-153416/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/31780en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartetd.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectMassieen
dc.subjectAfricanen
dc.subjectSlave Cultureen
dc.subjectVirginiaen
dc.subjectExtended Familyen
dc.subjectSlaveryen
dc.titleAfrican-Virginian Extended Kin: The Prevalence of West African Family Forms among Slaves in Virginia, 1740-1870en
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineHistoryen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Artsen

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