| Fathers of Conscience Subjects: Social classes; Slaves; Slaveholders; Men White; Inheritance and succession; Wills; Women slaves; Illegitimate children; Racially mixed people; Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law. BERNIE D. JONES is an assistant professor in the legal studies department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. |