Showing Slavery and freedom in the rural North : African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 by Graham Russell Hodges

While the transition urban African Americans made from slavery to freedom in the North has been the subject of much scholarship, the experiences of their rural counterparts has remained largely hidden. Using the development of a single community in eastern New Jersey, Hodges examines the African-American experience in the rural North. This unique social history addresses many long-held assumptions about slavery and emancipation outside the plantation South. Hodges weaves an intricate pattern of life and death, work and worship, from the earliest settlement to the end of the Civil War.