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Robert Gordon

Becoming Free, Becoming Black

Author

Stanford University

“In Cuba of 1860, many persons of color who purchased their freedom lived alongside slaves; while in Louisiana and Virginia free people of color had almost disappeared and to be black was to be enslaved. The difference was in the law and custom regulating freedom—law made by many hands, including those of slaves themselves. This book, based on meticulous archival research and brilliantly reasoned and written, is comparative legal history at its finest.” 

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