The question of why more African Americans did not migrate earlier out of the stagnant and repressive South after emancipation remains open. Previous work has highlighted the role of demand and supply conditions. At the time, though, there was much concern about the role of emigrant agents who...

Abraham Lincoln's election produced Southern secession, Civil War, and abolition. Using a new database of slave sales from New Orleans, we examine the connections between political news and the prices of slaves for 1856-1861. We find that slave prices declined by roughly a third from their 1860...

The peopling of North America by European settlers often conflicted with the property rights of aboriginals. Trade could, and often did, represent a peaceful and mutually beneficial interaction between these two groups. However, more often than not, raid was preferred over trade. This was not...

We study Virginia's suffrage from the early 17th century until the American Revolution using an analytical narrative and econometric analysis of unique data on franchise restrictions. First, we hold that suffrage changes reflected labour market dynamics. Indeed, Virginia's liberal institutions...

This study analyzes the legal problems in the development and management of Chesapeake Bay resources. There are threshold problems of definition - What is Chesapeake Bay? What are its resources? What role does law play in their development and management? The "Historical Perspective" traces the...

This paper examines the representations of American Indians in late 1800 school textbooks. Despite claims of a genuine historical record, the books ignore much known about the history of the diverse native peoples at that time and portray an essentialized and politicized view of native people....

The question of why more African Americans did not migrate earlier out of the stagnant and repressive South after emancipation remains open. Previous work has highlighted the role of demand and supply conditions. At the time, though, there was much concern about the role of emigrant agents who...

The closing of the United States to immigrants is arguably the most economically and socially significant policy shift in American history. The U.S. had virtually open borders until 1879, when the first of a series of federal laws prohibiting or limiting immigration of particular groups was...

Postbellum African American economic progress was remarkable. The American economic historian Robert Higgs explained that for freedmen and their descendants caught between the forces of competition and coercion in the postbellum era, competitive forces worked largely to their benefit while...

18th-century British merchants Benjamin Lester and John Slade were attracted to the Notre Dame Bay borderland region of northeastern Newfoundland by the abundance and variety of marketable commodities gracing the region. Their commercial rivalry played out within the context of a wider...