Free labor in the Virginia tobacco piedmont, 1865-1900

This dissertation explores the meaning of free labor after emancipation in the Virginia tobacco piedmont between 1865 and 1900. The first part traces the struggle over agricultural reconstruction especially between the freedpeople, former masters and the Freedmen\u27s Bureau. Section two describes the advent and nature of the Long Depression along with its dislocatory impact upon the regional tobacco economy of Virginia. The third part examines the resulting breakdown of the tobacco piedmont especially its traditional social relations between the freedpeople and their employers. This work concludes that the Virginia tobacco piedmont underwent a major transformation during this period. A key aspect of this change was the emergence of freedpeople\u27s socio-economic autonomy in the central tobacco piedmont and its denial in the southern tobacco piedmont. This process is seen as the culmination of a generational struggle of free labor in conjunction with agricultural decadence. These findings challenge the traditional notions that the Virginia tobacco belt was changeless; that the promise of emancipation was lost after the 1890\u27s; and, that black land holding resulted simply from the efforts of the freedpeople themselves