Excerpt:
Conventional historical analysis of the rise of racism and slavery in the South paints a very broad brush of these as imported from European settlers from the outset of American colonization. Authors Thomas Breen and Stephen Innes, however, counter this thought by targeting the historical records of interactions between free blacks and the rest of society along Virginia’s eastern shore during the early seventeenth century. They insist that skin color was not an influential aspect in the treatment of blacks during the period, presenting samples from various laws, court cases, documents and other accounts that show blacks as having equal access to all of the same rights and privileges as whites. In their eyes, property was the key to freedom, with economic concerns prevailing over any hint of racial ones.
