The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities

In Franklin black residents lived clustered in towns and segregated from whites, their position in the county secure only in their tightly defined communities.

In Augusta, almost every group of white people owned property and homes worth more than their counterparts in Franklin, most of it tied inextricably to slavery.

Free blacks of Augusta County lived in tenuous circumstances surrounded by slavery, but they managed to find work, and some acquired significant property in the community.

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