Microhistories of Slavery and Racism in Antebellum America

Recent histories of slavery and race continue to complicate our understanding of the institution of slavery in early America. Amber Moulton's The Fight for Interracial Marriage Rights in Antebellum Massachusetts and Ted Maris-Wolf's Family Bonds: Free Blacks and Re-enslavement Law in Antebellum Virginia examine the historical narrative of slavery and antiracism in ways that reveal new areas of study for historians of the antebellum era. Moulton's book examines the fight against and support for the interracial marriage ban in Massachusetts from 1705 to its repeal in 1843 and the impact of the repeal on antiracism efforts through the Civil War. Maris-Wolf explores the experiences of a small group of antebellum Virginians who chose to re-enslave themselves rather than leave the state after the passage of a law in 1806 requiring newly freed African Americans to leave the state within a year of gaining freedom. Although these books are both case studies of issues that are in some ways unique to the individual state, their findings reveal new avenues for research in other regions. Both books feel quite timely, giving historical perspective to issues facing American society today, particularly discussion of racial equality and immigration. These tightly focused studies provide significant insight for specialists, but will attract little wider attention as they require a detailed knowledge of the institution of slavery and efforts toward antislavery to fully appreciate their contributions.

Amber Moulton's The Fight for Interracial Marriage Rights in Antebellum Massachusetts is a short volume which covers a little-studied branch of the antislavery movement: the campaign to overturn the 1786 ban on interracial marriage in Massachusetts. Moulton builds on a substantial historiography of antislavery efforts and the fear of amalgamation in the northeast to study the variety of efforts to both oppose and defend the law, which prohibited interracial couples from marrying and declared all mixed-race children illegitimate. Black and white abolitionists participated in the marriage rights debate and martialed antebellum Americans' growing evangelicalism to their advantage when they succeeded in convincing the state legislature to overturn the law in 1843. Although reformers saw their victory as a blow for antiracism, they were only successful, Moulton argues, when they cast the law as detrimental to the commonwealth on the grounds that it encouraged licentiousness and "collusion with the Southern Slave Power" (pp. 2–3). Moulton's study reveals new divisions within the antislavery movement, as many of the most influential abolitionists did not support the campaign to overturn the ban, demonstrating their lack of personal commitment to equal rights. She also is able to draw connections between the efforts of black abolitionists such as Charles Lenox Remond to advocate for antiracism and their declining popularity as public speakers. The movement's success in 1843 did not end the debate over interracial marriage in Massachusetts or in the country as a whole, and anti-amalgamation sentiment reared its head repeatedly in the 1850s and 1860s as racial tensions escalated.

Moulton's book provides new insight into antislavery efforts for scholars familiar with Massachusetts activists. Although she gives a thorough overview of attitudes towards interracialism and anti-amalgamation sentiment in American popular culture, a more general audience may feel lost. The text is deeply rooted in antislavery activity in and around Boston and many of the individuals named in the text are well known to scholars of antislavery but not introduced in great detail. Despite her coverage of well-known historical figures, Moulton uncovers new angles on their activism that expand our understanding of the racial divide in the antislavery movement and she recasts the split between political and radical abolitionists as a clear divide between those who opposed slavery and those who supported equal rights. She also asserts the importance...