VTechWorks staff will be away for the winter holidays starting Tuesday, December 24, 2024, through Wednesday, January 1, 2025, and will not be replying to requests during this time. Thank you for your patience, and happy holidays!
 

That We May Exert Our Influence More Powerfully: Race, Politics and Identity in Ohio's Southeast Borderland, 1802-1865

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorChristy, Miranda Roseen
dc.contributor.committeechairHolness, Lucienen
dc.contributor.committeememberQuigley, Paulen
dc.contributor.committeememberThorp, Daniel B.en
dc.contributor.departmentHistoryen
dc.coverage.countryUnited Statesen
dc.coverage.stateOhioen
dc.date.accessioned2023-06-02T08:00:26Zen
dc.date.available2023-06-02T08:00:26Zen
dc.date.issued2023-06-01en
dc.description.abstractThe Ohio constitutional convention in 1802 established Ohio's status as a free state, marking the Ohio River as the border between slavery and freedom. However, slaveholder influence continued to permeate the region as questions over fugitive slaves, Black migration, and the rights of free African Americans created a hostile political climate for African Americans. Despite anti-Black legislation and the fragility of freedom along Ohio's southern border, African Americans continued moving into Southeast Ohio, forming small communities across the rural landscape. As they formed communities, they built institutions and began to challenge the limitations posed by the white supremacist society in which they lived. I argue that Southeast Ohio's self-sufficient Black communities were the core of activism surrounding Black freedom and citizenship rights. They constructed their American citizenship to encompass the rights to mobility, education, and self-determination. African Americans within the rural landscape turned to self-determination through separatist agrarian communities, Black institutions, and regional political alliances to pursue racial uplift and to press for their right to citizenship. Using newspapers, government documents, court documents, I examine the strategies employed by Black activists, as well as the attitudes held by white Southeast Ohioans. This thesis challenges Black histories of Ohio to elaborate on the role of interstate politics and the local political landscape in Black activists' fight for freedom and citizenship in a rural Midwestern community.en
dc.description.abstractgeneralWhen Ohio became a state in 1803, the state constitution prohibited slavery. However, the introduction of new laws limited the rights of African Americans in response to Black migration from neighboring Virginia. Black Ohioans in Southeast Ohio faced both the discrimination of local and state laws and the danger of slave catchers from across the Ohio River. This thesis investigates the strategies employed by African Americans in their fight for freedom and citizenship rights, including the rights to free movement, voting, and education. African Americans communities organized and petitioned against unjust laws and to form institutions to provide for their needs when the law failed to do so. I argue that self-sufficient Black communities formed by free African Americans were the foundation to the fight for citizenship in Southeast Ohio. In asserting their right to citizenship, African Americans drastically changed ideas about freedom and citizenship in the region.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Artsen
dc.format.mediumETDen
dc.identifier.othervt_gsexam:37831en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/115294en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectAfrican Americansen
dc.subjectAbolitionist Movementen
dc.subjectCitizenshipen
dc.subjectOhioen
dc.subject19th Centuryen
dc.subjectAntebellum Northen
dc.subjectCivil War Eraen
dc.titleThat We May Exert Our Influence More Powerfully: Race, Politics and Identity in Ohio's Southeast Borderland, 1802-1865en
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineHistoryen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Artsen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Christy_MR_T_2023.pdf
Size:
1.29 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Masters Theses