Part 1, Chapter 1 Of Chains and Threads Summary

Even before the presidential election, rumors circulated that Lincoln had won. Some slaves were convinced that freedom was eminent. Talk continued as the Civil War raged and slaves began fleeing in large numbers. Almost 150,000 African American men would eventually fight for the Union Army. For the slaves who remained in the South, the tide of change also began. Some took over their former masters' "abandoned" plantations. Others increased their acts of resistance by working more slowly and demanding more power and autonomy. Some slaveholders eventually began offering their slaves small wages or a percentage of the crop in order to keep them at work and the plantation solvent. Hahn states that it may be contradictory to talk of the slaves' politics, as they had no official standing in civil or political society. Yet...