Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe

This book compares the work, family, and economic experiences of enslaved women and men in upcountry and lowland Georgia during the nineteenth century. Mining planters' daybooks, plantation records, and a wealth of other sources, Daina Ramey Berry shows how slaves' experiences on large self-contained plantations contrasted with those on small plantations, where planters allowed slaves more open, fluid communications. Berry invites readers into slaves' internal lives through her detailed examination of domestic violence, separation and sale, and forced breeding.

 

Daina Ramey Berry is an associate professor of history at Michigan State University.