Betty Wood

Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia

In Womens Work, Mens Work, Betty Wood examines the struggle of bondpeople to secure and retain for themselves recognized rights as producers and consumers in the context of the brutal, formal slave economy sanctified by law. Wood examines this struggle in the Georgia lowcountry over a period of eighty years, from the 1750s to the 1830s, when, she argues, the evolution of the system of informal slave economies had reached the point that it would henceforth dominate Savannahs political agenda until the Civil War and emancipation. In considering the quasi-autonomous economic activities of bondpeople, Wood outlines the equally significant but quite different, roles of bondwomen and bondmen in organizing these economies. She also analyzes the influence of evangelical Protestant Christianity on bondpeople, and the effects of the fusion of religious and economic morality on their circumstances. For a combination of practical and religious reasons, Wood finds, informal slave economies, with their impact on whites, became the single most important issue in Savannah politics. She contends that, by the 1820s, bondpeople were instrumental in defining the political agenda of a divided city - a significant, if unintentional, achievement.

Colonial Georgia: A History@@@The Fledgling Province: Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, 1733-1776

Through a painstaking gathering and synthesis of the surviving documents of Georgia social history before the Revolution, many of them fragmentary, Davis re-creates much of the texture and quality of life in that southernmost province. In addition to black slavery, religion, and education, he examines such elementary questions as: what kinds of buildings Georgians lived in, how they solved their transportation problems, the nature of criminal law administration, and the range of occupations and vocations.Originally published in 1976.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.