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The Quarters and the Fields offers a unique approach to the examination of slavery. Rather than focusing on slave work and family life on cotton plantations, Damian Pargas compares the practice of slavery among the other major agricultural cultures in the nineteenth-century South: tobacco, mixed grain, rice, and sugar cane. He reveals how the demands of different types of masters and crops influenced work patterns and habits, which in turn shaped slaves' family life.

By presenting a broader view of the complex forces that shaped enslaved people's family lives, not only from outside but also from within, this book takes an inclusive approach to the slave agency debate. A comparative study that examines the importance of time and place for slave families, The Quarters and the Fields provides a means for understanding them as they truly were: dynamic social units that were formed and existed under different circumstances across time and space.

Table of Contents

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  1. Title Page, Copyright
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  1. Contents
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  1. List of Tables
  2. p. vii
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-xi
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  1. Part I. Rethinking the Experiences of Slave Families
  1. Introduction: Agency, Diversity, and Slave Families
  2. pp. 3-12
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  1. 1. Three Slave Societies of the Non-Cotton South
  2. pp. 13-36
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  1. Part II. The Balancing Act: Work and Families
  1. 2. The Nature of Agricultural Labor
  2. pp. 39-62
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  1. 3. Family Contact during Working Hours
  2. pp. 63-87
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  1. 4. Family-Based Internal Economies
  2. pp. 88-113
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  1. Part III. Social Landscapes: Family Structure and Stability
  1. 5. Slaveholding across Time and Space
  2. pp. 117-141
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  1. 6. Marriage Strategies and Family Formation
  2. pp. 142-170
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  1. 7. Forced Separation
  2. pp. 171-200
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  1. Part IV. Conclusions
  1. 8. Weathering Different Storms
  2. pp. 203-206
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  1. Notes
  2. pp. 207-234
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  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 235-248
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 249-259
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