Black Masters A Free Family of Color in the Old South [Paperback]

In 1860, when four million African Americans were enslaved, a quarter-million others, including William Ellison, were free people of color. But Ellison was remarkable. Born a slave, his experience spans the history of the South from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. In a day when most Americans, black and white, worked the soil, barely scraping together a living, Ellison was a cotton-gin makera master craftsman. When nearly all free blacks were destitute, Ellison was wealthy and well-established. He owned a large plantation and more slaves than all but the richest white planters. A remarkably fine work of creative scholarship. C. Vann Woodward,