| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Wilma King. The Essence of Liberty: Free Black Women during the Slave Era. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2006. Pp. xvi, 290. Cloth $39.95, paper $19.95.
Wilma King's book is a comprehensive analysis of diaries, letters, poems, manuscripts, autobiographies, and legal documents written by and about free black women in the slave era. King notes that free black women had been generally ignored in the historiography until recently. Thus, this very promising study has the potential of bringing the women to the forefront of the discussion on the historiography of blacks. There, however, is a serious shortcoming in the book, which the author readily admits: analysis is confined to the writings of literate, black women who resided primarily in the North. These writings, therefore, represent the views of the elite of free black womanhood.	1
In her exploration of the sources of liberty for free black women, King discusses the abolition of slavery in the North, the manumission of enslaved persons by a few prominent whites, and even the arrival of free mulattoes from Haiti, but little is said about self-purchase. Those transactions were an important avenue to freedom for enslaved persons in the South, but they do not appear to be important to the study. If the author had delved more deeply into self-purchases, she would have discovered that free and enslaved black men played a major role in helping to free black women. Enslaved men often prioritized freeing their daughters and wives ahead of purchasing their own freedom.	. . .

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